I want to copy information from my old hard disk

[Igor Skoglund]

I want to copy information from my old hard disk but the disk is not visible.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

You have to tell us more than this. How are the drives attached and what is
the edition Vista? What do you mean by "old" drive? What information are
you trying to copy?

 

[Igor Skoglund]

I have business edition. I have 70 Gb hard disk around 5 years old with XP on
and stuff. I want to copy photos, music, movies, games.

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

How is the drive attached?

I have business edition. I have 70 Gb hard disk around 5 years old with XP
on
and stuff. I want to copy photos, music, movies, games.

 

[Igor Skoglund]

By switch cabel to a motherboard. I have old port on hard disk (big flat one)
and new one on the motherboard (little flat one).

 

[Tom Ferguson]

Well, Igor, you don't give us much information!

Let me guess:

You have a new computer now and it came with one hard drive attached to the
small, flat connector on the motherboard. (That is a SATA connector). You
removed the HD from your "old" computer. You attached it to the motherboard
of the new computer using a wide, flat cable to the suitable connector on
the motherboard. (That is an IDE/PATA connector.) Or, you attached it using
the second connector on the cable to the DVD drive. You also attached an
appropriate power connector to the drive.

Now, the drive can be heard to be spinning but it is not listed by your
computer when you look at Computer listing.

------

Check on the old hard drive next to the large flat cable connector for a
block of pins. Make sure the jumper is covering the correct set of pins for
your setup. If the drive is alone on the cable, use the Single Drive
position. If on a cable with the DVD, use Slave position. There is usually a
label on the HD to indicate pin positioning. If not, consult the drive
maker's web site.

Let us know.

Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Also, if the ribbon cable is an old 40-pin cable replace it with a new
80-pin cable.

 

[Igor Skoglund]

I have 40-pin cable but I use switch cable. How should I replace it to 80-pin?

 

[Tom Ferguson]

If the cable you use is a proper 40-conductor flat ribbon cable, the drive
will work OK. If you replace that cable with an 80-conductor/pin cable, the
drive can operate at a higher data transfer rate.

I'm not sure what you mean by "switch cable".

Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007

 

[Bob F.]

Tom,

Respectfully, Is it not what you are talking about a cable with the same
pin count but has added adjacent ground wires between them that offer better
isolation between lines and hence better speed performance? And therefore
why it's an 80 wire cable and not 40 wire cable. The word "pin" is
confusing. It's the same pin count, no? So what you are requesting is to
discard the old cable and replace it with the new type, right? If this
wasn't you point, just discard this and I apologies for the intrusion.

 

[Tom Ferguson]

Thanks for the note and question.

My description "80-conductor/pin " is confusing and an error/slip-of-mind
on my part. I intended 80-conductor/40-pin. The former referring to the
number of conductors.wires in the cable and the 40 to the pin count in the
connector.

Tom
MSMVP 1998-2007

 

[Bob F.]

Excellent. Now I hope Igor (OP?) is following this and it trying to do the
right thing here. The right cable can make a difference between working and
not working.

 

[Igor Skoglund]

Thank you everyone for help. The problem was that I didn't attach power cable
to the switch cable. I was in shop today and they explained the problem. I
hope this information will help others in the future to solve similar
problems.