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Help! - Need a good Hard Drive Recovery Service
When my motherboard went kaput on my old computer, I put the HDD into my new computer as a second HDD. It's hooked in correctly and recognizes and the computer recognizes it in the setup BIOS, but it does not assign it a drive letter when I try to access it through Windows Explorer. I can go into my device manager and it lists the drive under device manager>disk drives. I just can't access it. I also tried to set it up as the only drive in the system, but when I try to boot into windows I get a message that my windows is not registered and wants me to go and register the Windows, but not being booted up I can't get online to do it (it's the Windows XP that was in the Drive when I originally purchased it from Office Depot when I lived on the West Coast. I've called into COMPAQ/HP support and they tell me to just reformat the HDD, but there are things I need off it before I do that. Any help anyone can give would be greatly appreciated. Oct 15 06 01:56 pm Link i'm guessing that you want to get files off the old hdd on to the new one, change the jumpers to be the same as your cd-rom, replace the cd -rom with the old hdd, the computer should boot off the new hdd, and you should be able to get data off the old disk.. Oct 15 06 02:00 pm Link http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/op/jump_IDE.htm  Move the pin from master to slave or cable select http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/site. … 44388#ide2 http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/if/ide/confCS-c.html Oct 15 06 02:04 pm Link lotusphoto wrote: Your guess is correct. This is one thing I have not tried, but will. Just need a few things off of it since my last backup, then I will reformat the drive and use it as a secondary. Thanks for your help, I'll give it a try tonight. Oct 15 06 02:12 pm Link John Pringle wrote: Unfortunately I have been there and done all of that already...even to purchasing a new Master/Slave cable....it still won't show up on windows, lists the HDD but does not awssign it a drive letter. Thanks very much though...Ray Oct 15 06 02:22 pm Link For my money one of the best - if not the best - disk recovery/maintenance tools is Steve Gibson's Spin Rite --> http://www.grc.com/default.htm Oct 15 06 02:31 pm Link You can't just put the drive solo in a new machine and try to boot it. The new motherboard will require different drivers so it may not run correctly. The XP activation calculates the computer ID from some of the hardware chips. With a different motherboard the ID will be incorrect, which is why it will ask for a new registration. Also the drive geometry setup by the BIOS may be different if there's too much difference in the revisions. Make sure the jumpers are correct (master/slave) and that your new computer doesn't have the cable select set (in that case, you need to set both drives on cable select, the drives plugged in the correct cable positions AND have the correct cable). If the drive shows up in device manager and is not seen - it's probably a geometry issue and you just have to find an older computer that sees the old geometry to transfer the files off it. Most likely you don't need a recovery service since the drive isn't damaged (we hope). You just need to get setup to see the files again. If the drive was writting when the motherboard fried, you may have a scrambled FAT or damaged partition table (which also makes the drive show up in device manager, but not recognizable by the file system). But those you can recover with simple tools off the net. Oct 15 06 06:15 pm Link I don't know if you did this yet or not but try the following: 1) Set up the problem hard disk as the slave and boot into windows like you did the first time from the other hard drive. 2) Right click on My Computer 3) Select "Manage" from the pop-up menu. Computer Management will open. 4) Under the Storage section in the tree to the left, select Disk Management 5) In the pane to the bottom right, a list of your installed hard drives will show up along with sections for each partition if the drive is split into sections. 6) Right click on the partition (could be the whole drive), and select Change Drive Letter and Paths. You should be able to assign a drive letter at this point. Sometimes you have to do this for Windows to recognize it and display the drive in Explorer or My Computer. Oct 15 06 09:23 pm Link Sand Angel wrote: Unfortunately I tried that, but the only options I can access under that menu is to Partition Drive (which would destroy any information I have on the drive) and Help. Oct 16 06 05:08 pm Link I had my computer crash from virusis five times in three months so I had to keep re doing it. I think you have to go to F8 set up before the computer boots up and assign the hard drive as if you are partitioning the hard drive. It will tell you what to do from there. follow the instructions. If I can do it, then you can, I don't know squat about computers but my friend who is a computer wizz showed me and then when I added a hard drive to my computer I knew what to do. I was scared but like I said follow the instructions. Oct 17 06 02:56 am Link It sounds like your old drive is setup as Fat32 or the File system Windows 2000, or XP uses. And the new drive is not. I believe...if you set your old drive up as Master, the new drive up as Slave, and then use F8 boot option, Choose Command Prompt Only, or possibly Safe Mode might work. You should be able to access the new drive to copy the files that you need to it. What version of Windows, were you running on the old, and new computers? I used to do crap like this all the time, I'm good at it, but I hate it. Send me a PM if you want, I can almost definitely help you. Honest advice, don't go to a computer store, they'll erase your drive and tell you it was the only thing they could do. Oct 17 06 04:06 am Link Hmmm....The fact that you mentioned you could boot the problem drive at all indicates to me that it is still intact. A couple things I might try next (after trying the above things just mentioned): 1) Go to CompUSA or Best Buy and buy a new external hard drive with the USB hookup (5 1/4 inch hard drive, not the little ones). This is gonna set you back about $100 or so. 2) Boot into your problem drive's Windows and then plug in the new external usb drive. If it works, copy all your files onto the external drive as a backup. You might have to format the new external usb drive first. Then you can re-attach the new drive that works (not the usb one) and boot into the good windows and hookup the usb drive and see if you can see all your files. If it works, you can reformat the problem drive. 3) OR....remove the hard drive from the external enclosure and replace it with the problem drive. Boot up into windows on the good drive and see if you can read your data from what is now the external hard drive. One of those two should work. And the plus side is that you'll have a portable data drive. Those always come in handy for various things so it's definitely not wasted money. Paying a techie guy to retrieve the data will cost you more than that. Oct 17 06 10:35 pm Link Scribe of Souls wrote: Being a computer tech first, and photographer second, I know your pain. Oct 17 06 10:54 pm Link You could try getting an enclosure case, so you can turn it into an external hard drive. At least this way you outta be able to get your files off of that harddrive and onto the one you already got or onto CDs. Oct 18 06 01:30 am Link i had a friend that left an old computer in the rain all winter.. i took out the hdd, wiped it off and put it in the freezer for two hours.. took it out, plopped it in in place of the cdrom, and had it run for 15 mins, enough time for me to get some pictures of her and her kid off the hdd before it crashed for good... one of the weirder tricks Oct 18 06 01:43 am Link It honestly sounds like there is nothing wrong with your harddrive. It's your file systems aren't compatible. FAT32 and NTFS aren't compatible with each other. Though both can be used by Windows XP Oct 18 06 01:59 am Link |
