Recovering Hard drive

[tbatty7]

I recently had my hard drive fail on one computer. I was annoyed that it failed after owning it for under 2 years, so I bought the components to build my next computer myself. This is the second time I have built a computer, and the new one is working swimmingly. I say this so you understand I am not new to computers, but I am still pretty inexperienced.

My question is that I am trying to recover some files from the old hard drive, nothing super important, just save game files. When I pulled it out of the old computer and plugged it into my new computer, the computer did not recognize the hard drive even though it booted up to it's own hard drive. Is there a way to get my computer to recognize it so I can go in and get the data? I read that using a SATA to USB converter can work, but is that only for people who do not know how to plug it right into the motherboard?

The failed drive is a Western Digital SATA drive.

Thanks.

 

[gtvr]

Does the drive show in BIOS?
Does it show in disk management?

You can search for partition recovery software if the computer sees the drive. If not, you're looking at a drive recovery service. Also a long shot but for stuck drives there is the freezer method.

 

[tbatty7]

I have not checked BIOS yet, but it hangs up the new computer when posting and I don't think it posts. I will check it, and maybe try the freezer after that if no luck.

Thanks gtvr!

 

[gtvr]

Well if it won't even POST then you can't get to the BIOS. Or did you mean later in the boot process?

 

[tbatty7]

I may not be clear on exactly what it means for a computer not to POST. What I mean is that when it runs through the POST check, it sees the failed hard drive, but then it says there was an error reading it. When Windows boots up, I cannot see the partition that should be showing the failed hard drive, I only see my main C: drive.

When I tried to go into BIOS, it hung up my computer. After 10 minutes of waiting for it to go into BIOS, I finally just powered it down. If I let it go to POST, it boots up fine.

 

[tbatty7]

Well, I changed to another SATA cable and made the Puppy Linux disc and Linux booted up, but the HDD was not showing on the bottom, just the disc drive. I think the HDD might really be dead. I had previously tried Pandora and a couple other disc recovery programs with the same result. They did not see the HDD.

 

[tbatty7]

Best answer selected by tbatty7.