Need some help
Need some help
I just built a comp for a buddy of mine. After putting windows on and getting it all set up he wanted to put his old hd in and get the info off it. Unfortunatly I can't access the hd after windows boots. It shows in the bios and in disk management but it doesn't show a drive number in disk management and only give me the option to reformat it. Thats not really an option if he wants the info thats still on that old hd. Any ideas or suggestions would help.
-
noel
- Super Poster!
- Posts: 10003
- Joined: August 22, 2002, 1:34 am
- Gender: Male
- Location: Calabasas, CA
I don't think it's a security related issue, because normally you'd just not be able to browse it if that were the case, and you'd be able to take ownership of the whole thing and be good to go.
Out of curiosity is the old drive a SATA drive? Can you still boot the old drive in the old PC? Are you sure that the new motherboard is identifying the old drive with the correct cylinders and whatever else we used to have to put in (only applicable if the old PC required this to be configured)?
Do you have an external USB/SATA case lying around you can put the old drive in just to test it that way?
Those are the only things I can think of off the top of my head. Sorry you're having trouble.
Out of curiosity is the old drive a SATA drive? Can you still boot the old drive in the old PC? Are you sure that the new motherboard is identifying the old drive with the correct cylinders and whatever else we used to have to put in (only applicable if the old PC required this to be configured)?
Do you have an external USB/SATA case lying around you can put the old drive in just to test it that way?
Those are the only things I can think of off the top of my head. Sorry you're having trouble.
Oh, my God; I care so little, I almost passed out.
The new drive is sata the old one is ide. The bios reads the old drive correctly and so does disk management. I can't use his old system cause he fried the mb thats why he wanted a new one. I thought about just wiping it and trying to use some data recovery software but theres no guarantee that it will work.
I thought about just hooking up the old drive and trying to run the windows repair on it but its pw protected and he forgot the pw. If he remembers the pw I will probably try that but I'm really not wanting to loose the data on it.
I thought about just hooking up the old drive and trying to run the windows repair on it but its pw protected and he forgot the pw. If he remembers the pw I will probably try that but I'm really not wanting to loose the data on it.
If you are just trying to get the data I'm not sure what PW will keep that if it's not the boot drive... may be a 3rd party program.
However it's also likely that windows is seeing that drive as a drive letter that is already in use... so try this...
Install it and boot into windows, right click on My Computer and pull down to manage then do to the disk management area. It should pull up all the drives, if you see that drive see what drive letter it thinks it is and it may be one that is already in use, if so I think you can just right click and change drive letter to one that isn't being used. It will give you the standard MS warnings but just go ahead. If that's the case it will immediately show up
Marb
However it's also likely that windows is seeing that drive as a drive letter that is already in use... so try this...
Install it and boot into windows, right click on My Computer and pull down to manage then do to the disk management area. It should pull up all the drives, if you see that drive see what drive letter it thinks it is and it may be one that is already in use, if so I think you can just right click and change drive letter to one that isn't being used. It will give you the standard MS warnings but just go ahead. If that's the case it will immediately show up
Marb
-
noel
- Super Poster!
- Posts: 10003
- Joined: August 22, 2002, 1:34 am
- Gender: Male
- Location: Calabasas, CA
If the old drive is IDE, and the new one is SATA:
Make sure that the new IDE drive is the only thing on the channel (remove any optical drives just for the purposes of data recovery). Unlikely that's the issue, but then again this should be working for you anyway so worth a try.
I still say throw it into a USB enclosure and try to boot it.
Another test you could do would be to make the IDE drive the primary drive in the system just to see if you can get it to start booting into Windows. Obviously without a password you're not getting into the OS, but that would at least give you an idea if there is a problem with the data integrity. It should at least try to boot.
BTW: I assume you've already tried most of these things, but I'm just throwing out everything I can think of.
Make sure that the new IDE drive is the only thing on the channel (remove any optical drives just for the purposes of data recovery). Unlikely that's the issue, but then again this should be working for you anyway so worth a try.
I still say throw it into a USB enclosure and try to boot it.
Another test you could do would be to make the IDE drive the primary drive in the system just to see if you can get it to start booting into Windows. Obviously without a password you're not getting into the OS, but that would at least give you an idea if there is a problem with the data integrity. It should at least try to boot.
BTW: I assume you've already tried most of these things, but I'm just throwing out everything I can think of.
Oh, my God; I care so little, I almost passed out.
Yeah The old drive had norton go back on it and before windows can even come up it errors and then reboots so not way to try and boot from the old drive with out reparing windows on it but with out the pw I can't do that either. Unfortuntly I don't have an USB enclosure to use.
Its not a drive letter issue. The drive shows up but with out a drive letter at all. The only options avail in disk management for that drive is reformat. Its almost like its not reading the partion at all. I'm wondering if when his old mb went it fucked the drive up some.
Maybe I will get a few other ideas tomorrow.
Its not a drive letter issue. The drive shows up but with out a drive letter at all. The only options avail in disk management for that drive is reformat. Its almost like its not reading the partion at all. I'm wondering if when his old mb went it fucked the drive up some.
Maybe I will get a few other ideas tomorrow.
Well it seems windows can't repair it either cause it doesn't recognize the partition and will only let me reformat it. The more I mess with it the more I think the drive got fucked when the mb blew. I was hopeing to save the info on it but the more I mess with it the more unlikely that seems. Unless I can recover it with a data recovery program I think he is screwed as far as getting the data back.
Well after a few hours of messing around with it I figured I would pull out an old ass comp I had sitting in the closet that still worked hooked it up as a slave and the damn thing let me into the drive as a slave and copy the shit over. Thats one of the craziest damn things I have seen in awhile. I'm still pretty damn curious why it wouldn't let me into it on the new comp.