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Easiest way to get data off an old hard drive?

J

Jumpem

Lifer
I just got my new system together and have an old ide drive with some things on it.

What is the simplest way to copy data from it? It was a boot drive with WIndows on it before if that matters. Thanks.
 
plug it into an IDE cable and take whatt you want. Or leave it in there as extra storage. If your out of IDE cables I've unplugged my cd/dvd and used that cable temporarily.

and FYI, last time I did that it reset my boot priority and I had to select my main drive in bios afterward.
 
Originally posted by: kbeefy
plug it into an IDE cable and take whatt you want. Or leave it in there as extra storage. If your out of IDE cables I've unplugged my cd/dvd and used that cable temporarily.

and FYI, last time I did that it reset my boot priority and I had to select my main drive in bios afterward.
Click to expand...

Tried that. The first time it saw the drive, but when I tried to open My Documents it said the folder was corrupted and unable to be opened. It opened the Windows folder fine though. Rebooted, and now the drive isn't showing up at all.

Anymore suggestions?
 
well thats different, I haven't had a problem with it before. Was it working before you rebuilt? free bump for someone smarter than me to help you out!
 
If you have a spare drive without an OS, what happens when if you disconnect the new drive and connect the old drive to boot to? If you can bootup, then just copy what you want to the spare drive.
 
Some drives require a jumper for "master with slave" that is different than "master only". Some people find that CS works better for specific machine/ drive combinations. Once you get the jumpers right and bios to recognize the drive, you should be able to get the info even if Data Recovery software is required.


Jim
 
Besides checking Master / Slave, etc., check this. Some systems object to having more than one HDD think it is the boot drive. If your systerm seems to question that, there are utilities (for example, Norton Util's DISKEDIT) that can set or clear the Boot Drive bit in the Master Boot Block on a hard drive. But unles you know what you're doing, some of those utilities can be dangerous because they let you do anything you want!
 
simplest thing to do is get an external enclosure and attach the stupid drive externally via usb or firewire. if your harddrive is corrupt than it is possible that only some files got destroyed (namely in my documents) while others have not (windows files). why did you upgrade your computer, did your old one crash or just in the upgrade path?
 
FYI, another good use for these things, if you have a spare CDRW, you can travel around with it and plug the CDRW into any PC any where as if it was a portable, mobile burner. It's really handy.
 
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