Community Newsletter: Q&A: 6/10/05 Trouble accessing old hard drive in new computer
- 6/9/05 12:46 PM
Another Possible Problem
by edll - 6/10/05 5:44 AM In reply to: 6/10/05 Trouble accessing old hard drive in new computer by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
If you have Norton (previously Roxio) GoBack installed the drive will not show up properly. The only way to access the drive then would be to take out the new drive, make the old one the master, when the GoBack screen shows up at start up hit the spacebar, click the button to disable GoBack, let it do its thing, shut down, make the old drive the slave again, put back the new drive (making sure its pinned as master) and start up the computer. Good Luck.
A Note of Caution
by PAULBOT - 6/10/05 5:48 AM In reply to: 6/10/05 Trouble accessing old hard drive in new computer by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Everything Miguel stated is excellent advice. I am only adding on a note of caution re: the idea of copying the old hard drive's files to the new system. They might contain viruses, worms, etc., that could have caused the original perceived "death" of the first drive. What is missing here is that original status report about that "death".
6/10/05 Trouble acessing old hard drive in new computer
by comier9557 - 6/10/05 5:56 AM In reply to: 6/10/05 Trouble accessing old hard drive in new computer by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi All,
if all want u have read still haven't help, theirs a program call "ntfs utility" which will let you access all files on old hard and be able to copy them to new hard drive in dos, w boot floppy disk. I have use it plenty of time and have save my butt.
well, i hope this and all of the information has help u.
comier957
6/10/05 Trouble acessing old hard drive in new computer
by comier9557 - 6/10/05 6:02 AM In reply to: 6/10/05 Trouble acessing old hard drive in new computer by comier9557oh by the way, i had just thought of something. depending on the hd, u can use the software for it, like maxtor powermax, dataguard for westerndigital, and seagate has it own. u can only access these programs thru a bootable floppy when u dl the files from their own website, or make a bootable cd with their iso, if any applicable.
from within the software u can test it thru many test.
90% of mine drives are maxtor, with a few wd and two seagates.
I just thought i would throw out that information for you and anyone to use.
later comier957
2-Trouble accessing old hard drive in new computer
by cesareDH - 6/10/05 6:12 AM In reply to: 6/10/05 Trouble accessing old hard drive in new computer by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
If the old HDD has the operating system it, wouldn't that create a conflict?
No it would not. . .
by techtype - 6/10/05 9:35 AM In reply to: 2-Trouble accessing old hard drive in new computer by cesareDHNo it wouldn't. I know because on all of my own computers I have put the Windows OS on both Master and slave on IDE and have not had any problem. Especially on brand new virgin drives. When I format the slave, I format it with the system files (which makes it boot able if need be) included. Then I set up the BIOS (especially the newer main/motherboards) to look at "C" drive, then the "CD" drive, then "D" drive. If everything is all right it should boot up on one of those. So to answer the question, it would not matter even if the second drive was formatted with the system files, there should not be a problem.
Hope this helps, Rick
http://www.rickswebfactory.com/
Unrecognized hard drive
by dws22450 - 6/10/05 6:15 AM In reply to: 6/10/05 Trouble accessing old hard drive in new computer by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
My experience with installing an old hard drive was that the bios saw the drive, but XP didn't. After many trials, I hooked the old drive up to a new controller card and now the bios and XP can see the drive.
Hard disk problem
by gbswales - 6/10/05 6:59 AM In reply to: Unrecognized hard drive by dws22450the most likely cause (to my simple mind) is that it was not the old computer that died but the hard drive!
I had exactly the same problem with a friends computer when his died and I tried to recover software from it - disk manager saw it but would only allow formt.
I came to the conclusion that as it was a FAT32 drive (though on XP home) the most likely cause was the lost of the File Allocation Table or corruption of the same. Dont take it to a shop!!! if you are confident enough to install it in the first place download file scavenger trial version and run it to see what it could recover. If it brings up thousands of files then you are in business if not the the corruption may be at some lower level then I have ever sunk to. There is nothing to lose as the demo is free.
If it reports that it can recover then you can either fork out the $40 or so for the programme OR you can scout places like www.source-forge.net for an open source free solution (it should work but will be more complicated to use.
As a last resort - only if the data is really vital - it is possible to rent the kind of software the professional file recovery firms use. again I cant remember the source but I am sure someone will tell you and you can download a trial first - I once recoered 800 important files from a drive which had been re-partitioned, reformatted and had windows XP re-installed - three times. I reckon it reovered about 75% of the data from an 60gb hard drive
Whats the moral of this story? buy a nice large USB external drive and back up all your data every week at least - that way you could just reformat a dodgy drive and be up and running in an afternoon
Won't read old hard drive
by butchkarin - 6/10/05 6:19 AM In reply to: 6/10/05 Trouble accessing old hard drive in new computer by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
There is also a possibility that this could be a "handshake" problem. Some system manufacturers will only allow "approved" peripherals to operate with the system. This may include memory cards and hard drives. I first encountered this with a Compaq 386 purchased by the company I worked for many years ago. When I purchased a Compaq for my mother two years ago, I found that it is still their practice.
