Hard Drive reading

M

molemenacer

Geek Trainee
Hi all,

The hard drive i was using messed me about and i am no longer able to boot windows from it. I have another hard drive that i have inserted and have installed windows xp on it.

Is there a way to plug in the old hard drive to read the information that is on it?

Thanks in advance
 
I'm surprised you installed XP that easily - don't you have to get a code from Microsoft? - leaving that aside -
q). Do you have any valuable data files on the faulty drive?
If the ans is "yes", then you need to avoid writing to the drive, as this could overwrite existing files making the situation worse. There are "recovery" companies that should sort it, but if you want to have a go yourself, add the drive to yr pc (and I'm guessing it's an IDE-drive) - you need to connect it to a spare IDE cable inside - or use an external IDE/USB converter - I can confirm this is far less bother!
If data is there, it should show up as being a "removable drive" and you can copy the files. However I doubt any applications will work - the USB-adaptor is slower than a direct IDE and the registry entries are unlikely to work. You "might" be able to repair the damaged drive with suitable software, but you may still hit the drive-letter+registry problem.
Failing all that...is the drive old, or been knocked? If this is the root-cause of the fault then maybe best to ditch it.
At least you fixed the PC.
 
Thank henry222

I have a code already :)

I haven't written to the drive because i didn't want to overwrite the existing files. There is nothing really valuable on the drive, there is just some files that i didn't back up and do not really want to create again.

I am not after the applications working, i can reinstall them.

The drive was knocked and i will be getting rid of it.

Thanks for your reply, i will give that a go over the weekend and see how far i get.

Thanks again
 
OK i was able to get an adapter and read from the drive, it was actually a SATA drive rather than IDE.

When i opened the drive in my computer there was nothing really there. It had nothing from my documents, which was what i was after - is this normal or have i done something wrong?
 
I see a UJ flag below yer name so I guess you could buy PCpro - this month ((Aug2007, p115)),has some advice concerning HDD Recovery...but in a nutshell unless it's valuable I guess you have to consider it's lost and start over, since recovery appears to be a £500-option and you can buy new drives for much less.
However, did you establish "why" it failed? As a fairly new drive, was it knocked, or some electrical splat (but I'd expect that to damage far more)?
Before u give up, why not contact the Manufacturer and see if their goodwill will help.
Presumably when you wrote data to the HDD, it responded correctly and the data was "presumed" to be present.
Are all the folders lost too?...presumably u created a "my files 2007" folder to put the files in...?
If it possible the drive is faulty - then don't use it - yiou cn never be sure this won't happen again. Use a permanent marker pen on it - "faulty" - so you aren't tempted. BTW the PCpro article is quite worth reading,
I'm sorry this is about as much as I can help.
It'sa not much but...
 
Thanks for your help guys, the data is not that important so i may forget it. I think it was a mixture, my Dad was messing about with the electrics and all power was cut, i then got a blue screen saying there was a problem. I tried to repair using windows but to no avail.

I will check out the article cheers henry222

Cheers for that advice Ferg, i will try it when i get home tonight.
 
Thanks Ferg, i downloaded the recovery tool and was able to recover pretty much everything i needed.

Thanks again, it saved me a lot of hassle.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top