Lenovo M58 won't boot Win10  

I don't have a caddy. My good computer doesn't see either of these drives when they I plug the cables that normally go to the CD drive into the hard drives. Do I need to do something to make it see them or is this a sign that something is wrong with them?

It wouldn't let me delete the partitions on the 750GB drive on Friday and I couldn't get it to load the installer with that drive in it yesterday.

It loaded the installer quickly with the 320 GB drive yesterday. It showed only the following

Drive 0 Partition 1 39.0MB OEM (Reserved)
Drive 0 Partition 2:Recovery 19.9GB Primary

and allowed me to delete the Part 2 but it still wouldn't let me install Windows (yes, I did click Next but it only gave me an error message.

While I was typing this I decided to try again with the 320GB drive. This time it showed

Drive 0 Partition 0 (can't remember)GB Unallocated
Drive 0 Partition 1:OS 287GB System

I deleted Partition 1 and clicked NEXT. It immediately went to the screen that says Copying Files, Getting files ready &c so I came back to this computer to type this but when I went back to check on it it was at the Start page for the installer again. This time I stayed with it while it installed and when it opened the Start page I realized that it was still booting from the flash drive so I powered it down, pulled the flash drive and powered it up again and it has installed Windows

So far so good but it won't let me complete the setup without a Microsoft account or an email address AND password (talk about asking for too much personal info!!!) and I have no idea what theirs are so I think I'll set up a new MS account that they can change when they get the computer back.

Once it is all set up I can think about recovering the data from their original drive. But I have to shovel the snow before I do much else

- - - Updated - - -

OK, so I now have a working install of Win10 on the 320Gb drive

And I got to thinking about the external drive I'm planning to give them and realized that the writing on it says
"Nextar 3
External 3.5" hard drive enclosure
eSATA & USB interface"

D'oH!
So I opened it up and sure enough inside it was a 1000GB Seagate SATA hard drive. Well now, I should be able to use that as a cradle for the SATA drives, shouldn't I? (The one I've been using to test PATA drives is an ADS USBX-804)

OK, first I plugged it into their computer with the 1000GB drive to make sure everything works as it should and it found the drive and the data on it. Then I plugged a known good SATA drive (120GB with a working install of Win7) in, turned it on and the computer found it and the files on it. So far so good.

Then I plugged their old drive into the Nextar case, turned it on and got several error windows telling me that Windows couldn't access the drives (I figure the partitions on the hard drive) unless I format them.

I guess the next step is trying HDTune free (I know HD means Hard Drive but sounds like something for making a Harley Davidson run better to me )....

Harleys have had engine management computers for a couple of decades so I wouldn't be surprised if someone came up with a way to connect a flash drive to tweak the settings. But these days it is more likely they would use a smart phone app.....

I have installed the trial version of HDTune on the computer. I connected the 750GB drive to the Nextar case and the computer didn't find it so it did not appear in HDT's list so I can't test that one.

I have no idea how to go about erasing or formatting the 750GB drive that the computers don't see. I've been thinking about this and I remember Matt telling me that the hard drive in the computer he used as a music server had failed at one point and he lost all of his music (he got a lot of it back from me) so maybe this is that drive.

I connected the 500GB drive (the original one from this computer) to the Nextar case and the computer found it and gave me error messages that it needs to be formattted it again. I cancelled the error messages again (I don't want to format that until I have given up on recovering any data from it) and it did not appear in HDT's list either so I can't test it.

Do you have any ideas about recovering any data from that drive? Should we continue that here or should I start a new thread about that?

Recuva sounds the most promising from that list and I've used it in the past for trying to recover some stuff I deleted from a flash drive so I'll see if it can find anything but I don't have much hope if the disc doesn't show up in Windows Explorer.

I have been wondering if it might be worthwhile to re-connect the original drive and run the Win10 installer from the USB drive and see if it will let me run the Upgrade: Install Windows but keep files &c option?

Sidecar Bob said:

Recuva sounds the most promising from that list and I've used it in the past for trying to recover some stuff I deleted from a flash drive so I'll see if it can find anything but I don't have much hope if the disc doesn't show up in Windows Explorer.

I have been wondering if it might be worthwhile to re-connect the original drive and run the Win10 installer from the USB drive and see if it will let me run the Upgrade: Install Windows but keep files &c option?

Not sure what you mean.

You are not permitted to do the upgrade if you boot from a USB drive. Only a clean install.

An upgrade must be run from within Windows.

From Clean Install Windows 10

In step 11 it shows the option of Upgrade or Custom and says to select Custom if you are doing a fresh install. This is exactly what I saw yesterday when I did the fresh install on the 320GB drive and I chose Custom.

I am wondering if I put the original (corrupted? damaged?) drive back in and run the installer from the USB drive again but this time choose Upgrade if it might re-install Windows but leave any data on the disc intact?

Sidecar Bob said:

From Clean Install Windows 10

In step 11 it shows the option of Upgrade or Custom and says to select Custom if you are doing a fresh install. This is exactly what I saw yesterday when I did the fresh install on the 320GB drive and I chose Custom.

I am wondering if I put the original (corrupted? damaged?) drive back in and run the installer from the USB drive again but this time choose Upgrade if it might re-install Windows but leave any data on the disc intact?

If you select the upgrade option after booting the computer from the USB flash drive, it will just give you an error. I have no idea why that option is even there when booting from the flash drive.

Best free data recovery software | TechRadar
Recuva sees the HDD as 2 drives but it can't access either of them.

Wise Data Recovery doesn't see the drive.

Photorec saw the drive but didn't find any files.

and the others don`t work for more than a couple of GB

Re: Download HD Tune 5.75 (Free) for Windows
That`s the page I downloaded it from. The only version I can find there is the trial.