How can I retreive my data? Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

[Tom Okey]

Hello,
I read another post about retreiving HD information but I could not get my computer to read my old HD when I connected it as the Slave.

I'm new to this site so let me explain what happened.
I had an older emachine and it froze up on me the only way I could shut it off was to turn off the power strip. When I turned the machine on the front light kept twitching like it was trying to boot but the lights never went to the A: drive or the cd drive and nothing ever came up on the monitor.

So I bought another emachine ( it was a discontinued model from Best Buy for 250.00. I couldn't pass it up).

Anyway, I didn't think that my hard drive had been effected (just a gut feeling) so I connected it up to my new machine as the slave but I could not see the other computer on "My computer" to transfer the files.

When I went to the Device Manager and clicked on Disk Drives there were two listed and when I checked the properties of each Device Status stated that both were working properly.

Both computers use Windows XP Home addition. The computer that went out was a "T2245" machine and the new macine is a "T3120."

I hooked the old hard drive up to the new computer as the slave. The new computer also has one DVD/CD-RW combo. There are no other drives on the new computer.

I sure hope someone can help me retreive my data.
I don't want to leave this HD in the computer. After I get some of my old files I will take it out and and another CD writer from the old computer.

Thanks in advance.
Tom

[bookworm]

Originally Posted by Tom Okey

Hello,
I read another post about retreiving HD information but I could not get my computer to read my old HD when I connected it as the Slave.

I'm new to this site so let me explain what happened.
I had an older emachine and it froze up on me the only way I could shut it off was to turn off the power strip. When I turned the machine on the front light kept twitching like it was trying to boot but the lights never went to the A: drive or the cd drive and nothing ever came up on the monitor.

So I bought another emachine ( it was a discontinued model from Best Buy for 250.00. I couldn't pass it up).

Anyway, I didn't think that my hard drive had been effected (just a gut feeling) so I connected it up to my new machine as the slave but I could not see the other computer on "My computer" to transfer the files.

When I went to the Device Manager and clicked on Disk Drives there were two listed and when I checked the properties of each Device Status stated that both were working properly.

Both computers use Windows XP Home addition. The computer that went out was a "T2245" machine and the new macine is a "T3120."

I hooked the old hard drive up to the new computer as the slave. The new computer also has one DVD/CD-RW combo. There are no other drives on the new computer.

I sure hope someone can help me retreive my data.
I don't want to leave this HD in the computer. After I get some of my old files I will take it out and and another CD writer from the old computer.

Thanks in advance.
Tom

have a word with these guys, I think it's because the T2245 was an Intel board and the T3120 is an AMD, they may be able to help http://www.h-kon.net/forums/


Cheers

[Tom Okey]

Thank You Barbara!
I will try the site.

Tom

[plthayer]

As long as they are both IDE hard drives then the motherboard chipset would have nothing to do with it at all. Your drive won't show up as another computer but just a new drive letter in My Computer on windows.

So instead of having the typical C and D if you just had a hd and cdrom you would have C, D, and E. The cd would automatically be moved to E so D should be your drive.

If you don't see that the partition may be damaged on the old drive since you just shut it off in the middle of it running. In that case it's harder to get data from the drive.

[Tom Okey]

Thanks everyone! For all your help.

I have fixed the problem and retrieved all my data. My eye surgery also went well and I can now see out of my left eye again. I just have to put in eye drops for a couple of weeks.

I set up my old HD as the slave and I could not see it on my computer (I had the jumpers set as CR). I could see the drive on the Disk Manager but it would not let me assign a drive letter to it. The only option when I right clicked the drive was to "Delete Partition" which I wasn't about to do at this stage. So I tried to put the drive on the cable with my CD Rom. First as a slave then as the Master and both resulted in the same out come I had when I set it up as a Slave HD as stated above.

So then I tried all the positions stated above again with the jumpers set as Slave. I got the same results.

I had read on one of the sites (sorry, I can't give credit to them but I could not find the post again) that if I had "Go Back" on my old HD that my new computer would not see it that it would be invisible. Well I could see it but I didn't have a drive letter so I figured that was the reason I could not access it or see it in "My Computer." Wrooooooong!! So as a last resort I thought I would hook up my old HD to the new computer and disconnect the new hard drive. I new the drivers on the old HD would not run my new computer hardware put I thought it couldn't hurt anything so I tried it. Well the first thing that pops up is "GO Back" and it gives me about five options and I decided to take the option to "Disable Go Back" in hopes that what I had read before was correct. Then it said that it would have to erase all the Go Back saved files so I opted to do so. That actually took about 10 minutes. After wards I could not boot up the computer with the old HD hooked up but I wasn't surprised. So again I hooked up the old HD as the slave and of course put the original new HD that came with the new computer back as the Master. When I rebooted the machine there in the Disk Manager was my "F" drive. So now I was home free....Wrooooong again!

Now I could not access my files because I had a different user account with a password on my desktop and files then my wife did. But I was able to reboot in safe mode (using F8 for those who don't know) and go in as the administrator and take control of the files. Actually I took control of the whole "F" HD so I would have everything covered at one time.

Sorry this was so lengthy but I wanted to expain everything for the benefit of the people reading this who might have the same problem now or in the future.

Thanks again to everyone for your help and support!
Tom

[Genjox]

Wow 0_o I've had the same problem with an old computer of mine for years. It's been sitting there doing nothing cuz I couldn't fix it. Now I've got everything off the old HD that I needed. Thanks for the link and advice, you made my day !