Recovering data from an old IDE HDD

[Khris]

As the title says, I need to recover the old data from this HDD. Not necessarily trying to boot, I just want to look through the HDD and recover images from an old game I used to play. I purchased and IDE to SATA adapter, and everything is connected as it should. When I go into Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management, it pops up a dialogue saying to initialize disk. Obviously I try to do that and then it gives me the error 'The system cannot find the file specified.' I tried using the CS jumper on the drive from what I researched but I'm still getting the same error. Has anyone experienced this, if so how to resolve?

 

Disk 1 is the IDE drive. There's no way that the drive is really 0 B. It used to work... long ago, just stored it in my boxes (never cleaned or anything, I hope)

 

 

P.S. I think I posted this in the wrong section. If a mod could move this to troubleshooting I'd appreciate it, thanks.

[flibberdipper]

Have you tried making an Ubuntu USB stick and booting off that to see if it'll let you access it? Sounds silly, but sometimes it makes all the difference.

[ProjectBox153]

What operating system is installed on the drive?

[WereCatf]

6 minutes ago, Khris said:

it pops up a dialogue saying to initialize disk. Obviously I try to do that

Um, just a note for you: when it says it wants to initialize a disk, it means it wants to format it. You don't want to format a disk you're trying to recover stuff from.

[Khris]

1 minute ago, tmcclelland455 said:

Have you tried making an Ubuntu USB stick and booting off that to see if it'll let you access it? Sounds silly, but sometimes it makes all the difference.

No I haven't yet. I am open to the idea to see if that works. Althought I am not versed at all with Linux/Ubuntu yet.

1 minute ago, Jamiec1130 said:

What operating system is installed on the drive?

I want to say Windows XP.. or Vista perhaps from what I can remember.

1 minute ago, WereCatf said:

Um, just a note for you: when it says it wants to initialize a disk, it means it wants to format it. You don't want to format a disk you're trying to recover stuff from.

Yeah dude I figured that. I do not want to do that at all lol.

[Guest]

@Jamiec1130 It should not matter what and if there is an OS present on the IDE disk he wants to recover stuff from. (disclaimer, not sure if a Linux format might screw things up)

 

@Khris Second screenshot is nice, but it isn't telling us that much. I would personaly skip all OS bullcrappery, and check what info is being displayed in the BIOS. If it's not listed propperly there, you might have bigger issues.

 

And PS: most items "used to work". It can have failed during storage. Just keep an open mind. (and if the data is THAT important, maybe get an OLD temp throw away pc for like 20 euro/dollhairs, which still has an IDE connector)

[Khris]

1 minute ago, Dutch-stoner said:

 

@Khris Second screenshot is nice, but it isn't telling us that much. I would personaly skip all OS bullcrappery, and check what info is being displayed in the BIOS. If it's not listed propperly there, you might have bigger issues.

 

And PS: most items "used to work". It can have failed during storage. Just keep an open mind. (and if the data is THAT important, maybe get an OLD temp throw away pc for like 20 euro/dollhairs, which still has an IDE connector)

Man I looked in BIOS it doesn't even show up there :(. What other issues you think? ESD and such? But if that was the case why would it show up in the OS? It spins and sounds function (oh the joy of HDD). I thought about doing that but if the HDD doesn't operate on my system now, would an older one really make a difference? I mean I really don't need to boot. I just want to search through the directory for the files. Appreciate the feedback!

[Guest]

Disks degrade over time, it just happens. And IDE is kinda old, so who knows what has happened in it's downtime.

 

You seem to be using an Converter. Maybe it sends some random information to your OS, which gets displayed? I mean, SATA is hot swapable, IDE wasn't. (I once killed an HDD like that for some reason) Maybe things just act strange.

 

The reason for suggesting an OLD temporarily pc is: the interface. You get the propper tool for the propper job. There can't be any strange issues, since it should have worked. Mainstream stuff. Old crusty pc is made to work with IDE.

 

And nope, you don't have to boot from your disk. If the temp pc comes with an HDD, you can boot from that. Plug in your origional IDE drive, check if it gets recognized and functional under an older OS. (like XP) If all that works, you can look for your images, and put them on an USB stick. (or maybe network stuff to your main rig) Afterwards you can just throw away this pc, or keep it for laughs and giggles. (or maybe add a SATA PCI card, few tb of storage, and hook it up to your tv. If it's not that crusty, it should be a nice-to-have)

[ProjectBox153]

1 hour ago, Dutch-stoner said:

@Jamiec1130 It should not matter what and if there is an OS present on the IDE disk he wants to recover stuff from. (disclaimer, not sure if a Linux format might screw things up)

Actually, it could. I had it happen just yesterday.

[Guest]

Could you give an more indepth example? Because I had it all working perfectly just yesterday myself.

[flibberdipper]

2 hours ago, Khris said:

No I haven't yet. I am open to the idea to see if that works. Althought I am not versed at all with Linux/Ubuntu yet.

You shouldn't have to be all that well versed in it to do it. If luck is on your side, all you have to do is faff about in the file manager for a few to get the drive mounted, if it isn't then you might have to risk it for the biscuit in GParted.

[Khris]

On 12/28/2017 at 5:45 PM, Dutch-stoner said:

Disks degrade over time, it just happens. And IDE is kinda old, so who knows what has happened in it's downtime.

 

You seem to be using an Converter. Maybe it sends some random information to your OS, which gets displayed? I mean, SATA is hot swapable, IDE wasn't. (I once killed an HDD like that for some reason) Maybe things just act strange.

 

The reason for suggesting an OLD temporarily pc is: the interface. You get the propper tool for the propper job. There can't be any strange issues, since it should have worked. Mainstream stuff. Old crusty pc is made to work with IDE.

 

And nope, you don't have to boot from your disk. If the temp pc comes with an HDD, you can boot from that. Plug in your origional IDE drive, check if it gets recognized and functional under an older OS. (like XP) If all that works, you can look for your images, and put them on an USB stick. (or maybe network stuff to your main rig) Afterwards you can just throw away this pc, or keep it for laughs and giggles. (or maybe add a SATA PCI card, few tb of storage, and hook it up to your tv. If it's not that crusty, it should be a nice-to-have)

I figured an old one might work. I found some online for around $20 so I might end up doing that. My coworker lent me his adapter for the same situation, and he said that worked. So I'm gonna try that and then if not I'll buy me a dinosaur computer for the hell of it :-). Thanks for the help btw!

On 12/28/2017 at 8:05 PM, tmcclelland455 said:

You shouldn't have to be all that well versed in it to do it. If luck is on your side, all you have to do is faff about in the file manager for a few to get the drive mounted, if it isn't then you might have to risk it for the biscuit in GParted.

I tried Ubuntu and I didn't get far. Now I can't properly boot Windows from my SSD lol. I did a partition to install Ubuntu but some shit didn't work correctly so I deleted the Ubuntu partition but it still has the bootloader or something on there so whenever I boot directly from the SSD it says 'No such partition Grub rescue'.