Seagate external hard drive not being read

[sf23]

hey hey techies,
I got me a seagate external hard drive which is now is being read as a cypress tape drive, grr! Seagate want me to send the hard drive back, i don't want to loose the info on the drive but the best i can find online is to take the drive out of it's case and to switch it form a master to slave drive, this seems a bit extreme but i don't want to loose the stuff on the drive some of it would be a B!tch to get again (earthworm jim, the tick and Daria full series)
thanks for any adviced anyone has.

 

[Andybro]

Suggestions:
1/ Have you tried it with another pc/laptop? If not, this would be a quick check if you have access to one.
2/ Have you added any new software/hardware recently (about the time this started happening)? If so then you might try Windows Restore programme and take you pc back to a previous setting that works. I know this is available on windows XP but not sure about other versions. It may be worth trying anyway even if you have not knowingly added software/hardware as an update/downlaod may have affected your system. Before doing so, set a new Restore point so you can always return back to now! Confused yet?

I'm sure other ideas will be forthcoming.

 

[sf23]

nice one man will try that all soon,

thnx

 

[Andybro]

Just one other recommendation. Computer Active magazine has a website with a very good forum for IT issues. The link is www.computeractive.co.uk

 

[WindyChuffer]

Some options for you to save your data:

1. Try on another machine and back up your data that way.
2. If its a desktop PC, take the hard drive out, and plug it into the desktop computer. The hard drive is most likely an IDE parallel ATA drive (i.e. it has a 50pin long and thin connector). Locate the C drive in the desktop, and the thick ribbon cable coming from it. There should be a connector on the cable that mates with the drive. Plug it into the drive. You will also need to change the jumper setting on the drive from master to slave, or your computer wont boot (but no damage will be caused). Alternatively, most motherboards have another IDE channel (trace your C drive ribbon cable back to the motherboard, and there should be another unused socket on the motherboard. PLug in with a cable, but the drive should be a master in this case as its the only one on the IDE bus.
3. Get one of these from Maplin (http://www.maplin.co.uk/module.aspx?ModuleNo=35057&doy=5m4). Take the drive out, set it to master and plug it into this. This does the same as your seagate thingy, and gives you USB presentation to your PC.
4. Effectively the same as (3), but replaces the Seagate housing - a USB caddy for a 3.5" drive such as those avaialble here: http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Prod...ilterMaxPrice=&FilterCategories=380&OrderBy=1