(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); hey guys just recently got a new hard drive for my computer, and have that working properly. so i bought an enclosure for my old hard drive and when i plug it in with the old nclosure it "You need to format disk drive before you can use it". could it be that my computer only recognizes the drive in the port inside my laptop? and not on any usb port? if so how can i make it recognizable via usb, without formatting the drive and erasing everything on it?

My drive was rendered useless pretty much immediately after I recovered the data due to the large amount of bad sectors on it, I fear that there is a possibility that it might happen with yours as well, however you can always try to format it to see if it works, but obviously don't format it if there's something that you need to take from the drive, use the method that I explained to you above.

alright a lil update, i did some research and people were saying it was maybe an ownership issue, so i converted the drive to my ownership. so now i can view files and take files off the drive, but still can't write to it....my friend said it could be because my drive is a boot drive and it is basically one big partition. idk what do you think?

i combined your method with some research and i found out that some people were saying it was maybe an ownership issue, so i converted the drive to my ownership. so now i can view files and take files off the drive, but still can't write to it....my friend said it could be because my drive is a boot drive and it is basically one big partition. idk what do you think?

I would take what i needed from that drive then wipe it and re-partition it. You can wipe it with dban the use diskpart to create a new partition, Then it should be good to use. If you dont want to use dban you can wipe it with diskpart, here's a good tutorial You must login or register to view this content. once done here's how to re-partition it You must login or register to view this content..