Recovering corrupt hard drive using SATA docking station

[bea]

Hi,
Recently, my 3 month old HP Pavilion Entertainment dm3 hard drive became corrupted and was replaced under warranty.  However, as I lost my camera around the same time, i am desperate to recover 6 months of travel pictures from the old hard drive! 
As i don't have tech insurance, the guy on the helpline suggested i buy a HDD Docking Station and that I would be able to extract my files through this interface at minimal cost.
I purchased Win-star Communicator C1 SATA HDD Docking Station.  However, now that i have it, I am unsure how to extract the files.  the instructions with the device are for new devices that need new partitions.  Intitially, my corrupted hard drive showed up in the Disk management window as Disk 1, but instead of being unallocated, it was the same as the top one (Disk 0).  It said that it was healthy and primary partition.
So it tried to simply open the disk drive but it said it needed to be reformatted.  i did not want to proceed any further because i didnt want to risk losing the photos, so i turned the computer off for a while.
i've now decided to have another attempt, but now the corrupt hard drive isn't showing up at all in the disk management window.
can someone please explain to me in layman's terms what i am doing wrong and what i need to do? 

many thanks!

[Computer_Commando]

...hard drive became corrupted and was replaced under warranty....but now the corrupt hard drive isn't showing up at all in the disk management window...

You're doing nothing wrong.  You've said several times the hard drive was corrupt and it was replaced under warranty.  You can't expect the bad hard drive to behave normally.

[Kurtiskain]

Ahh dreaded hard drive failings...

I have had to go through this a few times.
Although Windows may not be able to read the lot, there is a program made by the same people as CCleaner called Recuva(Recover)
http://www.piriform.com/recuva
The program can scan the partition data (Or what is left) and recover the files one by one from the drive.
I have used it to recover whole drives, with good results.

Goodluck

[Computer_Commando]

...Although Windows may not be able to read the lot, there is a program made by the same people as CCleaner called Recuva(Recover)
http://www.piriform.com/recuva
The program can scan the partition data (Or what is left) and recover the files one by one from the drive.
I have used it to recover whole drives, with good results...

I'm not sure Recuva will function if Windows Disk Management does not recognize the presence of a drive.  I would recommend removing the drive from the docking station and connecting it to an available SATA port on the motherboard.  If it's a laptop, he doesn't have this option.

[Kurtiskain]

The dock should just be a SATA to USB adapter, but some only function correctly if the dock is switched off, the drive put on the dock, then turned back on. I have a cable adaper that follows this, especially when connecting the laptop drive connector. The OP had mentioned that the drive showed up in disk management, but that disk was not readable in Windows Explorer. They have not said it does no longer show up.

Recuva does work on drives without complete partition information, because I have used it for the same purpose.

[Computer_Commando]

...Recuva does work on drives without complete partition information, because I have used it for the same purpose.

Thanks, that's good to know.  I've never had to use it.  I generally use SpinRite for these types of issues.