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Recover data from a damaged HD

UncleChetUncleChet N00bLancaster, PARegistered User regular
edited November 2007 in Help / Advice Forum
Howdy,
I'm trying to help a friends parents with a computer problem. The PC doesn't boot. Previously (about 2 months ago) i replaced the power supply and it worked fine. Now it no longer boots. They have a replacement pc and just want data (recipies, xmas card list) off of the old drive. I've tried placing the HD into a usb enclosure, but my pc doesn't recognize it as being a valid external drive. I tried making it the main HD of another PC and it would boot to windows select option screen, but if you choose to boot into windows (normal or safe mode) it simply reboots the PC. I'd really like to help them out but i"m at a loss so I turn to folks likely smarter than me ;-). What are my options? How can I help them? They're pretty nice folks who I'd really like to help out.

Thanks!

I'm sometimes grumpy and random, feel free to overlook the strange man in the corner.
UncleChet on

Posts

  • xThanatoSxxThanatoSx Registered User regular
    edited November 2007
    You should be able to make that HD a slave drive in another computer, boot into windows as per normal - windows should pick up the slave drive, and you should be able to find the information you need on it.

    Hopefully that made sense.

    xThanatoSx on
  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    edited November 2007
    Yeah hook it up as a secondary internal drive(not a boot drive). If it's just the booting section that's a problem you should be able to read it that way.

    nexuscrawler on
  • UncleChetUncleChet N00b Lancaster, PARegistered User regular
    edited November 2007
    Thanks for the tips. I actually tried slaving it, and it caused conflict with the main drive. I tried setting it as a slave in my pc (my hd is sata) and I unhooked the dvd drives and hooked up the other HD. Still failed to boot for me. Infact, when the ide drive was in my pc and set to slave it did the boot/reboot sequence.

    UncleChet on
    I'm sometimes grumpy and random, feel free to overlook the strange man in the corner.
  • xThanatoSxxThanatoSx Registered User regular
    edited November 2007
    Check your boot order in your BIOS. Make sure it's SATA 1st so it's booting from your primary HD as opposed to looking at the IDE (which it might be if you'd set your system up to boot from the optical drive)

    xThanatoSx on
  • nexuscrawlernexuscrawler Registered User regular
    edited November 2007
    You may have to switch a jumper to switch it to a slave

    nexuscrawler on
  • casper_27dcasper_27d The Friendly Ghost EverywhereRegistered User regular
    edited November 2007
    You could try using ERD Commander, boot from CD and try to see if you can access the damaged drive. I had to do this to a bunch of computers that got damaged from the heat and to much getting banged around on my last tour in Iraq and this process worked most of the time.

    casper_27d on
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