Getting all data from a HDD and save it to dif. PC- How?

  • Thread starter Thread starter BNILSSON
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BNILSSON

Hi group.
I just burned up the MoBo and CPU on my PC. I'm not planing on repairing
it, but, I sure would like to get all my data back from the HDD and save
it to my "living" PC. How can I do this?
Any help and info. on this will be much appreciated!
Thanks
BN
 
Hi group.
I just burned up the MoBo and CPU on my PC. I'm not planing on repairing
it, but, I sure would like to get all my data back from the HDD and save
it to my "living" PC. How can I do this?
Any help and info. on this will be much appreciated!
Thanks
BN
Click to expand...

Do you know if the hard drive is still OK ?

Or was it part of the "burning" ?

What caused the Mobo and CPU to burn ?

If the hard drive was not harmed by whatever happened,
then you should be able to cable it up and connect it
to a spare port in your working computer. Ideally, putting
the drive on its own cable, means less danger of it having
any affect on another drive in the machine.

Chances are, your working computer already has a bunch
of stuff connected. To get the best answer back, you
should tell us all you can about the working computer -

Motherboard name and model number (of working computer) ?
How many hard drives are currently connected ?
Are they SATA (thin data cable) or PATA (wide ribbon cable) ?
Are there any CDROM/DVD drives in the machine and are they
on ribbon cable as well ?
(The purpose of asking all those questions, is to figure
out how many hard drives and CDs are currently connected to
the motherboard. By knowing the motherboard brand and model
number, we know how many connectors are on the board, and
how many drives maximum it can support.)

Does the drive you want to recover, use a ribbon cable or
the thin SATA cable ?

Based on the answer to those questions, the answer may be
to set the drive to master, or slave, or cable_select.
The drive has to connect to a cable, and knowing how many
drives are there currently, and where they are connected,
helps determine where the visiting drive is going to go.
If the working computer is full of drives, the answer may
be a bit more complicated.

Paul
 
Hi group.
I just burned up the MoBo and CPU on my PC. I'm not planing on
repairing it, but, I sure would like to get all my data back from
the HDD and save it to my "living" PC. How can I do this?
Any help and info. on this will be much appreciated!
Click to expand...

Are you saying that you do not keep removable media copies of
important files?

What to do depends on how important your data is. If it's very
important, clone the hard drive or copy the partitions before you
mess with it. When you are trying to recover data, it's just like
editing a document, you make a backup copy so you can revert to that
and try again if things go wrong. In the case of a whole hard drive,
you're messing with perhaps thousands of documents that you need to
preserve.

After this ordeal is over, buy some USB flash drives and keep copies
of your important files on them.

Good luck.
 
Thanks for your reply.
It is not that important that I get to use the whole HDD but if I could
save some of the important data to a CD and then transfer. it over to
the good PC, that would work.
I have a external housing that I could put this HDD in, if that would
work, and maybe USB it to the good PC, but I don't know if I would screw
something else up on the good PC.
The "burned" PC= The MoBo and CPU I'm sure did burn, I could smell it.
Old PC has different MoBo model all together as well as most components
are different. The good unit is a Mini with a MSI MoBo and no room for a
2nd. HDD.
What do you think Paul? Should I try and see what happens? Can I copy
the "My Documents" from the old HDD to a CD or to "My Documents" on the
good PC.
Thanks again for your help.
BN
 
Thanks for your reply. It is not that important that I get to use
the whole HDD
Click to expand...

Do you think that "cloning" means putting the hard drive in a Star
Trek replicator?
but if I could save some of the important data to a CD and then
Click to expand...

To be blunt, you have totally screwed up by not already having a
removable media copy of important files. Again, how important your
files are to you should dictate whether you clone the hard drive
before you start messing with it. In any case, you should make a
removable media copy of important files ASAP. You just do it.

If you think that simply having access to your files is important,
you need to think again.

Good luck.
 
(e-mail address removed) wrote
It is not that important that I get to use the whole HDD but
if I could save some of the important data to a CD and then
transfer. it over to the good PC, that would work.
Click to expand...
I have a external housing that I could put this HDD in, if that would
work, and maybe USB it to the good PC, but I don't know if I would
screw something else up on the good PC.
Click to expand...

