[vvn5]

thanks for the link...unfortuately..

after i tore up my computer and took out my hard drive, i found out it was a SATA hard drive which doesnt' have jumper settings (cant be slaved)! can i still hook it up to another computer???

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Yes, you can, SATA drive should be recognized.

[Broni]

Yes, you can, SATA drive should be recognized.

[hfcg]

A simple explanation.
Sata hard drives do not share a cable.
PATA hard drives share a cable so there has to be a way for the computer to tell which is the boot device and which is not.
The primary drive (master) is the boot device, the secondary (slave) is not a boot device.
This is not 100% accurate, but close enough.
Since SATA drives do not share a cable there is no need for the master slave configuration.
You can connect the SATA drive and pull the information off of it.

Edited by hfcg, 23 November 2008 - 10:06 PM.

[vvn5]

ok i've taken my sata hard drive out (it's a Western Digital, model WD1600 Caviar SE) from my dell computer and i'm trying to connect it my old computer that uses ide hard drive.

the problem is, the ide hard drive uses a long flat ribbon, and my sata hd uses a smaller data cable, so the ribbon doesn't fit the sata drive! i may have to buy the sata-ide converter, from somewhere...

..is there any other way to retrieve my data from the sata hard drive? if not, then do you know where i can get a converter like that? :[

thanks a lot!

Edited by vvn5, 25 November 2008 - 02:36 PM.

[Broni]

You can either get SATA to IDE adapter, or you can try HD enclosure (under $30). Just make sure, you get the type, which has SATA sonnection.

[vvn5]

i purchased the hd enclosure and plugged my hard drive into it (following the installation instructions provided; i also removed the plastic jumper shunt). once everything was assembled, i powered up the hd enclosure and connected the usb to my laptop.

my laptop acknowledged the hd device (noted in the little msg bubble), but nothing new (no new drive) appeared in "my computer". am i doing something wrong, or is there another way to access the files? :S

[Broni]

See, if it's present in Device Manager, and/or Disk Management (Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management).

[vvn5]

yep! the hard drive appears in device manager and disk management. i'm not sure how i can access or even see the files saved on there though

[hfcg]

There are two things that stand out here.
1] Your old computer does not have drivers for the SATA hard drive.
You can go to the manufactures web site and download the drivers.
Save the driver to your desktop so you can navigate to it with no problems.
2] The hard drive has failed. (I believe that this is the case here).

[Broni]

You can't, and in my opinion, the drive appears to be dead.

[Broni]

Oh, I didn't see hfcg's post.

[vvn5]

thanks for all your help and prompt responses, hfcg and broni!

after spending a few days working on the problem, i finally have my files backed up safely.

for anyone who has the same problem as me, here's what i did:

1) took the hard drive from the problem computer and placed it into an external hdd enclosure.
2) i plugged it into a working computer and the external drive was an f:/. however, i was not able to see the drive in "my computer" cause of some issue with the partition
3) i downloaded this program called testdisk (free) and repaired the hard drive partition
4) f:/ showed up in "my computer", but the drive or directory was "corrupted or unreadable"
5) i downloaded a data recovery program (free) called pcinspector and TADA! problem solved!

i hope this will be of help to someone one day!

thanks again, for putting me in the right path h&b!

[Broni]

Nice job!