USB-connected external hard drive = Drive not accessible. Incorrect function

Question

Tying to retrieve data from a good hard drive with a corrupt Windows ME OS.  Upon connecting the drive to another computer (two separate tries) via USB to WinXP (Home), the drive is recognized and registers in My Computer as a local drive.  When attempting to access the drive, the message 'Drive G:\ Not accessible.  Not correct function' appears.  Drive 'Properties' are available and appear normal, with the exception of both 'Used space' and 'Free space' - each show as '0' bytes.  The drive has about 8GB free space when accessed in DOS.

willfxp · Answer

I've seen this error when connecting an unformatted media card (SD media). It might mean the harddrive is dead... Have you tried to connect the drive directly to an IDE port?

papasyd · Answer

Thank you for the reply!   Yes, the drive works with an IDE connection.  It was removed from a 'mostly working' system and connected to other computers in an attempt to backup data before reinstalling the OS on the drive.  The Windows ME OS on the drive is corrupt and ME will not startup completely.  I can work with the drive in DOS mode, but there is too much data to copy to 1.44MB floppies than time (or money)would allow.  I tell the kids 'backup, backup, backup,' but what's a papa to do?

willfxp · Answer

Have you tried to hook up the drive your working computer via IDE?

papasyd · Answer

I did what you suggested, thank you.  The drive was recognized as a new partiton and in need of formatting.  But this gave me another idea.   What I evenutally did was to put the bad drive (corrupt OS) back in its original system and add a second drive (slave) to it.  I was able to retrieve all the data wanted from the bad drive, copying it to the slave hard drive, with out any glitches.   I reformatted the bad drive and reinstalled the OS - now a good working PC again.

Storage, Drives & Media

USB-connected external hard drive = Drive not accessible. Incorrect function

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