Windows 7 won't install the drivers for my SATA HDD

I put my old laptop HDD in an external drive, and plugged it into my Dell XPS 15 with Windows 7

it detected the drive, and it has an orange light on, but it wouldn't install the drivers

It installed something like USB memory stick, but failed on "mass storage" or something

I've got the USB 3.0 drivers installed, and even installed Intel SATA drivers but it still won't show up in my computer / disk partition manager

Thanks in advance

 

Are you sure your drive works? Did you try plugging it into a USB 2.0 port?

 

thanks for the quick reply

I've been using it in my laptop until today so it is working

 

Were the by chance software that came with your enclosure? If you know your drive works, it could be something wrong with the enclosure as it should install USB drivers for enclosure then Windows will "find" drivers for the drive and mount it in Disk Management.

 

Nope, no drivers (only for Windows 98)

When I first plugged it in, it recognised it but couldn't find USB mas storage mode drivers. Now it won't recognise it at all

Edit: nevermind, I'd forgotten about something

I password protected the hard drive

I know the password, but I don't have the option to remove it on my Toshiba BIOS

 

Yes a hard drive password will make it impossible to be read as it won't allow Windows or anything else for that matter access the file system because of the hard drive password, so your only choice is to put it back into your Toshiba and retrieve your data.

 

Thought so, not too bothered about the drive, only about not being able to use it. Gonna have to try it on another laptop or pc as the bios on my Toshiba won't allow me to remove it

 

Okay, I removed the HDD password (changed password to "blank" twice... I'm sure I tried that before) but it still won't recognise it

the light is on, and it's making a whirring noise

Edit: nevermind, it was the USB enclosure. that's what you get for buying cheap tat from ebay.