Recovering hard drive.

[jlovel8]

Hello, my friends computer is pretty old and wIll take forever to start up if it even does at all. We've taken his hard drive out and put it into my desktop to try and recover all of his files (I suppose we figured it'd be almost like a USB and just drag them off) anyway, when I'm booting from my HDD it doesn't recognize it but when we boot from his HDD on my PC without my HDD connected it boots but just as slow and unusable as on his computer. He is running vista and I am running 7. Am I doing something wrong or does anyone have any advice as to how to get his files off of there?

[WelshDdraig]

keep both drives plugged in, but when booting, navigate to the boot list usually by hitting F8 when at the BIOS and boot of YOUR HDD. Once there your system should load up fine and you should be able to access your friends information. If Windows says the drive needs formatting, that data is almost as good as gone.

 

I did the same thing with my computer. i had my old 250GB HDD from my vista computer, I just plugged it in, booted from my SSD and my normal OS was there and I could access the old files while being on my "new" OS/HDD.

 

Edit: Also by the looks of your post count, you are new, so, Welcome to the Forum!

[jlovel8]

I am! Big fan of the videos and I needed help so I figured this could be a helpful place.

[Captain_WD]

Hello, my friends computer is pretty old and wIll take forever to start up if it even does at all. We've taken his hard drive out and put it into my desktop to try and recover all of his files (I suppose we figured it'd be almost like a USB and just drag them off) anyway, when I'm booting from my HDD it doesn't recognize it but when we boot from his HDD on my PC without my HDD connected it boots but just as slow and unusable as on his computer. He is running vista and I am running 7. Am I doing something wrong or does anyone have any advice as to how to get his files off of there?

 

 

Hey jlovel8 and welcome to Linus Tech Tips forum from me too

 

@Alexp10v2 gave you some good suggestions and you should try them.

 

I would also suggest running your computer from your drive normally and simply connect your friend's drive externally via a SATA to USB cable, docking station or a simple external enclosure. You should be able to see it as a regular external drive and drag/drop all the files you need. If it's a 2.5" drive (laptop one) you should be OK with the simple SATA to USB cable. If the drive is a 3.5" (desktop one) you would need an external power source for it as the power from the USB cable won't be able to fully power it up. 

 

What drive does your friend have (brand, model)? I would suggest running a diagnostic tool to check the drive's health and see why is it underperforming. I would recommend using the tool provided by the manufacturer as it knows the firmware best.

 

Captain_WD.