Possible Data Recovery?

Hi All,
Last week my puter died I took it to Data Doctors here in town and they said the power supply went and took out the mother board. They told me they may be able to get some data back off the hard drive but wanted way to much money. The puter was an E-Machine I have hooked up a Dell Dimension 3000 and was wondering if i could attempt to retrieve the data myself. Having never attempted anything like this before i'm a bit intimdated and am humbly asking for help in simple terms. I have never taken the back off a computer before except to clean it. I have taken the old drive out of the e machine and would like if possible just get the the programs i had on the desktop if nothing else. :cryconfused

Thanks in advance,
Dan

 

That's a shame, Dan. When the Emachines PSU fials it sometimes takes the mobo with it, usually accompanied by smoke. I have even seen real flames.

With regard to your hard drive, this should still be OK.
However it can be very tricky to get programs off, as they have to be installed which means writing entries into the operating system of the host computer.
Data files (word docs, pictures, music, stored games etc) produced by these programs should be no problem though.
There are some 'mover' programs that may move some of your programs to your new host pc if you are desperate but some will have to be reinstalled.

First though to get your drive going.

Remove the Dell power cord before you start.

You need to determine if it is a SATA or PATA (IDE) drive. This should be written on the label.

If it is a SATA drive you can just plug it in to a spare connector. They will only fit one way.

If it is a PATA (IDE) drive there will be a diagram showing how to set the jumpers to SLAVE.
DO this
Then connect it to the middle connector of the flat ribbon data cable. The strip at one edge of the cable goe adjacent to the power connector.

For both drives the power connector goes with the yellow wire to the outside edge of the drive.

You do not need to actually fit the drive into the Dell, just stand it on some insulating material (thick paper). It can go any way up for a short period.

When you power the Dellback up hit del or F2 to get the setup (bios) to recognise the new drive then save changes and exit.

Windows should now see the drive.

 

I can second that about Emachines - I had a T1842 die this way :mad. I was able to buy another motherboard that supported all my hardware, and bought Windows XP for it - it was a $140.00 solution, but still cheaper then a new PC. I didn't need to recover anything off the drive, though, and was not worried about that aspect of it.

 

Hey Guys,
Sorry it took so long to get back. studiot THANK YOU!! I just got the old HDD hooked up and my world is happy again.
I hooked it up to the only connector in the Dell and it is showing in
Hard disk drives as local disc (E Is it OK to leave it in there?
I sure would like to as i can use all of the programs i had such as Adobe Photoshop, Publisher and the like.
Again THANK YOU,
Dan

 

Yes it will be fine and when it finally goes to the big mainframe in the sky it won't endanger anything else.

However do get a copy of the manufacturers check tool or at least run check disk on it.

Remove any copy of Windows from it to use the space and avoid future conflicts/difficulties.

 

Does this mean to remve Windos XP?
Thanks,
Dan

 

If you are not using the copy of windows XP on the old Emachines drive (Now E) then you can cause confusion and give malware an extra target by leaving it on.

If you have a use for it now or in the future, and don't want the space, leave it there and change the main folder names. Make a note of what you do and you can always change it back or clone it to another drive. After all it is a valid copy of XP with your license.