Data Recovery Tutorial: How to Slave a Hard Drive
April 23, 2007
This is a tutorial from Jacqui Best about the proper procedure for slaving your hard drive prior to running data recovery software on it. This would also be the procedure to follow if you were to run speed clone to sector clone a noisy drive or if you have a partition problem and need to repair or recover data from a partition or if you need to restore or undelete a file.
It is very important to not download data recovery software directly to the effected hard drive. If you don’t have a second drive or don’t have either a USB drive or USB capable data recovery software, then you must hook the drive up as a slave to run the software.
Hard Drive Recovery Video Series - How to Slave A Hard Disk
Watch the video below to see how to slave a desktop IDE hard drive. If you have any questions post a comment at the bottom of the page. We answer all comments that are legitimate questions!
Case Study: How to “Slave” your Hard Drive
In data recovery it is NEVER a good idea to install, copy, surf the Internet, reboot the machine, or do ANYTHING on the hard drive you are now trying to recover the data from. I often tell customer they need to Slave the hard disk to another computer, or put it in a USB chassis. What is difficult is the fact that the average home user has no idea how to do this, and it can be a very daunting task.
The following is a step by step walk through, with pictures on how to remove a hard drive from a computer, slave it to another and then be able to do a safe recovery of the hard drive. If the hard drive isn’t seen in the BIOS or is making noises you more than likely need hard drive recovery.
Tools needed: Phillips head screwdriver and a marker.
Step 1: Shut the PC down and unplug the power.
Step 2: Let’s take a look at the back of the computer and see that we need to unscrew and do in order to get the case open. It varies from model to model, so I am showing you on a standard tower case. You will see that there are screws holding on the side panels of the computer. You will need to remove both sides of the tower in order to free the hard drive.
After you remove the sides you will have a front and a back so to speak.
Front
Back
Step 3: While looking in the front we are going to locate and remove the hard drive. You will see below that the hard disk is located near the bottom of the drive chassis in side (the pink area I have highlighted). This is usually the case for most computers.
Step 4: We are going to need to remove the screws from the front and then go around the back of the pc and remove the screws on that side also.
Front Screws
Back Screws
NOTE: there is USUALLY a way to access these screws from the back. If there is not, I would contact, you local computer store fro help as it can become an issue of having to remove the motherboard and other peripherals.
Step 5: Now I want you to remove the power from the Hard Disk. This is a small cable with one red wire two black wires and a yellow wire running into a white connector. Be gentle and slowly pull the cable out, it may be a tight fit so usually slowly rocking it left and right will help remove it.
After you have unplugged it, take a marker and put a mark on it, this will help you to know which one to use when you put the drive back later.
Step 6: Here comes one of the hardest parts, removing the hard drive from the chassis. You are going to want to try and push, any cables in the way of the rear of the drive, up and out of the way. Firmly grab the back and top of the hard drive and pull back to free it.
PLEASE do this gingerly as you do not want to damage any other internal components.
Step 7: Now that the hard drive is free, Flip the hard drive over so that you are looking at the “green board” take you marker and make an arrow that is pointing to the power. This will help you to know which connector to use and which way it is supposed to be plugged into the drive.
Step 8: Holding the hard drive firmly, grab the cable and pull it out. This is another one of those tight cables. Be patient and careful, you don’t want to snap any of the pins off or break the cable.
Step 9: Ok so now we have the hard drive free from the computer, we need to set it to be a slave in the computer you are moving it to. If you take a look at the back of the hard drive there will be a set of pins usually located between the power and hard drive cables.
Now here is the tricky part.
Since Seagate owns Maxtor and Western Digital is the next most popular hard drive I will cover a Maxtor and Western Digital drives for how to set jumpers. (Almost all manufactures keep the jumper setting on the top of the drive on the label) Western Digital: If you look at the green board you will see that near those pins there are labels CS SLAVE MASTER PM2. You are going to want to put the jumper (which should be there already) on SLAVE.
Seagate/Maxtor: This manufacturer is the exact opposite of Western Digital. When you want to make a drive a slave you must make sure there is no jumper on the first set of pins next to the hard drive cable. Maxtor/Seagate have a very clear diagram on the top of their hard drives to explain how to set up as slave.
