Recovering Data from Old Hard Drive

R

Rocaz

New Member
My old gaming PC died a few days ago (it's time for an upgrade anyway), and I am now using a fairly new e-machines desktop (:() until I gather enough cash to build another one.

What I am wondering is if there is any way that I can access my files on my old hard drive on my new e-machines? I know how to install it physically in the computer but I'm not sure how I would go about it after that, or even if it's possible in the first place.

Also:
The old hard drive was installed with Microsoft XP Pro - The e-machines has Microsoft XP Home - if any of that matters.

Any help in this matter is greatly appreciated.
 
Oh and as far as the previous computer goes - other components led to it's failure, I am 100% sure the hard drive is intact and working fine.
 
The easiest way to access the files is to hook it up
as second drive then access it through My Computer.

If your computer has two separate IDE cables then
the easiest way is to just unplug the cable going to
the CD's and plug it into the second harddrive. This
will eliminate you having to mess with changing the
jumpers on the drive.

Once you plug in the ribbon cable and the power cable
and turn on the computer it should show up as the
D: drive.

Once it shows in My Computer then you can copy the
files from the drive to your C drive. Any programs
the have will need to be reinstalled but files like
pictures, documents, letters, etc you should be able
to copy. Once you finish copying,then turn it off,
unplug the drive then plug the cd's back in.

Good luck.
 
You could also just install it as the main drive in your current emachines comp and use it as the sole HDD
 
pbdr said:
You could also just install it as the main drive in your current emachines comp and use it as the sole HDD
Click to expand...

That would not be advised since the drive already contains softwares and drivers written for the main board in the first machine. You are better off backing up any important files to the working system and being ready to wipe the drive when ready to use in the new build. That will also depend on how long before that happens. If you have a cd or dvd writer you can use removable media to backup your data as well.
 
i will have this same problem in the future when i build my machine

but my new machine with be sata and i dunno what this drive is(got it christmas 2000)

so would all i have to do is plug it in as a slave and then transfer files form it
 
If the data you want is still in good shape and not fragmented and weak from the loss of time you could retrieve off of it as long as it is at least an ATA 100 on the new build. Since your old pc just quit within a week's time the likelihood of any files being too far degraded would be remote if at all. But if you find yourself still looking at hard times trying to access this drive's partition find someone with Linux Live cd like Knoppix or Ubuntu. Those can save the day since they can access an old dos drive just as easy as an NTFS drive with one of the newer OSs. Those are self contained OSs on a cd.
 
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