Battle of the hard drive

[Chriz]

Having recently lost the ability to beam myself into a grid, zap myself into the computer & fix the problem myself by throwing blue disks of light about, I need some advice......
I had a computer with loads of photos on it & xp as the system. The computer went pop so I removed the hard drive & stuck it in a box with the intent of plugging it into my new one & transfering the photos.
When I connect the hard drive, the computer tells me it can't read it & asks me if I want it formatted.
Is there an easyway of retrieving all the files off it without
a) A hammer
b) Having to remortgage the house to pay a company to do it?
c) Having to remorgtgage the house to buy software to do it?
I know I should have copied everything onto CD..that'll teach me.
Chris/z

[turbanator]

Is the computer you're plugging the disk into an old O/S? (Pre Win 2k?)

r
Paul

[MATTBIN]

Assuming the 'new' computer has an existing hard drive, does the other disk (the one with the photos) need any jumpers/switches set to tel the 'new' pooter its a second/slave disk? I seem also to recall from many moons ago that the eprom knows the format of the disk it already has in place i.e. sectors and tracks stuff, so slipping in another disk requires that to be updated, if the old disk doesnt match the installed disk may that cause an issue?
This info is a long way in the back of my brain and its hurting to drag it out.

Matt

[Cussy]

As the incompatible OSes has already been suggested, what if the hard drive is buggered in some way?

Right I had a HDD go tits up when I accidently switched off XP a little prematurely. I lost all my photos and was well annoyed. I searched the web and even got a mortgage sized quote for data recovery. I eventually stumbled on Restorer2000 (http://www.bitmart.net/r2k.shtml). If you download the free version you will find out if it will work, but then need the professional version to get your data back. Think it cost me $50, which was cheaper by about £500 of what I'd been quoted elsewhere. In the end I lost nothing.

Rob

[recurve]

Get a hard drive USB case off ebay for a few quid and stick the drive in it.

Had a similar problem with a laptop drive, where the laptop itself wouldn't read the drive, but running it as an external USB drive didn't cause any problems.

I would second the thought though, that you should ensure the jumpers are set so that it set up as a slave rather than master.

[Chriz]

Thanks for the help, being thick as a box of rocks,I've absolutley no idea what half of it means!

I checked the slave master switch things & put it in a USB box.
I think I'll format it & start again.

Thanks again

[recurve]

Bye bye photos

[Scuby]

Did you mention what OS you're using on the system you're using to recover it? If its not XP or 2000, chances are the problem is in the filesystem. XP & 2000 usually use NTFS, which Windows 98/ME/etc don't support. If that is the case, you need to find a friend with XP.

David

[StuartC]

trying to use the XP HDD as a bootable primary drive in another PC will probably be unsuccessful as XP builds a hardware list of components in the PC for drivers etc, so unless all the internal bits are the same between each PC then that could explain the problem of it not working.

set the disk to run as slave, and attach it as a secondary drive and you should be able to read it.

or go down the external USB case route.

if you've already had to reformat then bad luck, but now you need to sort out a backup solution so you don't lose stuff again!

if you've got good photos - signup for a photobucket account and share them with us!

[Chriz]

Both were XP,
The computer said all the files on the hard drive were RAW.
Anyhows, all cleaned up now, & it's given me a portable HD for photys on trips

Thanks to all for your help