Step 10: Now that you have made the drive a slave, you can now move it to another computer, to attempt recovery. To do so please start by repeating steps 1 and 2 from above.
Step 11: Ok now another tricky part, putting the drive into the other computer. (for the sake of this walkthrough I am just re-inserting the drive into the same computer)What we need to do is now put the drive into an empty bay in the computer. And put one screw into the side. This is just to hold it in place while you do the recovery.
Step 12: Now find the hard drive cable coming off the hard drive that was already in the machine. To avoid a very lengthy explanation, I am just going to have you disconnect the cable from the hard drive. While looking at the cable you are going to want to connect the very end to the drive you are attempting to recover and the second from the end to original hard drive in the machine.
Step 13: Now connect a free power connector to the hard drive.
NOTE: if you do not have a free power plug you may need to buy a power splitter from your local PC Company.
The image below is what everything should look like when you have connected all the cables.
Step 14: Now replace the sides of the computer, and plug it back in. You should be able to boot into Windows now and attempt recovery.
[...] Move the hard disk to another computer either via USB chassis or by slaving it to another PC. Please see DTI’s blog if you don’t know How To Slave A Hard Drive. [...]
[...] for “how to hook up a hard disk” on Google and pulled up Jacqui Best’s post: Data Recovery Tutorial How To Slave A Hard Drive. He wanted to print it out so he had a reference while doing the slaving of the hard drive. Since [...]
[...] Anytime that a write is performed there is a possibility for more corruption, so use this function only in emergencies. You can also avoid causing further damage to the hard disk by using speed clone first to be sure you have a back up of your data before you go rooting around in a system area of the hard drive. See our post: How to Slave a Hard Drive [...]
ohhh i remember how to do it now ahahaha
[ A c e W a s H e r e ]
nice article and the photos really help.
[...] a possibility for more corruption, so use this function only in emergencies. You may also want to clone the hard drive first with something like Speed Clone, so that you always have a back up of your data in its [...]
Ok-I am not a tech, but do both the slave and master drive have to have the same operating system? My Win XP crashed, and I have an old Win 98 back up. Can I make the Win XP a slave on the Win 98?
No the operating sytems do not have to be the same, but a lot depends on the file system on the XP. If it is NTFS there could be issues.
I will have a support expert reply to this post tomorrow.
Yes, the file system is a FAT 32. Thanks so much!
This in from Jacqui Best:
If the Win XP drive was formated fat 32, which might have happened if he has Win Xp HOME then yes it will work. If the Win XP machine has Win XP Professional, then it has a NTFS file system that Windows 98 will not reconize, and therefore will not work.
Success! I was able to retrieve all data from the WinXP slave drive using Win98 as the master. Jacqui was correct: The older version of our WinXP Home was formatted with Fat32. Thereafter, reinstalling the OS on the crashed drive was very easy, as was transfering the data back onto the original hard drive from the Win98.
Thank you!
That’s great! I hope more people use our blog to ask questions, so we can answer them and help others as well.
thank u
Hi, this posting was SO helpful. I followed all the instructions to remove a secondary hard drive from our old pc (it crashed). I put the secondary in an usb enclosure, my laptop recognizes it, but when i click on it to access my files, it tells me that the disk must be formatted. Can anyone point me into the right direction?
Glad that we can help LP. Yes you are half way home to getting your data. The fact that your laptop sees the drive means that you can use data recovery software to recover the files, even though Windows want to format the drive.
What Operating System was on your old computer? With that info I can point you to the right product.
Hi Michael,
I’m so relieved that there’s hope! My old pc was running off of Windows XP - Professional. My laptop is Xp - home edition.
If there’s anything else I can provide, please let me know. I appreciate it!
-LP
Ok, my desktop has a corrupt file that is keeping it from booting, so I want to pull off some of the files that I do not want to lose (pictures, docs, etc) before I reinstall windows. But I only have a laptop as a second computer, can I set up the harddrive from my desktop to be a slave to my laptop? and how would I do that?
LP - the best software to use is Dart XP you can download a demo off of the DART XP Data Recovery Software page. Feel free to call our software support line at 1-866-438-6932 if you need help. Once you scan the drive and it shows your files, you can buy the program and recover your data. You won’t need to scan it twice. Call us if you need ANY help at all.
