connecting old hard drive to new computer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

9Hi
I am not very computer savvy so I need some direction. About 8 months ago
my PC lost it's power supply. I recently bought a new laptop. I removed the
hard drive from the PC and installed it in a USB 2.0 enclosure. I hooked it
up to my lap top and the new computer is reading the old drive now. BUT, I
don't know how to access my files. When I first installed it, it renamed a
partition as Drive E. Drive E shows nothing in it. The purpose of doing
this was to recover the files from my old PC. The old hard drive shows up in
disk management as:
disk 1 your drive 9.54 GB FAT32 Healthy (active) and then another partition
that says: new volume E 16 MB FAT (Healthy). I have been careful not to
answer yes to any prompts that would erase any data. I would appreciate any
instruction as to how to access my files from the old PC. Thanks
 
Does it show in "my computer".. If so simply R.click on it,open.Also,in
diskmgmt
L.click the drive,go to actions,all,select,"make active".
 
Thank you. Ok, I r clicked on it, selected make active. But the part that
says New volume drive e is showing as active and the part that says your
drive says unknown partition. I'm beginning to think I might need to take it
to someone else, lol. I like to think I'm an intelligent person,but I'm not
feeling it right now :)
 
Making a partition "active" does not do what you think it might. The only
partition that should be active, in a basic setup, is the one that boots the
system. As seen in disk management, it will be the one marked (System).
(It shouldn't hurt anything to leave it that way for now)

Just a WAG, but did you by any chance have Goback installed on the
original system? There are other reasons, but that's one that would
explain why the partition is showing up as "unknown".
 
gwenbfine said:
Thank you. Ok, I r clicked on it, selected make active. But the part that
says New volume drive e is showing as active and the part that says your
drive says unknown partition. I'm beginning to think I might need to take it
to someone else, lol. I like to think I'm an intelligent person,but I'm not
feeling it right now :)
Click to expand...


No!
DO NOT use disk management to "make active" the drive should have shown up
without doing anything.

Making any changes (other than drive letter assigned)
may cause you to loose your data!

NOTE: only your "boot" drive can contain an acitve partition
 
gwenbfine said:
Thank you. Ok, I r clicked on it, selected make active. But the part
that
says New volume drive e is showing as active and the part that says your
drive says unknown partition. I'm beginning to think I might need to take
it
to someone else, lol. I like to think I'm an intelligent person,but I'm
not
feeling it right now :)
Click to expand...


gwenbfine:
It's entirely possible that for one reason or another the data on that
problem HDD has been lost, so if that data is supremely important to you it
may be necessary to seek some professional recovery help or at least take it
to some knowledgeable acquaintance of yours.

But let's first try a few things and then go on from there, ok?

1. At the time your desktop PC (I'm assuming it was a desktop machine) lost
its power supply, there was only a single hard drive installed in that
machine, right? Was that desktop an OEM machine - from Dell, or HP/Compaq,
or Gateway, or some such?

2. And that hard drive is the one that you removed from that computer and
installed in your USB external enclosure, right?

3. You've mentioned that Disk Management in your new laptop reports the
total disk capacity of that (now) external HDD - the same one you removed
from your previous PC - as just under 10 GB. Was that *actually* the size of
that hard drive, or have you "lost" some disk space from that drive since
the transfer?

4. And when that hard drive was installed in your former PC, as far as you
knew it had only a single partition? Neither you nor anyone else to you
knowledge ever multi-partitioned it, right?

5. Was that hard drive functioning OK before the computer's power supply
became defective? It booted up just fine and functioned without any
problems? The only problem was that PC was a defective power supply right?

6. After you installed that hard drive in your USB external enclosure and
connected it to your new laptop and booted up, what exactly happened? You
say Disk Management immediately indicated there were two partitions on that
drive, one of 9.54 GB and a tiny one of 16 MB.

6. Can you account at all for those two partitions? They bear no resemblance
to what was in that hard drive when it was in your desktop PC? And again,
was the total disk capacity of that hard drive when it was installed in your
former PC about 10 GB?

7. And both partitions now show empty. No files or folders in either
partition?

As I say, we can go on from here if you want.
Anna
 
Anna,
Yes, the data is very important to me. I had family tree information that
would be hard to duplicate. Plus I had over 700 music files. And a lot of
family photos.

Now to answer your questions if I can
1. Yes, it was a gateway pc w/only 1 hard drive installed. I never added
anything else (and to the post from bill, yes it had goback on it)
2. Yes, that's the hard drive I hooked up to my new laptop.
3. Yes, the actual size is 10.2 GB (I bought the computer in 99)
4. There were no partitions on that hard drive. I didn't even know what a
partition was until this problem. I was the only user except for
occasionally my daughter when she came home from college.
5. Yes, everything was working fine. Then one day I tried to turn the pc
on and got nothing, no power at all.
6. when I first installed it, disk management showed two partitions. One,
Your drive, showed a blue bar across the top. The "new volume" showed a
black bar across the top. And I've tried a number of things since then, so I
can't remember the exact sequence of events.
7. The partition that says your drive, I can't access it. the only action
it gives me the option of taking is "delete partition". How do I know if
there are any files??

I'd be willing to take it somewhere if it wouldn't cost an arm & a leg for
them to check it out. I do have an acquaintance at work that suggested the
external enclosure to begin with. But any advice that I could try first that
wouldn't hurt anything.. . . . .
Thanks for your time!
 
