Question by Amit K: Hard drive with “Windows 7″ from my laptop not showing up in my other XP machine.?
My Toshiba laptop has Windows 7 in it with FINGER PRINTING PASSWORD. After scanning my finger or entering BIOS password my hard disk unlocks and I can use my laptop. Now that laptop is dead because if its motherboard. The hard disk is working fine. I purchased SATA USB cable and attached the Toshiba hard disk to my other system which has XP through the USB port. It shows that a new hardware is installed and is ready to use but it doesn’t show up in my computer or disk management. I guess I have to unlock (by using BIOS password) it first and then only will be able to use it but I don’t see the hard disk anywhere then how would I enter the password?
I don’t think it’s a cable problem because the hard drive is making sound like it is working and in the XP machine it shows that the hard drive is installed and ready to use.
I really need to extract the data from my Toshiba hard drive otherwise I am doomed.
Thanks for any help. Please let me know if you need any more information.
Best answer:
Answer by Adrian
You may be in trouble if the hard drive is encrypted. Most laptops do that, but the encryption code is actually on the hard drive itself, in it’s firmware. The only way to open it is to send it back to the vendor and get them to open it up.
Another option would be to find a similar laptop, and try to “open” the hard drive via the bios, and leave it open.
What do you think? Answer below!
I would go into the BIOS of your new computer and see if the BIOS sees the hard drive. If not do a BIOS search of the hard drives and see if it finds it then. Also make sure the second hard drive is slave to the hard drive in the newer computer. This is tricky but it can be done you just got to go through a few hoops to get there so do not give up.