Trying to save data from old disks

  • Thread starter Thread starter Cenneth A
  • Start date Start date
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Cenneth A

Hi,

I had to replace my two computers, but, saved their master hard drives in
order to retrieve the user data later. The drives are one IBM Deskstar
ATA/IDE 41.1 GB and one Western Digital WD 400 IDE 40.0 GB. Both drives have
filesystem NTFS and both were bootable masters with Windows XP SP2 swedish
version.

To retrieve tha data I purchased a Deltaco SATA/IDE to USB adapter and
connected the drives one after the other to a USB 2.0 contact on my Windows
Vista desktop. But, in both cases it says on the Vista display in
'Properties for local disk' that the drive is on 1.51 GB of which 209 MB is
in use and 1.31 GB is free. The filesystem is FAT and the root map is empty.

I've tried master, slave, cable select but always got the same result.

Are my data lost or is there a way to retrieve them?

Thanks for any comment.
 
Not all sata/ide adapters are 'equal'
either use an ide/usb external case, or connect a drive direct to an ide
port on your PC
 
Oh, I forgot to tell that I tried to connect the disks directly
to the motherboard's IDE, but, got exactly the same answers
from the system. Though in BIOS setup the disks were reported in
correct sizes.
A bit peculiar that I got exactly the same respons from both disks,
however, they are of different brand and origin.

/Cenneth
 
If you're not doing so, check out the disks from the disk management console.
Right click on "My Compter" > Manage > Disk management, or run diskmgmt.msc

What disk size, volumes, and status do you see?
 
And to add did you use any third party tool to origonally format these disks
or any other drive management software
 
The disks were originally formatted with NTFS with Microsofts
software on the XP install-CD when XP was installed.

I checked them with Disk Manager and it said:

"Disk: Unknown. Not initiated."

No other information.
(The information from Disk Manager is my translation from DM's swedish)

/Cenneth
 
Cenneth said:
The disks were originally formatted with NTFS with Microsofts
software on the XP install-CD when XP was installed.

I checked them with Disk Manager and it said:

"Disk: Unknown. Not initiated."

No other information.
(The information from Disk Manager is my translation from DM's swedish)

/Cenneth
Click to expand...

The reference to "third party software", could be the usage of a DDO.
This is an example of a "trick" that sometimes upsets third party
disk preparation tools. This probably is not the problem, as this
would still work when used by the OS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Drive_Overlay

If you want a tool that can scan a disk for partitions, you could
try TestDisk. You don't have to "accept" the new MBR it computes.
But this would tell you whether a file system was detected on the
disk or not. You could press "control-C" if there was no Quit item
in the onscreen menu, to exit the program. TestDisk runs under Windows
or Linux. In Windows, you'd run it in a Command Prompt window. The
interface is text based. There is also a file recovery utility on
this site, called Photorec. Because this tool is a "repair in place"
type tool, you don't want to use this without a sector-by-sector
backup copy of the original disk. That is why I'm advising caution.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

I found another tool recently. This one runs under Linux, and
the tool may even be available for download via a Package Manager.
In Linux, you'd use "disktype /dev/hda1" to ask the tool what
file system it sees on the first partition of drive "hda".
But I expect TestDisk is largely doing the same thing
for you, with perhaps fewer file system types handled than
this tool claims. (I've pointed this tool at an ISO, and it
properly identified the containers in it, UDF and ISO9660.)
The only reason I'm mentioning this one, is I'm surprised
such a thing exists.

http://disktype.sourceforge.net/

http://disktype.sourceforge.net/doc/ch01s03.html (Usage examples)

Paul
 
Thank you Paul,

TestDisk seems to be something. It will certainly keep
me busy for some time, so let's leave it here while I'm
trying to get the best out of TestDisk.
Thanks for taking your time, all of you.
 
Not initialized in the Disk Management applet means there is no end
of sector signature written to the "MBR sector". The signature is written
when the OS writes the boot code to the MBR.
The reference to "third party software", could be the usage of a DDO.
This is an example of a "trick" that sometimes upsets third party
disk preparation tools.
Click to expand...

Could very well be, but drive overlays' usually write out an end of sector
sig to keep the OS and BIOSs happy. A drive could be "initialized" in that
context, and still have partition tables as garbage. (because they have
been moved).


This probably is not the problem, as this
would still work when used by the OS.
Click to expand...

Not if the partition tables were not moved by the DDO. Windows
will not load MBR code from a non boot device. Only the partition table.
A DDO on a slave drive (for example) does not translate the drive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Drive_Overlay

If you want a tool that can scan a disk for partitions, you could
try TestDisk. You don't have to "accept" the new MBR it computes.
Click to expand...

That's worth a shot. Looking at the tables and sector 0 would also be
useful.
 
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