Alysia, yes it is possible to do that with a usb hard drive enclosure that fits 2.5″ or laptop drives.
There are also laptop IDE adapters that can allow you to plug in a laptop drive to a regular hard drive IDE cable. But the 2.5″ USB enclosure would be the easiest way to do it.
CompUSA should have both of these items in stock, but I would call first to make sure.
Here are examples online of what I am talking about:
USB 2.5″ hard drive enclosure
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3203684&Sku=D15-1093
Laptop to IDE adapter:
http://www.bay-wolf.com/hddadapter.htm
Give us a call if you need any help: 1-866-438-6932.
Ok, so I go get this enclosure and then I should be able to hook my desktop drive to my laptop and pull the files to my laptop? Can I get the enclosure at Wal-Mart? That is about as big a store as I am going to get around here….
Alysia, I don’t know if Walmart has them, you would have to call them. Another option would be to buy a new hard drive install it as the master drive in your desktop, load the OS on that and get back up and running.
After you have your desktop going on the new hard drive turn off the computer and follow the steps above and slave the old drive. Be sure to adjust the jumpers like the post says so your computer sees your old hard drive as a slave. You can then get your files off or run data recovery software on the old drive to get your data back.
The other option is to buy an enclosure online and have it shipped to you.
Walmart does have the enclosures, but if my harddrive is not recoverable, then I am going to have to get a new one anyway, so I should probably go ahead and try that route…the only concern that I have is the OS, all I have is the recovery disk that came with the system, can I use that to load the OS onto the new HD?
Alysia, I agree that you should just replace the hard drive and try a recovery on the old drive. If your computer is a Dell or other manufacured machine like an HP, Compaq, etc. then the restore disks should be able to re-load everything including the OS. In fact having restore disks greatly eases the burden of re-installing everything.
Make sure that the hard drive you buy is equal to or larger in GB than the old one, and you should be fine. Feel free to call me direct 727-251-2058 if you have any questions.
Michael
OK, I was running a custom built machine, kinda my first step into the world of technology at it’s best. I had two 250 gig drives mirroring each other, with a 60 gig partition for the OS and other programs. the other 190 gigs all for file storage. My OS was Windows XP 64 bit Pro; I have a lot of song files and such on there that I’d rather not lose. I have secondary machine that it running win 98… I’m working on getting drivers for my WD 250 gig EXHD. and other sorts of USB goodies so I can Start Clearing room and Possibly Building that on up from it’s current state at about 30 gigs total HD space, 288 Mb of RAM, and it’s retro pentium II proccessor. What Should I do First? I would Love Some Help.
Utterly Lost (great name BTW!) I will have an engineer respond to your question today.
hello
can you helpme recover my files.. or sugest any software..
is a disk usb 2.5″ with 120gb.
and when i tried access the disk.. show me de msg “..data corrupted or elegible” , i think is the partition.
I run any applications and i can see the files (jpg, mp3, avi, mpeg..etc)
but i can recover all files with one software.. because exist specfic software for jpg.. mp3..etc.
can you tell me what can i do, for recover all of files? (+/- 90gb)
sorry my english
many thank you
i put three (3) hard disk on my computer, hard disk #1 is in master mode, hard disk #2 and #3is in slave mode. but it is not working anymore. what action should i do?
Zeus,
DART XP will do the job if your drive was running Vista, XP or Server 2003.
If you were running another OS use:
Recover It All
I need tutorial on computer networking and slaving of hard disk and the importance.thanks
Hi Michael,
I read the instructions on slaving a drive. Once I start windows again, the system doesn’t seem to see the slave drive. Was there something else I should do? Would I see the drive in my computer? Thank you!
Linda,
What OS are you running? Can you tell if the slave drive is seen in the BIOS? If the BIOS doesn’t see the drive that means either the drive isn’t connected and jumpered properly or is in such bad shape that it isn’t seen by the BIOS.
After you machine posts and the drives are being displayed you can hit the Pause/Break key and it will freeze that screen for you to see if it recogizes the slave.
Hi Michael, I’m using Dell optiblex, GS520 and the signal cable arrangement is different. How do I slave a hard to this machine. I need to scan the hardrive and defragment it.