When you right cick the Blue partition do you get the option to "take
Possesion"??
The Black Partition is unallocated space........
peter
 
gwenbfine said:
Anna,
Yes, the data is very important to me. I had family tree information that
would be hard to duplicate. Plus I had over 700 music files. And a lot of
family photos.

Now to answer your questions if I can
1. Yes, it was a gateway pc w/only 1 hard drive installed. I never added
anything else (and to the post from bill, yes it had goback on it)
2. Yes, that's the hard drive I hooked up to my new laptop.
3. Yes, the actual size is 10.2 GB (I bought the computer in 99)
4. There were no partitions on that hard drive. I didn't even know what
a
partition was until this problem. I was the only user except for
occasionally my daughter when she came home from college.
5. Yes, everything was working fine. Then one day I tried to turn the pc
on and got nothing, no power at all.
6. when I first installed it, disk management showed two partitions.
One,
Your drive, showed a blue bar across the top. The "new volume" showed a
black bar across the top. And I've tried a number of things since then,
so I
can't remember the exact sequence of events.
7. The partition that says your drive, I can't access it. the only
action
it gives me the option of taking is "delete partition". How do I know if
there are any files??

I'd be willing to take it somewhere if it wouldn't cost an arm & a leg for
them to check it out. I do have an acquaintance at work that suggested
the
external enclosure to begin with. But any advice that I could try first
that
wouldn't hurt anything.. . . . .
Thanks for your time!
Click to expand...


gwenbfine:
Since the data on that hard drive is obviously so valuable to you and you
really can't afford to lose it, I think it would be in your best interest at
this point for you to take the drive to a reliable computer repair shop
(hopefully you have one in your area) and let them see what they can do in
terms of data recovery.

I would be very apprehensive about your further accessing that drive from
this point on. Doing so might cause other problems to the extent that the
data will be unrecoverable for all practical purposes.

The fact that the drive is now contained in a USB external enclosure in *no
way* affords it any added safety or protection from further corruption - it
remains vulnerable.

Hopefully, the missing data can be resurrected. Sometimes it's not a
particularly expensive proposition but unfortunately it can be. At least
consult some knowledgeable technician in your area. If & when you do, please
make it abundantly clear to him or her that recovery of the data is of
paramount importance to you - actually the *only* thing you're interested
in - and that you have no interest in that drive being "wiped clean" in
order that it will be functional again.

Let's hope the data can be recovered. And please - now that you have an
external enclosure - make it a point from now on to embark on a routine &
systematic backup program.
Anna
 
gwenbfine said:
Anna,
Yes, the data is very important to me. I had family tree information that
would be hard to duplicate. Plus I had over 700 music files. And a lot of
family photos.

Now to answer your questions if I can
1. Yes, it was a gateway pc w/only 1 hard drive installed. I never added
anything else (and to the post from bill, yes it had goback on it)
Click to expand...

And I assume the new system does not have Goback installed? Goback
writes a proprietary "type" partition identifier to the partition table. In which
case Goback needs to be installed, so that it can hook I/O to the partition
or you need to run the Goback uninstaller so that XP can access the
drive natively.

Niether is without a certain amount of risk of course. I'd prefer to clone
the entire disk beforehand.

If you do take it somewhere, make sure you tell them about Goback. If they
don't think it's relevent, then they probably don't know what they're doing.
 
Bill Blanton said:
And I assume the new system does not have Goback installed? Goback
writes a proprietary "type" partition identifier to the partition table. In which
case Goback needs to be installed, so that it can hook I/O to the partition
or you need to run the Goback uninstaller so that XP can access the
drive natively.

Niether is without a certain amount of risk of course. I'd prefer to clone
the entire disk beforehand.
Click to expand...

This might be of use also;
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/goback.nsf/docid/2005111514174058?OpenDocument&src=hot&seg=hho
 
Since it came out of an old machine had you "compressed" the files with a
98/98SE files compression program??
That OS had a build in program that you could activate to do that and many
people did with small drives
If so you would need to reinstall in that old system and start OS then
uncompress the files/drive.
peter
 
Thank you, Anna. I think that is a good suggestion. And I have already
started backing up my data on this computer :) Thanks again for your time.
 
Thank you Jaymon. I appreciate the response. I'm a little afraid to try
anything else right now, but I will show these posts to my friend that is
much more computer literate and he might be able to do something with it.
Thanks everyone.
 
Thanks for your courteous response, hope the previously mentioned app can
help save you time & money or both, it has for me..
Cheers
j;-j
 
I am having the same problem, ie it doesn't show in My Computer but is 'Healthy active' in the Disk Management option and it won't let me 'explore' or 'open' to extract the files I want to keep.
It will only allow me to delete a partition but there isn't one on it! All the other right click options are greyed out.
I wonder if it because this old hdd has Windows (98) still installed on it from another PC?

EggHeadCafe.com - .NET Developer Portal of Choice
http://www.eggheadcafe.com
 
I am having the same problem, ie it doesn't show in My Computer but is 'Healthy active' in the Disk Management option and it won't
let me 'explore' or 'open' to extract the files I want to keep.
It will only allow me to delete a partition but there isn't one on it! All the other right click options are greyed out.
I wonder if it because this old hdd has Windows (98) still installed on it from another PC?
Click to expand...

Having 98 on it isn't a factor. Is the drive jumpered correctly? Did you
by chance have Goback installed on the 98 system, or was there drive
manager software installed on the 98 system to overcome a BIOS limitation?
 
Back
Top