Hi
Try this, as I recently changed my laptop and was trying to re-use my old laptop hdd as an external drive. It was a SSD.
1) First thing I noticed, like what you said, there was no reaction after I connect using an enclosure. Go to Computer Management -> Disk Management and see if your laptop has it as Disk 1. If yes, but no drive letter is assigned to it, you just need to add a drive letter to it. I notice I have to do this EVERYTIME, when I'm using the SSD external enclosure (NOT for SATA hdd though).
2) If Disk Management cannot detect the hard disk, check if you have bought the correct enclosure type. You did not mention if your hdd is sata or ssd, so I assume it's sata.
Let me tell you my recent experience with one of my 1TB external HDD and in the end how google AI actually saved and guided me in bringing back my external HDD. The story may or may not apply to your case but I believe if you try to use google AI and tell it the steps and errors that you faced, it may be able to help you troubleshoot.
a) I plug in, no sound but got light. Disk Management detect it as a raw disk. Thought gone case and all my data and movies/music files in it kaput - probably have to repartition and reformat.
b) Told google AI that and it actually tells me there's hope if got light but no sound. Suggested some free/paid disk recovery softwares. Was prepared to download Disk Drill to try, but checked with Google AI for more alternatives, since there seems to be no hardware failure (got light no sound).
c) Google AI asked for more details like what brand/model the hdd is, and i told AI it was a WD Canvio... It then told me WD Canvio is famous for loose or "bent" connectors at the HDD side. Advised me to try "bending" the connectors upwards a bit and guess what, it works!! I got my external HDD back and all the files are there with no issues.
In summary, AI chat is now getting more and more intelligent...... give ALL the details to the chat and let it search and figure out.
How smart? You figure it out with this story below:
I bought a new HP laptop recently online from hp.com . I discover it has no INS button on the keyboard, so I did a test, i engage the HP online engineer for help and at the same time, I asked Google AI for help on alternatives.
My question to both was the same - "My HP laptop does not have a physical INS button. What can I do to have this INS function on my keyboard?
You guess it, even after 45 mins online with the Indian engineer (he gave me an Indian name), he's telling me answers that I can get from Google search, and ultimately no answers to what I'm really looking for, how to have a INS button function on my keyboard without resorting to a virtual keyboard.
And after discussing with Google AI, in less than 10 mins, it gave me the solution - install Windows Power Toys and I can map one of my least used key to mimic the function of insert. And yes, I finally map my Prt SC key to be INS and works perfectly, even in some applications where pressing INS serves other purpose (like selecting a file).
I lost all my backup files saved there. Is there a way to recover the files?