Hi. my laptop was a multi-user computer. however, some months ago, one of its user placed a password restriction on the internet content security and i dont know who it was.i have called the Manufacturer (Hp) and the best suggestion they could give me (after trying a lot of “maggic” to no avail) is to format the system. now, my Laptop can’t surf the internet because of this restriction. a friend suggested to me that i should “slave the hardrive” and in my quest for information, i bumped into you guys. pls is this the best option?, if yes, how do i go about doing that? (pls permit my epistle. i am just eager to get this problem fixed without loosing all my information). thanks
Adediran-
What is the profile you are currently logging in with? Is the laptop still being used by multi profiles or are you the only users. Is your only objective here to surf the internet and NOT have to format the disk?
When I bought my new emachine last night they sold me a Jump Drive Fire Fly…and said I could save all from old computer on it then hook up new computer and transfer.
No. now i use the computer alone. i was told that the only way i could solve this problem was to format the hardrive.but, if at all i need to do that, i want to “slave” the hardrive (thats what i dont know how to do). the pass word restriction is the only challenge the laptop has. Thanks
Barbara- They are correct, you can just transfer the files across, with the jump drive. You could also Network the machines together and do the transfer that way.
Adediran- In order to “slave” that laptop disk, to your current laptop in an effort to get the data off. First you need to remove the drive from the machine, then insert a new drive in the laptop. You would then need to format and load an os on that drive. You will need a USB chasis in order to hook the OLD drive to the laptop to be able to move your files off. I am sure there is more simple fix to this problem and you are more then welcome to email me or give ma call to see if I can walk you through getting that password off.
Hey! This was a really helpful tutorial…BUT I need to know how to slave a SATA to a IDE. I REALLY need to get the info off my SATA hard drives by using the IDE as the master. Any hope for me?
Is there a way to do it without paying for converts?
Very useful information. I found that I had to attach the slave drive to the middle multi-pin connector rather than the end one in order for the computer to boot up normally. My Western Digital showed in a diagram how to move the jumper to make the slave work properly.
Michael, I’ve been reading these posts on how to setup a slave and master and it doesn’t seem to be working. Tried several times making sure all Jumpers are set properly… both drives are the same drives Seagate Barracude IV ATA drives from slightly different model Dell Dimension workstations - both running Windows XP Home Edition - one of the drives won’t boot so I wanted to see if it was the drive and not something like the motherboard or other system problem from the failed Dimension. And of couse Mom desires her data (which she failed to backup :-).. So, when I get the failed drive setup as a slave to my working drive as Master - the system starts to boot (see the Windows XP splash screen and green status bar) and then all just goes blank (black)…nothing - no errors and just standard drive power or spin sounds. If I reboot and check the BIOS it shows a secondary drive as “unknown device” … is that the same as not recognizing it at all? Then, if I take the “failed” drive out and just boot the system again with my original working drive, all boots up just fine and I can access that system as expected. Any other helpful hints would be greatly appreciated before we consider canning it altogether rather than spending the $1500+ quoted to recover the data. Thanks!
Hi, I have been using a Compaq desktop computer. My dad brought a used computer home that his boss gave him. its used, but im guessing it wasnt used much, there was no music, or photos in it, there was a few extra programs but thats about it. anyway, when my dad brought this computer home, we unplugged the compaq and connected the new one, btw its an emachines. we used the new one a few days, but we wanted to get all out music and photos from our old one, so we tried plugging in the old one again, and it wouldnt turn on anymore. we were really confused because it was working fine. and then all of a sudden it wouldnt even turn on. so someone told me to come here so i could do this hard drive slaving thing. what exactly will this do? will i have two hard drives that i can store things in? or is this just so i can copy my old info onto the new computer?
It sounds simple enough. My old hard drive is clearly labeled “slave” where I have to move the jumper to. The only problem is that my new PC is different inside. No more flat ribbon cable from the mother board to the various drives. Now its just some wiring harnesses with different type connectors. I can see that the comnnector area on the various drives are different from my older PC so I don’t know how I can connect the old drive to me new PC. I suppose I’ll have to take it to a computer center and have to pay for some one else to do it now.
Perla,
Yes this post shows how to slave a hard drive so that you can either copy data off, or if there is an issue with the file system you can use data recovery software to recover your files.
After you get off your data, you can certainly use the drive as extra storage or to back up your important files.
