Rescuing Files From Old Hard Drives

@Asylum (47893)

• Manchester, England

10 May 16

I actually overlooked that option. Most enclosures these days will take either 2.5 inch or 3.5 inch drives, which are from laptop and desktop systems respectively.

3 people like this

Kevin

@kevin1877uk (36987)

•

10 May 16

@arthurchappell PC world sells enclosures for about £15-20.

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@arthurchappell (44941)

• Preston, England

10 May 16

@Rollo1 sounds like an option to consider too - thanks

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Scott Ganschow

@teamfreak16 (43599)

• Denver, Colorado

10 May 16

I have no idea how much, but I bet it's not cheap. My laptop needs a new screen lamp, and they want $169 to fix it. I can only imagine what they want to recover files.

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@Asylum (47893)

• Manchester, England

10 May 16

The screen on a laptop is the most expensive component. Have you considered using an external monitor?

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@Asylum (47893)

• Manchester, England

10 May 16

@teamfreak16 It is standard for laptops to be able to accommodate a monitor. The available ports may vary according to the age of the laptop, so check which outputs exist. There are several options, such as VGA, DVI or HDMI. Most laptops have some standard port, but adapters are available to attach a different type if required.

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Scott Ganschow

@teamfreak16 (43599)

• Denver, Colorado

10 May 16

@Asylum - Actually, no. I had no idea you could even do so until right now. I will have to check into it. Thanks for the heads up.

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@Asylum (47893)

• Manchester, England

10 May 16

I have no idea how to deal with a tablet hard drive due to the inordinate size and format, but a desktop or laptop computer should not be a problem. You could either remove the drive and pass it on to me, or extract it directly using a live Linux disk and flash drive.

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@arthurchappell (44941)

• Preston, England

10 May 16

@Asylum not sure how to remove the hard disk or even what it looks like inside the computer but happy to try getting it over to you if you can help - that would be awesome

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@Asylum (47893)

• Manchester, England

10 May 16

@arthurchappell I can fully understand your reluctance Arthur. It is not difficult, but unreasonable to ask of someone who is unfamiliar with computer hardware. It may be more prudent for me to come along with a Linux disk and flash drive to extract what is available. I fly to Malta at 6 AM tomorrow, so will not be around until next week, but will be happy to arrange something if it helps.

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@arthurchappell (44941)

• Preston, England

10 May 16

@Asylum that would be great - we can sort something out when you get back - enjoy your break

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AbbyGreenhill

@AbbyGreenhill (45490)

• United States

10 May 16

Years ago I had 162 viruses and the tech I went to was able to recover about 200 photos - many more and lots of documents were lost. Good luck.

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@arthurchappell (44941)

• Preston, England

10 May 16

@AbbyGreenhill good that they got some files back for you though

AbbyGreenhill

@AbbyGreenhill (45490)

• United States

10 May 16

@arthurchappell You got that right - once they got those photos I got a new Laptop and good anti-V!

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@DaddyEvil (174478)

• United States

11 May 16

Uhm... so neither machine can power up. Okay, that is still fairly simple. Remove the hard drive from your old desktop. (Do you currently own a new desktop?) Then you only need to check the new desktop to see if the included harness is already wired to accept a second hard drive. Even if it is not wired to accept a second drive, that is still fairly simple. Purchase a new drive cable (It should be about $15 on Amazon.com.) and fit the cable into your new desktop. From there you just change the old drive to slave instead of master and add it to the cable in the secondary slot. Power up your new desktop and access the second (old) drive. You can copy everything to the new hard drive or onto some other storage media. As for the tablet, it is harder to remove, but I will throw up a link here if you need it to explain how to remove it and another link here explaining how to use the same drive harness for it, too. Let me know. Good luck with this!

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@arthurchappell (44941)

• Preston, England

12 May 16

@DaddyEvil thanks - my current large laptop serves as a pc desktop at home - I have a small quite poor quality tablet now as well - still have the old one though no idea how to get in it - the old hard drive already has a second hard drive in it - the problem is that it won't receive power from the electricity and almost exploded when it frazzled out - I expect the hard drive itself is fine

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@arthurchappell (44941)

• Preston, England

13 May 16

@DaddyEvil the tablet is an ASUS Transformer pad - not sure how to extract the hard drive from the old desk-top - i don't have the right screw-drivers, etc to get the back off

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@DaddyEvil (174478)

• United States

13 May 16

@arthurchappell Uhm... okay, so what make and model tablet is the old one? I need to know that to be able to find/drop the correct link here to show you how to open and remove the hard drive from your tablet. I am confused. The hard drive from your defunct desktop isn't still IN the old desktop, is it? If so, remove it (and if there is a secondary hard drive in the defunct desktop) remove it, as well. Your large laptop may/may not have room for a secondary hard disk drive. That is okay, since it will still be able to power another drive after you have the extra harness so you can run the hard drives in series and retrieve whatever you need form that old drive. Thank you!

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