Can't find documents when using docked hard drive

The screen on my HP Pavillion (Win8) was destroyed and I could no longer do anything on it. I bought a usb hard drive dock and put the HP Pavillion's hard drive in it. So now I am trying to access documents from that hard drive using my Toshiba Satellite (Win8) via usb dock. I opened the winUCRD.wmi file using 7zip but am only able to find these folders:

$RECYCLE.BIN, boot, EFI, hp, preload, recovery, RM_Reserve, and System Volume Information.

I can't find documents and settings or anything else that would contain my pictures and documents. I also ran Recuva with no luck. Any suggestions?

user300472

Posted 2014-02-15T22:46:17.000

Reputation: 1

Answers

Your own documents are not in the WMI file. I think that is for recovery of the system only.

Your documents are on the main partition of the drive under the Users folder in the folder with your user name and then the Documents folder.

If you can't see these, it is probably because the drive has multiple partitions and you are looking in the wrong one.

You shouldn't need to do anything special to get your data back other than navigate to the right folder.

Julian Knight

Posted 2014-02-15T22:46:17.000

Reputation: 13 389

I only see the one partition. How can I see any others? – user300472 – 2014-02-15T23:10:46.493

Oh, its getting late and I failed to realise you have it in a USB caddy. Normally all of the partitions should be visible as separate drive letters so check in Windows Explorer under "Computer" first to make sure they aren't there. If they aren't, the reason is that USB drives don't always play well with multiple partitions, especially if it is a big drive. You will need a Linux Live CD such as Knoppix to view the other partitions. – Julian Knight – 2014-02-15T23:20:16.617

I have had repeated problems accessing drives from HP laptops. The drives are recognised but the file systems are not visible. I have also tried with a Linux boot but linux cannot mount the the drive. I found this post because I am suffering with this problem today. I think a HP drive manager must be in use that is locking the drive. If I find an answer I'll post again. BTW Windows 8 always locks the drive unless special shutdown so you will be unable to access files.

HiTechHobo

Posted 2014-02-15T22:46:17.000

Reputation: 1

Just noticed you use Win8...bit blind. You will need a tool/routine from MS to reset the drive once not booting. Structure should be visible then although may not work with HP setup... – HiTechHobo – 2014-02-18T16:15:52.910