Mike C
Can you tell me more about your new machine? Are the drives SATA? Those ribbons are small and usually red. Let me know and we will do what we can to help you.
Another option is to get an external USB hard drive case and plug your old drive into that. In fact that is a good idea for people that have an old drive that is working. Slaving a hard drive is usually done primarily for data recovery, an example we see a lot is a hard drive is recognized in the BIOS, but not by Windows. In that case you have to slave the drive since data recovery software doesn’t always work well through USB and Firewire.
Michael
My old drive that I’m trying to recover data from ran Windows 98. My new computer runs Windows Vista…Is it still possible to slave my older drive?
Also, the drive on the newer computer is SATA and has small, red ribbons. Hower, there is an extra cable that hangs from the cable connecting to the DVD burner that would fit into the back of the older drive…Should I use it? Would appreciate any input.
[...] taking apart the stupid cover, I tried to slave the hard drive directly to my PC, only to find out that it isn’t compatible with it. I feel [...]
My Western Digital 2500 (from a Gateway) doesn’t have an obvious slave setting. It has SSC_DIS, PM2, OPT1, & OPT2. Will any of these work?
Hi
Is it possible to use an external hard drive enclosure (with the unbootable ide drive inside the enclosure), connected to a computer with a working hard drive, via U.S.B., in order to get at least some of the data from the unbootable drive?
Or, should I get a 2.5 to 3.5 ide adapter and actually slave the unbootable drive inside the desktop tower?
Or try both?
Thanks
Hey I have a laptop harddrive that i want to recover data. I tried to set the master harddrive as master, and the laptop as slave but it says cannot boot and gives me an error. Is there a way to hook the laptop as a slave?
Hi, need help!
I run XP pro. It got corrupted and as usual I had not backed up my documents.
I have made it a slave drive. Iv’e got all info. Except the stuff i have in my documents. I am unable to get into this part.
Paul the reason you can not get into the files is that you do not have proper permission on that folder. You will need to take control of the folder in order to gain access to the data.
The following link explains how from microsoft to do that.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421
My computer PSU recently blew taking the MOBO along with it so i got a new computer and i attempted to install the harddrive form my old computer as a master and the new computers harddrive as a slave but it failed. When i booted it it displayed the blue screen and said their might be a problem with a new harddrive that i installed so i had to slave the old one. Is their anyway i can make my old one the master and still have the new one as a slave? any help will be much appreciated (both drives are running win xp home if that helps)
I am going to slave a hard drive that I need to recover. It’s in a computer that fails once the password screen comes up. It’s running XP Pro. Once I slave over the HD will I need to load anything or will it recognize the slave. Both HD’s are in computers running XP Pro
Went to site worked a treat thanks!!!!
I have a five year old emachine T1742 with a newer 300GB Samsung HDD PATA running XP. The HDD has a lot of data and photo files. the mobo on the emachine blew (according to the pc-shop) so I bought a new Acer with a 160GB SATA HDD and Vista Home Basic. The new mobo has a PATA connection and power (different for the SATA dive) that works for the old HDD. However, when I set it up to run with the new system, it shows up as an F drive and Vista wants to format the drive (which I think will wipe it). IS there another way to get the files of the old drive?
My computer quit working and was old so I just bought a new computer. I pulled out the old Hard Drive and bought and external hard drive case to hook it up via USB to get all my files and pictures off the old drive. Everything hooked up fine and the drive opens up and all the files are there but when I try to open them it says I do not have access privileges.
Does anyone know how I can get around this so I can just transfer all the files to my current hard drive and just reformat the external one.
I know some about computers but not all the real technical stuff.
Can anyone help me??
Question… I’ve got a corrupt hard drive. The dreaded BSOD popped up, I’m running XP Professional. When I tried to do a repair, using the XP Professional disk, the XP Windows Installation partition is listed as “Unknown”. If I try to repair, the repair mechanism doesn’t work because there is no partition listed as XP. I even tried to use the AWR…got to a DOS prompt, but the C:\ drive doesn’t show in the choices and won’t allow me to CD to it…
My computer crashed and it was running windows 98 and I want to slave it to my laptop. My laptop is currently running Vista and I wanted to know if it would be compatible before I go out and buy an enclosure. Please Help!! Thanks
Jennifer,
Yes you can put a Win 98 drive in an enclosure and use Vista. If you are unable to pull data off, we have software that will do it. Feel free to call us at 727-251-2058 if you need support.
