Getting stuff off old Hd

[McAvoy]

My laptop motherboard went bad a month ago. Got a new computer with Windows 7. I bought an enclosure for the hard drives out of my laptop. My old laptop had two hard drives one with Osand the other as storage. The one with the OS I cannot get the drove to be read by computer. First try it was reading only the Recovery and second try it wanted to be reformatted

Is there anything I can do? I want the info on that drive.

[Nutso]

My laptop motherboard went bad a month ago. Got a new computer with Windows 7. I bought an enclosure for the hard drives out of my laptop. My old laptop had two hard drives one with Osand the other as storage. The one with the OS I cannot get the drove to be read by computer. First try it was reading only the Recovery and second try it wanted to be reformatted

Is there anything I can do? I want the info on that drive.

Take it to a PC repair shop.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

My laptop motherboard went bad a month ago. Got a new computer with Windows 7. I bought an enclosure for the hard drives out of my laptop. My old laptop had two hard drives one with Osand the other as storage. The one with the OS I cannot get the drove to be read by computer. First try it was reading only the Recovery and second try it wanted to be reformatted

Is there anything I can do? I want the info on that drive.

It seems the issue is that Windows can't read the data on C:. There are sneaky ways to get to that without paying for recovery software, which can involve (strangely enough) Linux. Let's take Ubuntu for the sake of convenience; the Ubuntu installation DVD has what's called a "live CD" mode, where it will let you run the OS off the DVD without actually installing to disk. As it happens, Ubuntu has support for NTFS (the Windows filesystem) and can sometimes read drives Windows itself cannot. The .iso is available free from Ubuntu.com, which can then be burned onto a blank DVD (or loaded on a flash drive if that's more convenient). Boot off the Ubuntu media, select TRY Ubuntu instead of Install when given the choice, and give it a go.

[McAvoy]

I am trying to understand what you are talking about but how do you get stuff off of the old hard drive onto the new computer. Keep in mind this has the Windows Vista OS on it and it is in a external enclosure. A friend right now is trying to get it to work but it is seriously freezing up his computer.

[Captain Picard's Hair]

I am trying to understand what you are talking about but how do you get stuff off of the old hard drive onto the new computer. Keep in mind this has the Windows Vista OS on it and it is in a external enclosure. A friend right now is trying to get it to work but it is seriously freezing up his computer.

Alright. Start with the .iso, from here:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/ ... ase=latest

Download to disk and burn to a DVD. If you have Windows 7 on the new laptop, you can right-click the iso once the download is complete and select "burn to disk." You'll need a blank DVD. If the new laptop has an older Windows, any disk burning software will do it. Cdburnerxp is a free example (make sure to uncheck any offers for additional software in the installation process)

Once you have the DVD, restart the laptop with the DVD in the drive. Depending on the make and model there is a different key to press to get to a boot menu (a menu where you can select a device to boot from). The splash screen on start-up sometimes lists this information (Press --- for boot menu, may be stated on the bottom of the screen when you see the boot logo).

Otherwise

Dell uses F12
HP F9 or ESC
Gateway F10
Toshiba F12

You should then see Ubuntu start to load. Eventually it comes to a screen that gives you a choice: to try Ubuntu or Install. DO not install! Click "Try Ubuntu" and the Ubuntu desktop loads from the DVD (without changing anything on the hard drive).

The Ubuntu desktop looks like this:



The bar on the left hand side of the screen has a selection of links, the first one on top with a home icon takes you to the file explorer. You should see a pane on the left-hand side which shows drives. You can plug in the external drive and it should appear here. If this trick works, you will be able to see the files. The internal drive on the laptop will also appear in the pane. Use this like Windows Explorer to copy files over.

Once done, reboot and remove the DVD, and the files will be there in your laptop.

If Ubuntu can't read the external drive, there are a couple of other suggestions I can make.

[McAvoy]

I actually have a desktop but anyway the old hard drive is causing some issues with the computer itself. It is recognized and all but beyond that it's freezing the computer itself. Will this bypass that issue?

[Captain Picard's Hair]

I actually have a desktop but anyway the old hard drive is causing some issues with the computer itself. It is recognized and all but beyond that it's freezing the computer itself. Will this bypass that issue?

Possibly, though a hard drive causing a system to freeze or hang can be a sign of a damaged hard drive. You may have to be patient; even if you can read the data from a failing drive it can be frustrating and slow to get it off.

[McAvoy]

I don't think it's damaged it doesn't sound like it at least.

We will call that Plan C. Plan A was Clonezilla. Plan B is giving it to my cousin to work on. Plan D... will be Frisbee time.

[McAvoy]

My cousin is working on it right now. He has to fix the boot log which is causing issues with the hard drive when it is connected to a computer. Looks like it will take a few days to fix before we can even begin to start thinking about to get stuff off of the old hard drive.

[McAvoy]

OK I got the hard drive back. The boot log was corrupted and turns out it might still be damaged in some way. The hard drive csn handle only one file big or small at a time.

Any suggestions? I could do a single file at a time but I got 9,000 songs along let alone other stuff.