Rescuing files from my old PC, Help?

netwhizkid

Right Fella’s, Basically my situation is, My old PC a Packard Squarius – Something or other, I don’t know the model number, Intel Pentium II 350mhz with 6GB HD is a after going down the drain, I haven’t switched it on in about two months and this time it fails to come on, (well actually it does come on, under its own influence, usually after plugging it into the power, I’d have to push the button and switch the thing on. It comes up blank on the monitor, now I’ve tried the monitor on my Dell Dimension 8400 and it works grand. I even hooked the old PC up to my dell TFT monitor and to no avail. As I am reckoning some hardware fault has gone wrong, I’d normally be quite happy to throw it into the Recycling plant with the old fridges etc. only I never went about migrating my important and sentimental files to my new pc last January when I set it up. I am hoping and presuming that my files are still alive inside in the Hard Drive, as this is an old pc I wonder would it be possible to simply unplug the Packard Bell Hard Drive, and hook it up the my New Dell to recover the files before scrapping it completely. I know the bloody thing was riddled with spyware and the occasional virus but they all seemed to keep each other in balance and none could completely overwhelm it. It was last on the Net in May and it was switched on since (and worked grand) so I doubt if a virus is to blame. I have two photos of it’s inside’s put up here 2.01MB and here 1.47MB I wonder which is the hard drive in this maze? And how much of a job would it be to remove and hook it up to my very accessible and upgrade friendly Dell Dimension 8400.

Any help would be appreciated, as I’d like to save my important and sentimental files before recycling it.

Thanks in advance netwhizkid.

Sgtshaft

its very easy to transfer your drive to your new PC, just take it out and change the jumper to the slave position and attach the power cable and IDE cable in new PC and boot up.

delly

Looking at the second pic, your hard drive is in the top right hand corner. There shouldn't be a problem removing it, switching the jumper to slave, and then sticking it into another PC. I happen to have a Dell 8400 myself, which has 2 SATA drives instead of IDE, which is the older format that you have in your pic. I presume that the 8400 probably still has a redundent IDE connector on the board which you should be able to use, although I'm not in a position to open my own up and confirm this.

The other option is to get a USB IDE adaptor which allows you to hook up your old IDE drive through your USB. It would be a lot easier to do, but as your only going to need it once, the cost might not be worth it.

irlrobins

i have a 8400 also. I transfered my files from my old IDE drive by attaching it in place of the DVD drive temporarily. Attach it to the bottom IDE slot so it will be a slave and not a master drive. Just have the jumper (small plastic bit) on the old drive in the Cable Select position and it should work fine.

netwhizkid

Sgtshaft wrote:

its very easy to transfer your drive to your new PC, just take it out and change the jumper to the slave position and attach the power cable and IDE cable in new PC and boot up.

Is the slave position like a second port for connecting my old hard drive to ? Also is there second power port's and IDE ports i wonder or would i have to remove my current Hard drive ? I have my hard drive partitioned into two Virtual hard drives, would the PC automatically turn on as normal if i can insert my old HD without removing the new one ? And then do's the PC automatically detect my ther (old) hard drive ?? also as my old PC was password protected would this make any difference for retrieving my old files, just wondering because i know the password off by heart.

delly wrote:

The other option is to get a USB IDE adaptor which allows you to hook up your old IDE drive through your USB. It would be a lot easier to do, but as your only going to need it once, the cost might not be worth it.

Would this thing power the hard drive and allow me to access so i could get my data ? because if it does it's only like €20 to €25 including postage on ebay.

Thanks for the help i appreciate it.

Sgtshaft

netwhizkid wrote:

Is the slave position like a second port for connecting my old hard drive to ?.

Connect your old drive to a spare IDE connecter i.e ribbon cable on your cd/dvd or hard drive (if hard drive is not the newer standard i.e SATA)

netwhizkid wrote:

Also is there second power port's and IDE ports i wonder or would i have to remove my current Hard drive ?

Dont remove your current hard drive

netwhizkid wrote:

And then do's the PC automatically detect my ther (old) hard drive ??

Your PC will automatically detect any new drives added and assign it the next
drive letter available

netwhizkid

Thanks a billion times guys,

during the last three hours having only once opened a PC before, (to install my skydsl pci card which was fairly easy) I managed to remove my old HD, and insert into my own PC, i do however reckon that all the angel and saints were guiding me (i was not too religious until now) I reckon my blood pressure climbed off the scales !!)

delly wrote:

The other option is to get a USB IDE adaptor which allows you to hook up your old IDE drive through your USB. It would be a lot easier to do, but as your only going to need it once, the cost might not be worth it.

If you need to ever do what i had to do, for gods sake buy one of these, if they will do what they claim.

First i tried to put it in long side the dell's HD and i fitted the green guides and every thing went rosy until i came insert the power plug into my Packard bell HD, Well F*ck me pink, it wouldn't reach, so i figured i will unplug it from the Floppy Drive, if i tied the Massey Ferguson onto that plug on the end of the floppy disk drive, it wouldn't budge. I ended up having to take off one green slider guide as the floppy space is narrower than the HD space, i then wrapped the Printed circuit side of the Packard Bell side in plastic as i was afraid they might make contact or earth, after an awful struggle i got the Spare power lead to reach and plug in. All i can say, is our modern computer's are faster etc. But by god they are unfriendly places to work in ! compared to the little Packard Bell, where i had wagons of room for my stuppy awkward fingers. Anyway i retrieved everything i wanted and i couldn't have done it only you guys and i wish to thank ye a million times. However don't recommend for a newbie like me as i nearly died of fright. I had four bloodhound virus's on the old PC, as i scanned it with my Norton anti-virus, however after putting it together again it still wouldn't work. I wonder do leaving them idle for long affect them or was it someit else. Anyway i will see whether to invest and bring it back from the dead or scrap it. I am considering using the HD with a USB IDE adaptor as a rather crude form of 6GB memory stick/external HD, handy for those large amounts of data that need transporting in our non-broadband world.


Thanks for everything guys, ye saved me a hundred yo yo's by not having to get a technician in to do it. However i do plan to get a USB IDE adaptor as it will be so handy if i have to do this again.

delly

Glad to help. Its always good when you try something new that your not sure of, but come through with success on the other side.