Hard drive issues

[Arcticfo]

Alright guys so my aunts old computer finally bit the big one, and she wanted me to try to recover the data on the drive all seemed to be going well on the old ide but seriously this is the Worst drive I've seen in a while and I'm at a loss. Alright so to start with Im running Windows 8.1 and u have it connected via USB. The drive shows up in both the bios and in my available hard drives locations. Unfortunately everytime I try to access it personally it crashes my comp. I've tried software recovery, choose /f and /r and it shows that it can't access the disk I've tried booting into safe mode... Basically do you guys have any other suggestions before I stick a knife in this guy?

[rheyL]

let me guess, this old IDE hard drive is connected via USB(enclosure) right?

have you tried connecting it via IDE ribbon cable?

if your motherboard does not support IDE, where in the USB port you plug it? might be good if plugging on USB2 port

[Arcticfo]

First thing I tried, connecting it to an old (fully functioning) xp Motherboard and seeing if it would work, when connected as the main Hard drive the computer refused to boot at all becoming stuck at the boot screen, when connected as a secondary drive, via a second ribbon cable, The computer instantly freezes and locks up.

[LogicalDrm]

First thing I tried, connecting it to an old (fully functioning) xp Motherboard and seeing if it would work, when connected as the main Hard drive the computer refused to boot at all becoming stuck at the boot screen, when connected as a secondary drive, via a second ribbon cable, The computer instantly freezes and locks up.

 

If it isn't installed as 1st boot drive to mobo, don't even try using it as such. If mobo has another IDE drive, set that to be master and then set 2nd drive as slave. On BIOS config them as the 2nd isn't even on boot queue. You might need to clear CMOS before doing that setup.

 

On USB way it sound like too many bad sectors on drive. Maybe try to defragment it first.