Transfering data from a drive with windows...

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Andy - Apr 28, 2010 at 09:57 AM
gadow21 Posts 13 Registration date Wednesday April 28, 2010 Status Member Last seen April 29, 2010 - Apr 28, 2010 at 11:50 AM
My desktop's motherboard crashed & I have a lot of important info on that hard drive.

I have another computer running XP as was the desktop that crashed & tried to put my old hard drive into an external drive but can't locate the data on it....

Is this because windows is also on the disk & so not allowing me to retrieve my data ??

Thank You
Andy

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gadow21 Posts 13 Registration date Wednesday April 28, 2010 Status Member Last seen April 29, 2010 3
Apr 28, 2010 at 11:50 AM
Having Windows installed onto a hard drive shouldnt matter as to why you cant view your data on the hard drive (HDD).

First, shut your computer off (the one that works). Check to see if both HDDs are installed on the same IDE wire. If they are, then check to make sure that the hard drive you are installing into this one is set as a slave and not master. Also, check the original HDD to make sure that its set to master. If they ARE NOT, then make sure whatever you have installed on that IDE wire is set to master, and this new HDD is set to slave. The only way you want this HDD to be master is if you have no other devices on that IDE wire. Most people have a HDD (Master), then a CDROM (slave) or a HDD on the primary IDE set to Master, and a CDROM on the secondary IDE also set to master.

When you are sure that your old hard drive is setup correctly, physically, then boot your machine and go into the BIOS. Run the drive auto detection that is in most BIOSs to see if your old hard drive was detected. If it wasnt, check your master / slave configurations again. If it was, save your settings, and boot into Windows. Now when you go to My Computer, the old drive should be listed. Most likely, it wont be D, it maybe E or even F.

Now you should be able to see the data and transfer it to your original system hard drive.
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