Which forum should I use to post this silly 'how to' question?

Hi, I thought it best to join as a non-com as my problem may seem rather rudimentary to you commissioned guys, not sure where to post this, please advise.

I have just put an old 150GB 3.5" SATA hard drive from my now deceased old Pentium desktop into an enclosure to get hold of the files I left on there. Hooked it up to my brand new laptop, runs fine, opens, but where the heck are my word,excel,pdf, jpeg and other files?

ptetom

 

What operating system was your deceased machine running?

 

Thanks for the reply ........ Windows XP.

Seems that this old HD is damaged, very noisy, and slow ..... even with USB3, takes forever to respond. Hopefully I can find these files and then get rid of the thing!

 

Look in the Documents and Settings folder under the user name. Unless you saved stuff elsewhere. In Docs & Settings you'll have your My Documents, favorites, and desktop folders.

 

If you are having great difficulty retrieving data from the drive, i.e. very slow and many errors, try putting the hard drive in a plastic baggy and stick it in the freezer for 30-60 minutes and then pop it into the machine and see if you can get the files. I have done this several times and has proved very effective.