Windows 7 does not recognize file system of external hard drives connected through ATA

Question

I have a couple external ATA drives (Maxtor 320G) in HD enclosures(USB) that I want to use as internal hardrives. I assumed that it would be as easy as removing them from their enclosures and installing them in my windows 7 (x64) pc. However, while the drives can be seen from windows, the contained data cannot.

I have tried running chkdisk that returns that the disks are in RAW not NTSF(or FAT32).

Does anyone know why this would be the case and have possible solutions?

Thanks in advance,

Answer 1

If you connect the hard drive back to the computer while it is in the enclosure and the data is accessible again, I would assume that the enclosure is a form of nas storage and may have a file table type that is only readable through the device itself. If that is the case, make a backup of the hard drive to local storage. install the drive into the system, reformat it and copy the data back to its original location.

If the data is no longer accessible even in the enclosure, connect the drive internally to the pc and start up windows. if windows detects an issue with the drive it will force a chkdsk even on a raw partition, possibly allowing your data to be recovered.

Answer 2

Were they ever readable?

It sounds to me like you simply need to partition and/or format them.