Files On Hard Drive Borked On Transfer?

I'm sorry if this is the wrong forum for this. My Gateway NE56R12U laptop was dying, so I had my local geek transfer all my files from the old hard drive to my new one. However, a lot of my files are not only missing, some of them are incomplete. I'm mainly concerned about my music files--entire songs have transferred as mere sound bytes, only a few seconds long. Why did this happen, and can my original files (MP3s) still be saved? Thanks in advance!

 

You need to hook up to the old drive again and see what is on there.

 

Can you please tell me how to do that? What kind of cables, etc do I need? Thanks!

 

Was this a business this "local geek" worked for? If so, tell him you want your money back.

As far as you being able to recover any data on the old drive, that depends on the condition of the old drive. Beyond that, you need to know what type of drive it is. The label should indicate if SATA or EIDE. Then you can get a SATA/EIDE to USB adapter.

 

No, just a friend who has his own business. He's kinda far, though, so I was hoping to do this myself. Thanks for the info!

 

Well, whether he charged you or not, I still think he should be told he did not provide satisfactory results - as a friend if he didn't charge you, and as a customer if he did.

 

Thanks again for the help. I can't tell from this label what kind of hard drive this is. Can you please help?

 

Remember, Google is your friend.

mk5059gsxp

 

No, YOU. As in, YOU are my friend! Thanks again!!

 

Hey, you can have two friends!

 

I got the cords in the mail today and I hooked up my hard drive, but I don't see any of my old MP3s on there! Is it possible they're still on my old laptop?

 

I think what you need to do is run some recovery software to recover the files that can't be seen. I hope someone with knowledge of such will point you in the right direction.
Good luck with the journey,
s.

 

I've had good luck with Recuva from the makers of CCleaner. That said, it is not likely you will be able to recover them all (or even any!). Missing files have a better chance of recovery than corrupt/damaged files. Since Recuva is free for home users, it is worth a try.

 

Thanks so much for all the advice. Recuva didn't work for me, so I downloaded Wise Data Recovery from here, and it was AMAZING! I'm sure I got more stuff off my old hard drive than my PC guy did, and in less time. And best of all, I GOT ALL MY MUSIC BACK!!! Everything else is gravy at this point. I can't thank you guys enough for your wise counsel and the link to cables I needed (I never would have figured that out on my own). Geeks rule!!

 

Odd that Recuva didn't help but Wise did. Either way, I am glad it worked and at this point, you are happy. Thanks for the followup.

 

Hi again! You guys were so wonderful helping me out last time, I was hoping if I could please impose upon your knowledge once again? I had an older desktop PC that I managed to get the hard drive out of, and I was wondering if you could please tell me what kind of cables I need to get so I can hook it up and get the info off it (like last time). I can't use the other cables 'cause this hard drive is bigger. Thanks in advance!

 

That's an IDE HDD. You need an IDE to USB connector.

 

Thank you! Can someone please provide a link to an example of what I need? The listings on Amazon are confusing to me--I don't see a power cord option for the IDE to USB connectors like there was for the other connector? Thanks again!

 

Invest in one of these. They are SATA and PATA (IDE) to USB connectors, for both 2.5 and 3.5 inch drives.
http://www.ebay.com/bhp/ide-to-usb

 

Great--thanks again! I'll let you know how it goes when the cables get here.