Hi I have a new vista machine that windows is corupt. I don’t want to loose the data. I have an external SATA drive that I put the drive in and attached the external drive to an xp pro machine. The drive shows up as the e drive but it wants to format the drive. Is there a way to get at the data? Can you help?
I have a Maxtor one touch mini (120 GB). I was loading video to it and I believe that I put more data than I had memory. The memory is full and shows I have no free space. When I connect the USB cable, it recognizes it as a hard drive(but in no longer says Maxtor) When I click on it, I get “error: the file or directory is corrupted and unavailable” How can I retrive that data from this sytem.? Will the slave process work with this type of external HD?
Thank you
I have ran the seaTools for Windows on the previous Maxtor external drive.
Short DST-Pass
Short Generic- Pass
Long DST-Pass
Long Generic-
I assume that there is hope for retreiving the data with the above diagnodtics.
Your thoughts?
What are the results of the test outlined above? Pass?/Fail? In regards to the Maxtor above the USB device will get recognized in Windows. You can go to computer management and see if the drive it self is being detected at all. If the drive is not detected then you may have some type of mechanical hard drive malfunction.
Tthe drive passed all the tests without issue. could you walk me through the computer management assessment?
Thank you for your quick response
Sure the quickest way is to right mouse click on my computer. You will see an option box appear. One of the options will manage, click on manage. This will open the computer management console. One of the options in the console is Disk Management, click on that. If you drive is working (mechanically) you should see it there. You will see your boot drive, it will show partitions and the file system type. If your drive has some type of major file system problem it may show up as “unknown”. Good luck.
PS: Follow up to previous post: If your drive is recognized in disk management you can use data recovery software to pull the files off to another drive. You can use any of our data recovery software demos to see if the data is retrievable. If you can see the files with the software you can purchase after it has been confirmed that the data is recoverable.
it does see the HD (even now says Maxtor), however does not have a file system–it is blank. It mentions that I have 111 GB of space available–not good since it was nearly full when it was working properly. the properties tab, says that everthing is working properly, Very weird.
Thanks for all your help with this, your thoughts?
Based on your diags I would say you have some type of logical failure. Windows is unable to read the file system for some reason ( perhaps a bad boot or partition sector etc. ); therefore, Windows will show this drives physical size or max lba sectors but will not show the data on the drive. So this is good new you have a green light to use some good data recovery software like RIA or DART to recover the data. The only caution flag I have to through is to watch for read errors or noises starting to come from the drive. In some cases the drive can not proprigate to file system because the heads inside the drive are starting to fail. If you experience read errors or noises such as clicking stop what your doing and contact a professional.
Good Luck
Dave
Dart XP worked great and recovered all of my files!!!!! Is there a way to erase the external hardrive and reformat so that it can be used again?
I would have not been able to do this if you had not helped me diagnose the problem.
Sure go back into computer management then to disk management. Right click on the drive and create a new partition then format the drive. I recomend a full format as to a quick. A full format will reallocate or remove any bad sectors it does take a lot longer but may be worth the time. I am glad to have helped…
Dave
can i slave hard drive on my notebook?
i read above that slaving a windows xp pro hard drive to a win 98 computer might not work. is there a way around this? my win xp pro hard drive is fine, it’s just my processor died so i need another computer to access the data. my only other computer runs win 98, and i want to slave it to this computer. i’m just worried that it might erase data if i try to slave it. any help would be appreciated. thanks
jhazeph,
Yes you can, in fact later today I am posting a video on how to slave a laptop hard drive to a USB enclosure. Stay tuned!
peter,
No it is not going to work.. I should not erase the drive but it will not be readable by Windows 98. The reason is that the drive is going to be formatted NTFS, which Windows 98 will not be able to see. Your best bet, and what I tell alot of customers is to get your self an external USB chassi (walmart has them) and put the drive in that. Then you can take it to any friends house and plug it in.. just like you would a camera card or a thumb drive.
i see jacqui. thanks for your reply. i will look into that. i was also told that i could try downloading an ntfs software onto my win 98 computer that will allow me to read the win xp pro hard drive. is this true, and is there any risk of losing data if i do this?
and about the ntfs software, i tried searching for some softwares online, but i’m not sure which website to trust, so if you think this method is ok, would you be able to help me select the correct software?
