Trouble accessing hard drive partition(s) through external enclosure

[TotalBlank]

My problem is that I finally got a new PC running Windows 7 Ultimate and I'd like to transfer my old movies/mp3's/anime etc from my previous 200-220gb hard drive which is partitioned into two nearly equal halves. When I hook up my hard drive into my external enclosure and then plug everything in I go to My Computer and see that maybe 75% of the time 1 of 2 partitions show up. I can access this partition (labeled Local Disk E in the image below) and have been through everything and have mostly copied over whatever I needed (it was a slow and tedious process with all the stupid permissions and taking ownership of everything). Now when I try to hook up my external drive and change USB slots, I sometimes manage to get my other partition to show up (labeled Local Disk G in the image below). I cannot access Local Disk G for whatever reason, it just keeps spinning and spinning as if it were attempting to constantly access the data stored there. I usually have to force close and shut off the enclosure to retry it and attempt it again and again, but this time I was given an message which said "G:\ is not accessible. The parameter is incorrect. I don't know what to do, I really desperately need what's on there, I'll have lost over two years worth of downloads, family photos, game mods and a lot of other things I don't even remember because it's been nearly a year since the last time I used the hard drive. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.


Image showing Local Disks


Image showing the parameter error

[Geek-9pm]

This has been my observation also. The USB adapters vary in quality. Testing does not produce consistent results, indicating some instability with the adapters.

You did not mention what make and model of enclosure you have. Enclosure made by top brand names have a one-year warranty. Unknown brands seldom have more that a 90 day warranty.

It may be necessary to get another USB adapter for your hard drive; which is better than junking the hard drive.

Chesapeake that I am, I kept buying cheap natters until I got one that worked. Went through at least five or six of them.

Example: At Tiger direct an external IDE/USB adapter is $20. But at Newegg a somewhat different  brand name device is $45.  The One at new egg requires you to use your own power supply. For a reason; the winningly meager supply you get with the $20 device will power a HDD only under a full moon. 

[Salmon Trout]

To the OP: I can think of a few things to check out:

A drive letter clash; you may have more than one device claiming the drive letter G. Go into Disk Management, identify the problematic partition, and assign it a drive letter which you definitely know for sure is unassigned to any partition.

However the 75% of the time thing makes me think it is one of these...

Power drain: the enclosure is getting its DC power from the USB port when it should be using a wall wart, causing erratic operation of the USB interface and the enclosure.

Linked to the previous point, perhaps: poor quality enclosure, as Geek suggests. (Do you have the option of mounting the disk internally?)

Filesystem corruption or hard drive damage. Are the symptoms the same if you plug the enclosure into another computer?

[Salmon Trout]

Much of what I wrote, I now see, duplicates Geek-9pm's very relevant points.

Now when I try to hook up my external drive and change USB slots, I sometimes manage to get my other partition to show up [...] I usually have to force close and shut off the enclosure to retry it

This could be interesting... it makes me wonder if the hard drive is not initializing properly some of the time. This could perhaps be because of the power drain at spin up, or a sign of an unreliable USB enclosure. Do tell us if the enclosure is powered from its own power supply or taking power via the USB port? You have not mentioned the make and type of USB enclosure, and is the hard drive a 3.5 inch (desktop) type or a 2.5 inch (laptop/notebook) type? Also is the new computer a desktop or laptop (and what make / model?)

[TotalBlank]

Couple of questions to answer here really quick. It's a Maxtor PC hard drive. The USB enclosure is a 3.5" aluminum enclosure which has a usb/power plug combination. I plug it into a power bar or wall socket and that then connects to the enclosure then the USB plugs into the PC.



Here's my PC specs

Code: [Select]

Processor(s)
Number of processors 1
Number of cores 2 per processor
Number of threads 2 (max 2) per processor
Name Intel Core 2 Duo E6400
Code Name Conroe
Specification Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6400 @ 2.13GHz
Package Socket 775 LGA
Family/Model/Stepping 6.F.6
Extended Family/Model 6.F
Core Stepping B2
Technology 65 nm
Core Speed 1596.3 MHz
Multiplier x Bus speed 6.0 x 266.0 MHz
Rated Bus speed 1064.2 MHz
Stock frequency 2133 MHz
Instruction sets MMX, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSSE3, EM64T
L1 Data cache (per processor) 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L1 Instruction cache (per processor) 2 x 32 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
L2 cache (per processor) 2048 KBytes, 8-way set associative, 64-byte line size
Chipset & Memory
Northbridge Intel P965/G965 rev. C1
Southbridge Intel 82801HB/HR (ICH8/R) rev. 02
Graphic Interface PCI-Express
PCI-E Link Width x16
PCI-E Max Link Width x16
Memory Type DDR2
Memory Size 4096 MBytes
Memory Frequency 399.1 MHz (2:3)
CAS# Latency (tCL) 5.0 clocks
RAS# to CAS# (tRCD) 5 clocks
RAS# Precharge (tRP) 5 clocks
Cycle Time (tRAS) 18 clocks
Command Rate (CR) 2T
System
System Manufacturer System manufacturer
System Name System Product Name
System S/N System Serial Number
Mainboard Vendor ASUSTeK Computer INC.
Mainboard Model P5B-E
BIOS Vendor American Megatrends Inc.
BIOS Version 0306
BIOS Date 09/06/2006
Memory SPD
Module 1 DDR2, PC2-6400 (400 MHz), 1024 MBytes, Corsair
Module 2 DDR2, PC2-6400 (400 MHz), 1024 MBytes, Corsair
Module 3 DDR2, PC2-6400 (400 MHz), 1024 MBytes, Corsair
Module 4 DDR2, PC2-6400 (400 MHz), 1024 MBytes, Corsair
Software
Windows Version Microsoft Windows Vista (6.1) Ultimate Edition Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)
DirectX Version 10.0

[Salmon Trout]

So did you check for a drive letter clash?
Have you tried the enclosure on another computer?
Have you got a spare bay in PC case into which you can mount the drive as an internal one?
Have you considered the possibilty that the drive is failing?