Plugging a Windows Vista laptop HDD into a Windows 7 desktop

Pompous

My sister's laptop died and I'm trying to recover her files for her. I took the hard drive out and plugged it into my desktop. I then restarted my desktop and had two new drives called Local Disk (D: ) and RECOVERY (E: )

RECOVERY (E: ) is accessible but only has 10GB capacity (the HDD has 160GB) and does not seem to have her files on it.

Local Disk (D: ) is not accessible. When I try to open it, the computer prompts me to format the drive in order to access it. Clearly that is not an option since I want to recover the files.

I tried booting from the laptop HDD but that doesn't work either. I get a message saying something about the Windows being faulty and I get prompted to recover Windows. I don't want to take that option since I don't know if it will wipe the files or not.

Does anyone know what I'm missing here? I have a feeling it's something quite simple. I've just never tried to access a laptop hard drive before using a desktop PC.

Thanks for reading!

Digital Solitude

Has the laptop died or the hard drive? Should be just plug and play if the hard drive is healthy.

You could try using a bootable Linux distro, I normally have better luck moving files from Windows to Windows using an external Linux partition

beauf

Could be a number if things. Permissions, you don't have ownership of that disk. The drive might have had bit-locker installed. The drive might have been faulty, or the crashing the laptop corrupted the drive.

Usually you can see the files but not access them until you give yourself permissions & ownership.

almorris

I tried doing the same thing except to a new build with 8.1. with the same type of messages. DISASTER.

The end result was I lost all the files ( photos ) on my laptop AND my external backup drive and it cost me €150 to recover thumbnail jpg's ( unusable ) from both drives and any file names were lost. I still don't know if I was infected with a virus or the whole thing was just a disaster on my behalf. I tried creating partitions, downloading recovering software ( be very aware that some will make your HDD worse ) and taking it to a specialist to recover the files. It would seem that for a HDD to work in another OS, the new OS cant read the registry file or some such.

So my advice is to tread very carefully in how you recover the files. Cheap (free) recover software sometimes works, others completely made a mess of things. Try not to rearrange the existing file structure and use a reputable recovery software package if the files are important.

Good luck.

Johnboy1951

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Has the laptop died or the hard drive? Should be just plug and play if the hard drive is healthy.

You could try using a bootable Linux distro, I normally have better luck moving files from Windows to Windows using an external Linux partition

Definitely the way to go ...... any LiveCD or USB of a Linux OS should be able to access the files you need and copy them to another location.

There are even Linux ISOs especially built with such recovery software present.

You will need to know where in the filesystem to find the files.

.

beauf

Some links.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/31804/the-10-cleverest-ways-to-use-linux-to-fix-your-windows-pc/
http://www.eightforums.com/general-support/33874-viewing-hard-drive-another-computer-permissions-2.html?

Xenoronin

Another +1 for the linux method. Had a drive i thought was a dud (weird errors trying to access via windows), managed to still get access into it via a ubuntu live CD. Don't use free software for this unless you are 100% sure what you are getting.