Peter,
I am forwarding your question to Jacqui, but I think she is gone for the day. There are Linux OS’s that you can run off of a CD. Here is a post from Jacqui on BART PE data recovery.
Michael
thank you michael. i’ll read the post while i wait for jacqui’s reply.
Peter,
Let me look into software to allow you to read an ntfs partition. I dont want to steer you in the wrong direction. Michael I correst you could make a Bart PE CD, and the blog explains how to do it, and you should be able to transfer data between the hard disks and it would not cause any more issus with the disk. I will post again tomorrow some readers for ntfs, and try and be sure they will not harm your data.
Peter,
After further research I do not feel safe having you use one of the programs that allow Windows 98 to read a NTFS partition. The only wone that seemed to be any good at doing it was by systernals and they are not supporting it or even offering it anymore. Alot that I read says that doing this can corrupt the NTFS volume. So I would say that either making a bartPE CD (which you need access to a machine running windows XP) or to plug your drive into another computer.
thanks jacqui. about the softwares corrupting the ntfs volume, that is the case even if i am only reading data from it, not reading and writing? is there a way to slave it to a laptop that runs win xp pro? if not, as a last resort i think i may try to buy an external usb case (like from http://www.geeks.com/products_sc.asp?cat=1029). this does not run any risks, does it?
Hi folks.. Windows ME became corrupt, and could no longer access ms-dos, nor the START button, nor many other OS functions.. I tried reloading the OS over itself into the same folder but that didn’t work, and now I cannot boot the machine. So much for my great ideas!
I like the computer, which has a P4 processor, parallel port, usbs, floppy, and CD burner. I just want to pull my datafiles off the 40G EIDE 7200rpm drive. I don’t think there is any physical problem with the drive.
Bought a 320GB Seagate barracuda (70 bucks!). I figure this will be my new C drive, on which I will load a legal copy of XP Pro which I own from the purchase of an ill-fated Dell. (Cracked motherboard or no, they won’t take ‘em back after 30 days!)
I then intend to slave the old drive, copy all the datafiles onto the new C drive, and then either just junk the 40G, or reformat it and leave it in as a slave.
Questions: is there a better way to go about it? Will there be any problem with different file formats? Will the presence of a corrupt ME on the slave disk cause a problem, before I can pull off the datafiles?
Strange as it sounds, I’d be happy to simply have the old 40G system working again under ME, and forget the upgrade.
TIA for your help!
Is it possible to install keyboard and mouse drivers on an enslaved hard drive? or would i have to back up my files and then reinstall my OW?
Hi Guys
Big problem with my hard drive. I have an error code 1000-0146 doing a Google search on this code shows that Im in big trouble. I took my laptop to my I.T. department at work who are pretty good. They removed the hard drive and tried to access it from another PC. The good news is the drive is spinning. The worst news of all is the PC wont recognise it. Well we gave it about five mins and nothing came up. I would have thought by now it should have.
I really need to get some email address from the hard drive and some holiday pics. I kept thinking I need to do a back up but tomorrow always seemed more appropriate. Do the back up now! Is what I should have done.
So the question is Im going to build the laptop back up with a new hard drive. Once this is done buy the wire thing that connects my old one to the new one. What else do I need to be able to get into the drive. The I.T. guy said he would look at it for me but I dont want him or any one else going through my files. I have a few bank account passwords on there and also all my sites passwords and stuff. I need to get access to this. Plus my first holiday away with the girlfriend would be nice.
So what are the steps an idiot needs to take to access the files? Or does it need to be taken to an expert?
Thanks
James
James,
Like you said in your comment, the bad news is the drive isn’t being recognised. Once you build out your laptop with the new hard drive you could see if your old drive is seen by your laptop. Here is a link to our instructions along with a video on How To Slave A Laptop Hard Drive To A USB Enclosure.
If your damaged hard drive can’t be seen, then it has to go to a data recovery company like ours. We take our clients privacy very seriously. We often do work for the government and military where security is of prime concern. Feel free to call us for a no obligation quote. Our services are no data no charge so you only pay if we recover your files - and they work!