My 7-ish year-old Windows box appears to have finally died. It just won’t boot up. I don’t think it’s the power supply, as the fans all run, and I can hear things whirring inside, but it just doesn’t boot. I may or may not try to fix that.
The problem is that, like so many people, I had not adequately backed up all the data that I really needed to. I’ve got the really critical stuff backed up to an external USB hard drive for use on other machines, but there’s other data that I need to get out of the old box.
On the plus side, all the data I need to access was located on a second hard drive in the old machine (Windows and other applications were kept on a separate drive). I have no reason to think that the data drive is faulty or corrupted.
It’s a Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 120GB drive, which connects via Ultra ATA. A quick look through NewEgg’s web site didn’t reveal any external enclosures which use this connection (most are eSATA or SATA, with a few IDE). So, a few questions:
[ol]
[li]Is anyone aware of an external drive enclosure that I could use to access this HD via another machine?[/li][li]If such an enclosure exists, would I be able to use it with a Mac, or would it only be accessible to a Windows box?[/li][li]If I buy a new Windows machine to replace the existing one, would appropriate connections and software likely be available on the machine to install this Ultra ATA hard drive?[/li][/ol]
I can’t help but fear that I’ll have to find some type of data recovery service or other third-party and pay them to off-load the data. Any and all advice is welcome.
No idea, but after some further Googling (why do I always do that after I post a question), it appears that Ultra ATA and IDE are compatible technologies, so that I could use any IDE external enclosure. Can anyone confirm this?
Get one of these, $13. It will connect to a SATA or a IDE drive and feed data thru a USB port. I use them all the time.
Only thing you need is power for the drive (the adapter doesn’t supply that). Run a cable from the computer – extensions are cheap if you need one to reach. Then you don’t need an external drive enclosure.
I can DISconfirm it. They use different connectors, for one. The gadget I linked to has both kinds of connectors, one on each side of the circuit board. (You can’t use them both at once, just one at a time.)
Now that I’ve spent more than a glance looking at the link, I suppose that would work for installing the drive in another Windows machine, should that be the route I choose. Thanks for the link.
Assuming that’s the case, I’ve never met a mobo that couldn’t handle at least two hard drives. It’ll likely have two IDE ports, but if it doesn’t just get a cable with a master and slave IDE plug on it and set the jumpers accordingly.
My hard drive partially failed a few months ago–something about a regulator on the drive itself. I replaced it and the slaved the old drive and was able to retreive the data off it.
Then I gave the old drive to my 12 year-old and instructed him to retrieve the magnets. kept him busy for a couple hours.
Actually, it looks like it comes boxed with a power supply, so that’s definitely a possibility. I will likely go with an enclosure though, as I have a bit of an urgent need, and I can probably grab one locally.
Thanks for the suggestion, though. Definite possibility.
carlb, a new motherboard or computer is likely to have more than one SATA socket (mine has 6, but I don’t know if that is typical. It probably has at least 2-4). Each one uses a separate cable. So yes, you can connect your old drive to a spare SATA socket and copy from/to it. The drive letter may have changed, no big deal.
How about compatibility with a Mac? Since it’s only data, will I be able to get that off using a Mac, or will I need a Windows machine since the drive came from a Windows box?
There’s a decent chance that the computer you’re copying things to has an IDE interface, even if it has PATA. I’d check before shelling out for an IDE enclosure that you’ll basically use once.
This all assumes the old computer doesn’t power on at all. No words at all on the monitor when you turn it on? (Memory test, keyboard test, etc.)
Because if you can boot up the old computer with a different hard drive, that’s the easiest solution.
Now that I think about it, you’re right, there is a power supply included. The reason I don’t use that is it’s just more clutter on the desk and more wires to route to an AC outlet. My computers never have their tops on, so it’s more convenient for me to reach in and grab a molex that isn’t being used. It works either way.
I’m quite a fan of those $13 adaptors. One of the handiest gadgets in my toolbox.
IDE and SATA are not compatible electrically. But the drive sizes aren’t necessarily different. A simple box enclosure would work if no connectors are involved, but why not get the correct one?
I have limited experience with Macs. I do know that a very new model of Mac was mystified by a NTFS-formatted drive I had until I reformatted it to FAT32, and all PCs will now use NTFS, so beware or wait til a Mac expert comes along. Look, I see one now! 1…2…3…
I’m not a Mac expert, but OS X 10.4 and newer can read either NTFS or FAT32. Writing data is a different issue, but here, the goal is scraping off whatever can be retrieved then destroying the drive.
If one really wants to write to an NTFS volume, there are third-party utilities that make it possible.
Even if it’s read-only, being able to mount a non-booting Windows PC’s drive on the Mac is handy for data recovery. Most non-boot problems I’ve met are software-based where Windows itself got clobbered by a virus or someone thought they knew what they were doing and wrecked the Registry. Neither makes any difference on a Mac - just fire it up and navigate to the “My Documents” directory.
Forgive my Mac ignorance, but your reply makes me wonder if you are familiar with PC conventions…the registry has nothing to do with reading a NTFS or FAT32-formatted drive. And why would anyone want to navigate to the My Documents dir unless they had data stored there? I have over 10 TB in 5 drives online and narry a My Documents dir in sight.
I’m quite familiar, and I’ve seen many PCs go belly-up due to damaged Registries. You don’t need a Registry to read a drive, but you definitely need one to boot Windows.
As My Documents is the default place Windows puts user data, that’s the logical first place to look. Most people have no reason to depart from this convention.
You’ll get no disagreement from me on either of those matters. But I know that if I find anything at all in the My Documents folder, it’s because some rogue program put it there, not me. Imagine what disorganization I would have if I used a single folder for my ~750,000 online files (and I have seen people do just that).
