Hard Drives

[snakehips 0]

Come to the conclusion that the H.D. on an old pc needs replacing. Can I just buy another (any type) 80GB h.d. (with an O.S. already on it) and one-for-one them or is there need for a certain type to match what has come out ?

[NJS 4453]

If its oldish you need to be careful as most HDs nowadays are SATA whereas older PCs will use IDE (different connectors). You can still get IDE drives but you won't be able to get one with an OS on it - you'll need to install it and transfer your info.

[snakehips 0]

If its oldish you need to be careful as most HDs nowadays are SATA whereas older PCs will use IDE (different connectors). You can still get IDE drives but you won't be able to get one with an OS on it - you'll need to install it and transfer your info.

 

The one that has gone tits up is only about 3 years old.

 

EDIT: oh, and is there any way to retrieve stuff off the old h.d. ? There are holiday snaps that we would like to get back - if possible.

Edited May 30, 2008 by snakehips

[Matt 0]

Is it definitely your HD or just your OS going through the death throes? If it is then get a Linux distribution on a live CD- you can boot from the CD and transfer your files to a new HD or removable media.

 

PCLinuxOS is good for this as it has native USB support and is relatively user-friendly for people used to Windows.

[snakehips 0]

Is it definitely your HD or just your OS going through the death throes? If it is then get a Linux distribution on a live CD- you can boot from the CD and transfer your files to a new HD or removable media.

 

PCLinuxOS is good for this as it has native USB support and is relatively user-friendly for people used to Windows.

 

The pc would (it wont any longer!) boot up but the task bar was missing, it would not de-frag (it would obey the commands until I clicked the analyse or defrag buttons), it would not read any cd, dvd or memory stick.

 

Now, when I switch it on, I just get a black screen with various wording saying some sort of gobbledegook.

[Jusoda Kid 1]

If its oldish you need to be careful as most HDs nowadays are SATA whereas older PCs will use IDE (different connectors). You can still get IDE drives but you won't be able to get one with an OS on it - you'll need to install it and transfer your info.

 

The one that has gone tits up is only about 3 years old.

 

EDIT: oh, and is there any way to retrieve stuff off the old h.d. ? There are holiday snaps that we would like to get back - if possible.

 

 

Of course there are, vintage porn more like

[snakehips 0]

If its oldish you need to be careful as most HDs nowadays are SATA whereas older PCs will use IDE (different connectors). You can still get IDE drives but you won't be able to get one with an OS on it - you'll need to install it and transfer your info.

 

The one that has gone tits up is only about 3 years old.

 

EDIT: oh, and is there any way to retrieve stuff off the old h.d. ? There are holiday snaps that we would like to get back - if possible.

 

 

Of course there are, vintage porn more like

 

On this occasion, I'm telling the truth!

[NJS 4453]

First step if you can't do what Matt suggested is to get it setup with a new HD with an operationg system - you could then have the old disk as the secondary drive.

 

Getting data back should be feasible but it might cost - I bought a data recovery tool last year which was about £30 which worked wonders. You can also get it done by some computer shops but I don't know how much it costs (and defintely not PC world if its porn )

[Fop 1]

Yeah like said if it's just your OS gone using a linux liveCD/DVD would be a fairly straight forward way to get them off (Knoppix is basically a complete OS that will happily run off a DVD or CD), or just sticking it in another PC or that one as a secondary drive (you may have to change its jumper settings).

 

If it is the harddrive that's completely gone, you should still be able to get them off, but you'll have to go to a specialist company to do it.