It is done for the purpose of reducing calls to customer service due to installation of incompatible hardware. The "approved" devices contain an encoded signal that must be read by the system in order for the device to be recognized. Use of a non-"approved" device is chancy as it may not function or function erratically. Also, these encoded handshakes are somewhat system/model dependent so even a device from an older model from the same manufacturer may not work with a new model. Obviously, the marketing people don't advertise the fact that you may not be able to upgrade their system after you purchase it. The manufacturer's website may contain warnings about only using certain models of drives and memory.
Handshakes and engineered incompatiability
by smfriedland - 6/10/05 9:35 AM In reply to: Won't read old hard drive by butchkarinWhile Compaq is easily the worst offender in the 'secret handshake' catagory of engineered incompatibility other vendors such as Sun do it also.
Miguel, I could have used your help last week! Great job
by tbear2004 - 6/10/05 6:23 AM In reply to: 6/10/05 Trouble accessing old hard drive in new computer by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
This was great advice! The first pc I built from scratch got a critical STOP error after I installed an old drive from another pc. With the help of ASUS(mobo manufacturer)I proceeded to completely rebuild my machine. First they insisted it was the memory, then it might be the case EM's & on & on. I guess computer support can be like practicing medicine. Eliminate possible causes one at a time until you find the culprit. In this case it was my hard drive w/8mb cache (OH! is that memory?). If I had had your advice instead of ASUS support I would have saved atleast 40 hrs of eliminating possible causes and the money I spent sending my mobo back to be fixed. What was the problem? I thought you would never ask! The jumper was set to master on the drive I took from my old pc. Oops, live and learn.
Identical problem
by mikelluria - 6/10/05 6:34 AM In reply to: 6/10/05 Trouble accessing old hard drive in new computer by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I solved it by changing BIOS to chose start-up of old brive (set up last as master and last in cable)
I'm used to MAC where I have both drives on my finder at all times. Is this going to be posible with my HP PC ? Do I have to change BIOS everytime I chose to use the other drive ?
As far as I remember. . . ?
by techtype - 6/10/05 7:36 AM In reply to: Identical problem by mikelluriaAren't Mac's SCSI? Unless the drives are IDE drives you are going to have problems. And even if they are you may very well have to reconfigure the jumpers on the back of the drive to make the drive as The "slave" drive (knowing HP the OS is going to be pre-installed, hence the "Master" drive in the new HP PC). The second most dangerous area (number one most dangerous area to me anyway is the "Windows Registry") of a computer system is the BIOS, in there you may have to set the drives to "Auto Detect". If the drives from the Mac are SCSI, there are a couple of ways to over come the problem.
1. Purchase a SCSI controller board (which can get to be a pain in the butt to configure, because you may have problems with IRQ Interrupts conflicting, I know did and that was with only IOMega controller board, which is a SCSI controller).
2. Buy a second drive (if your Mac drives are SCSI) and transfer via a cable (you have your choice of serial, parallel or via Cat5 or Cat6 cable) all the cables will have to be crossover type cables. Cat5 or Cat6 cables still will require a crossover as well. Here I am assuming that your Mac is NIC (Network Interface Card) equipped for broadband and for sure your PC will have a NIC. Transfer your data from the Mac to your new PC that away.
Hope this helps, Rick
http://www.rickswebfactory.com/
What if the old hard drive is external
by Clawinus - 6/10/05 6:39 AM In reply to: 6/10/05 Trouble accessing old hard drive in new computer by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
How would the scenario play out if the old hard drive is an external drive connected via USB?
Jumper and cable problems would not occur; but how would you make sure to get at the data on the new PC?
Did the old drive have "Overlay" software?
by Mac - 6/10/05 7:03 AM In reply to: 6/10/05 Trouble accessing old hard drive in new computer by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Several years ago it was common practice for "old computers" to get new, large hard drives and not be able to handle their large size. When this happened "BIOS overlay" software was added to the boot tracks of the hard drive. This BIOS overlay software can make your hard drive appear to need formatting as Windows is asking to do now. Could your old hard drive have been an addition to your old computer? Could it have BIOS overlay software? The overlay software is most likely from the drive manufacturer and they can help you to read the data thats "under" the overlay.
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