[Xtreme930]

I have this HDD that I have detached from a laptop that suddenly fell apart physically. It's been a while and I never got around to retrieving the data on there. I ordered an IDE/SATA drive adapter to see if I could recover the files I have in the, but it kept asking me to format. I purchased a new laptop and I was wondering if I could swap the hard drive from my old laptop and put it in the new one to move files from one driver to another (my new laptop has two drive slots)? The problem is that the old laptop OS was Win7 and now I have Win 8.1, and I am concerned about damaging my laptop. However, both computer manufacturers are the same (Asus).

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i wouldn't swap the hard drives out. not really a necessary task here.

 

if the drive is connected to the IDE/SATA to usb (assuming) adapter, it should detect fine.

 

since it's saying you need to format it, the partition table could be messed up. http://www.cgsecurit...g/wiki/TestDisk many people have had success using testdisk to fix these types of problems. you'll want to follow their instructions for running the software, and the instructions for fixing a partition table

[dsenette]

i wouldn't swap the hard drives out. not really a necessary task here.

 

if the drive is connected to the IDE/SATA to usb (assuming) adapter, it should detect fine.

 

since it's saying you need to format it, the partition table could be messed up. http://www.cgsecurit...g/wiki/TestDisk many people have had success using testdisk to fix these types of problems. you'll want to follow their instructions for running the software, and the instructions for fixing a partition table

[Xtreme930]

Why is it messed up? Could it be I'm storing my HDD's wrong? Is there a specific way I should detach an HDD from a computer (two hard drives I tried to retrieve files from asks me to format, maybe just my luck :\ )?

[dsenette]

if you move the drive a lot, you should always do the steps to safely disconnect (click on the USB thing in the task bar near the clock and do safely remove)

[Xtreme930]

I don't think that is an option when detaching it from a laptop, is it?.. What I meant was that I detached the HDD from the drive bay of my old laptop once and I tried to look into my files using my IDE/SATA cable but It tells me to format before you can use.

Edited by Xtreme930, 22 May 2015 - 03:32 PM.

[Dashing star]

Just follow the followoing steps :

 

1. Go to start button on windows.

2. Type "cmd" and right click on "cmd" and click "Run as Administrator"

3. C:\Windows\system32>

4. Now type :     chkdsk <Your hard disk letter>: /f

 

For e.g If my hard disk is named "f" then just type ----------   chkdsk f: /f

 

Try it out...I guess it will work.

 

Note: Also go to the Hard disk manufacturer website and try to recover all your datas soon as possible..

 

Thanks

[Xtreme930]

So I can retrieve files using the testdisk, but it has to copy individual files, one by one. Problem is, I am recovering a lot of documents and videos take a while to copy over. Is there a faster method?

 

As far as the chkdsk input in the command prompt, doesn't seem like it worked but thanks though :\

[dsenette]

well the purpose of the scan with testdisk was to fix the partition tables. if you ran the scans correctly based on their instructions, and were able to do some repair to the partition. then you should just be able to connect to the drive like normal and copy the files through explorer

[Xtreme930]

Reviving this old topic now that it is Thanksgiving week and I have some time to spend recovering my files. totally not laziness

 

I am still using Testdisk program to try to recover files from the hard drive, and it takes hours to analyse, sometimes it fails... I am not sure what I can do.