It'll be fine if the external housing has its own power supply.
Power it up with the old drive in it, not connected to the new PC.
If the old hard drive is fried, the worst that can happen is that
it might kill the power supply for the external housing.
The "burned" PC= The MoBo and CPU I'm sure did burn, I could smell it.
Old PC has different MoBo model all together as well as most
components are different. The good unit is a Mini with a MSI MoBo and
no room for a 2nd. HDD.
Click to expand...
What do you think Paul? Should I try and see what happens?
Yes.

Can I copy the "My Documents" from the old HDD
to a CD or to "My Documents" on the good PC.
Click to expand...

Yes, it will work fine as long as the old hard drive
wasnt killed by the old PC as it died.
 
Thanks for your reply.
It is not that important that I get to use the whole HDD but if I could
save some of the important data to a CD and then transfer. it over to
the good PC, that would work.
I have a external housing that I could put this HDD in, if that would
work, and maybe USB it to the good PC, but I don't know if I would screw
something else up on the good PC.
The "burned" PC= The MoBo and CPU I'm sure did burn, I could smell it.
Old PC has different MoBo model all together as well as most components
are different. The good unit is a Mini with a MSI MoBo and no room for a
2nd. HDD
snip<
Click to expand...
You don't have to install the old hd into new computer. Just connect it
as slave to new hd & let it *hang* (carefully so as not to touch any exposed
power to ground) & copy over to new hd whatever files you wish. Later you
can copy impt. files to cd or whatever removeable media you wish. HTH, s
 
Thanks for your reply.
It is not that important that I get to use the whole HDD but if I could
save some of the important data to a CD and then transfer. it over to
the good PC, that would work.
I have a external housing that I could put this HDD in, if that would
work, and maybe USB it to the good PC, but I don't know if I would screw
something else up on the good PC.
The "burned" PC= The MoBo and CPU I'm sure did burn, I could smell it.
Old PC has different MoBo model all together as well as most components
are different. The good unit is a Mini with a MSI MoBo and no room for a
2nd. HDD.
What do you think Paul? Should I try and see what happens? Can I copy
the "My Documents" from the old HDD to a CD or to "My Documents" on the
good PC.
Thanks again for your help.
BN
Click to expand...

Like Rod said, slap in into the external case and give it
a try. The very worst it could do, is damage the
external case. (But the damage should stop there.)
But you might get some data off it, if it is still alive.

The reason I was asking questions about how the components
burned, is to see if the +5V or +12V on the burned computer
went up to a high voltage and caused the burning. If that
was the case, then the hard drive could have been damaged.
But you'll know soon enough, once you get the hard drive
into the external enclosure. I expect your external
enclosure expects the drive to be jumpered to "master" ?

Paul
 
Thanks to all of you for your help.
I put the old HDD in in the external housing and USB to the good PC and
I opened it up in "My Computer" and I could get to all the files and
moved them over to the new PC. So it was still alive- thank goodness.
Guess that I could just keep the old HDD as is, in case I need
something else from it. have to "explore" to see what I have on it.
Thanks again for all your help.
BN
 
(e-mail address removed) blabbered in 3317.bay.webtv.net:
Thanks for your reply.
It is not that important that I get to use the whole HDD but if I could
save some of the important data to a CD and then transfer. it over to
the good PC, that would work.
I have a external housing that I could put this HDD in, if that would
work, and maybe USB it to the good PC, but I don't know if I would screw
something else up on the good PC.
The "burned" PC= The MoBo and CPU I'm sure did burn, I could smell it.
Old PC has different MoBo model all together as well as most components
are different. The good unit is a Mini with a MSI MoBo and no room for a
2nd. HDD.
What do you think Paul? Should I try and see what happens? Can I copy
the "My Documents" from the old HDD to a CD or to "My Documents" on the
good PC.
Thanks again for your help.
BN
Click to expand...

For what reason do you think you need to change the drive? Just put it in
the new system, jump into device manager and delete the disk controller
section, and reboot. The drive should take the new system info and continue
just fine.
 
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