Collecting my data from 20+ IDE drives

[Zap]

Originally posted by: Winterpool
They're conventional NTFS data partitions. I made two of them on this particular drive, and they both should be nearly full with data. I'm inclined to believe the partition tables got jumbled somehow, and I probably require a partition table utility to recover the data.

Was "encrypted files and folders" enabled on those drives in the past?

 

[Winterpool]

Nope, I don't encrypt drives, only individual files (and that rarely). The contents were recognised immediately by the TestDisk utility, though it wasn't able to fix the partitions to be recognised by Windows. Also tried to take ownership of the drive, but it wouldn't let me (I couldn't get beyond the Properties, as the OS couldn't see anything there... 0 bytes).

I elected to individually copy folders using the TestDisk utility, and that seemed to work. It certainly found more files than PC Inspector did and was able to copy everything it found (PC Inspector couldn't copy a file 10 per cent of the time). Took all night for a 120 GB Seagate.

This morning I connected a 200 GB Maxtor and got... two more unrecognised partitions. This time it makes sense, however, as TestDisk shows they were formatted in ext3, not NTFS. TestDisk still seems able to copy the files, however, so I don't have to connect the drive to my Linux server.

 

[Winterpool]

Right, after using the Apricorn DriveWire for a couple of weeks, I've come to the conclusion that I ought to have purchased an external dock (though I'm not sure if any IDE docks are available). The Apricorn adapter plugs directly into the IDE interface on the back of the hard drive -- for some reason I had expected to be able to plug an IDE ribbon into the Apricorn and connect to the drive thus. The Apricorn is big enough that it feels somewhat awkward hanging off the back of the hard drive.

Connecting to naked hard drives also proved more awkward than I'd anticipated. They get awfully hot, and I imagine if they were vertically oriented (plugged into a typical dock), it would be better cooled. The dock would also make me feel a bit more secure about the drive (it's in something, not just lying about). Pulling the Molex power cable out of the back of a spinning drive is also a bit worrying. (Disconnecting the USB doesn't seem to power down the drive; you need to yank out the power.)

Don't get me wrong, the Apricorn is a very nice piece of kit, and should probably belong in any mobile tech's toolbox. But it isn't ideal for my purposes (harvesting data from a score of IDE drives).

As to data recovery, let me thank Elixer and those on other forums who recommend TestDisk. It's free but worked much better than PC Inspector. It was able to find and copy almost all of my files, as well as plenty of actually deleted files. I was a little disappointed that it wasn't able to fix my NTFS partitions to show up in Windows, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that it could read and copy from Linux ext3 partitions. Many of the IDE drives were from Linux machines, but now I can copy them directly into a Windows server.

 

[heymrdj]

For your cooling issue, do what we do at work for networked drives, take a spare case fan or cpu fan and wire it to an adapter putting out 12V. a simple 120v to 12v transformer like you can find online, or just a power cable from your power supply.