accessing a used second hard drive

smacg

I recently took my old hard drive out of my no longer working Vista PC. When I connect it to my new Windows 8 PC it shows up in Explorer but I get an error with location is not available and the drive is not accessible, it just shows as NTFS. Would this mean I need to format it? I wanted to access the files that were on it so would this wipe everything? Anyone any idea, thanks.

riclad

try this,http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk




http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

go to control panel,administration, storage ,
see does it show up ,
does it have any partitions, ?

try go to start ,programs, dos prompt,
after selecting cmd prompt, enter:
fixmbr e:

where old drive is drive e

and fixboot e:
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/termsf/p/fixboot.htm

belcampprisoner

buy a harddrive case


http://www.pixmania.ie/ie/uk/8936860/art/advance/magik-bx-302bk-3-5-extern.html


or try this




http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-25457-vista-doesn-t-recognise-2nd-sata-hard-drive


you might have to download program from your harddrive maker


don't format drive

whitesands

riclad wrote: »

try go to start ,programs, dos prompt,
after selecting cmd prompt, enter:
fixmbr e:

where old drive is drive e

and fixboot e:
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/termsf/p/fixboot.htm

I'm not sure that's advisable, if the drive is from an old non working machine the mbr is irrelevant, it's only the files he wants.

I'd view the drive from a linux machine myself to see if it's properly accessible.
Definitely DO NOT format, you'll be talking data recovery then & most probably lose everything.

belcampprisoner wrote: »

or try this

http://en.kioskea.net/forum/affich-25457-vista-doesn-t-recognise-2nd-sata-hard-drive

I've never used Win8 but the suggestions on the above link seem plausible to me if you don't have linux.

excollier

You only need a live linux disc to boot from, not a linux computer.
Download and burn this to a cd, or usb stick:
http://partedmagic.com/doku.php#.UYi2QqpEwg2
then boot from it, and you can explore any connected drive/storage.

riclad

TRY program above,
or
http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=38
use imgburn free program to burn iso, file to cdr at 2x speed.

PUT in the cddrive, reboot pc, it loads linux into memory,
looks abit like windows .
browse to drive e ,or f, eg old hardrive,

excollier

Linux will name the drives / partitions sda1, sda2 for your main hard drive and then sdb, sdc etc for extra or external attached drives. Also it usually denotes the drive's size.
Here's how my hard drive, with partitions appears with GParted which is the main tool in linux for formatting/partitioning and data rescue. it's a graphical representation of how the drive is divided up.

smacg

thanks very much excollier and everyone for their suggestions. I tried PartedMagic and it worked a treat.

For anyone in the same boat, I found the following link useful for easily creating a USB stick to run it from
http://www.pendrivelinux.com/usb-parted-magic-flash-drive-creation-windows/#more-1746
It seems a bit blurry for a while after it has loaded, not sure why, but it does clear up and is not to difficult to use. For anyone using Window 8, in BIOS you may need to disable Secure Boot Control and then change Boot Mode to Legacy so you can then boot from the USB Storage Device.
Thanks again.

excollier

Glad to hear it worked for you. Linux does things Windows doesn't even know about...