Some time ago, I posted a frantic thread about how my computer fried itself, my hard drive was priceless to me, what should I do what should I do?
Now that I have some time to do something about the problem, I'd like to get Hatrack's opinion on a course of action.
So let's make it hypothetical. You're sitting at home one day, doing Hatrack stuff, when your computer suddenly shuts down and won't restart. Your screen had been flickering all day, snowing. You freak out, put it aside, eventually get a new computer, and are now interested in restoring your hard drive, or at least its data, to your new computer. What's the first step?
Posted by Lime (Member # 1707) on :
Check out your IDE drive situation. Most motherboards have 4 IDE channels and two cables. Make sure you have a cable. If you don't have one, find one - for this operation, you can safely remove both the power and the data cable from your CD-ROM and use that for your old hard drive. It's preferable that your old hard drive get mounted in a drive bay so you don't have to worry about the odd angle doing strange things to the hard drive's platters.
Now you need to check out what the Master/Slave settings on the cable that you attached your old hard drive to are - this can be done by looking at the back of the other drive that's attached to the cable (if there is one. If there isn't, then this gets easier).
If you have another drive on the same cable, there will be a little jumper on the back among 6-8 pins on the back of the drive. There should be a legend for it - if not, break out your manual or get the drive's model and look it up on the manufacturer's website. If the other drive is set to Cable Select, then set your old hard drive to Cable Select. If it's set to Master, then set your old hard drive to Slave, and vice versa.
Now, if everything is plugged in properly and you've double-checked the Master/Slave thing, turn on your PC. Windows will detect it and add it to "My Computer" automatically. From there you can copy data over to your new hard drive. It may ask to reset the computer as it's just added a new device. Do that if it says so.
If you have any worries whatsoever about the old hard drive being faulty, ditch it. Nothing smarts like lost data. If you think it might be fine, go ahead and leave it in (if you have the space). You may want to use it to store replaceable data (such as a place to install applications) and just point the programs toward a different drive to save their data a litle more reliably.
Good luck!
EDIT: Once you get the data safe and sound on your new HD and you want to continue using the old HD, format it. You can do this by right clicking on it in "My Computer" and selecting format. That'll clear up any strangeness in the filesystem that might have come as a result of Windows Creep.
[ December 26, 2003, 08:29 AM: Message edited by: Lime ]
Posted by slacker (Member # 2559) on :
I'd wonder if the drive spins up at all (you might be able to hear it/feel it (if you try to feel it, be *very* careful that you don't jostle it - HD's don't like heads crashing into them).
Also, what version of windows do you have? If it's XP, you'll have to initialize it (it's under Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Manangement).
If you want to have it done professionally, be prepared to spend alot of money. I was quoted $400 several years ago when I had a bad HD, so you might expect to pay that much (or more).