Retrieving files from an old hard drive

[wsawy004]

My old laptop (HP Pavilion DV7) has finally died. I bought a new laptop and I want to pull the files off my old laptop onto my new one. The old laptop run Windows 7 and the new laptop came installed with Windows 8.1. I bought a hard drive enclosure for the old hard drive, but Windows 8.1 won't even recognize it as being in the USB port. Any help would be appreciated. I'm not wanting to install Windows 7 on this new laptop (at least not yet) or any other programs, I just want to get my files back. Thanks in advance

 

[USAFRet]

Why/how did the HP die? Possibly the actual drive is bad.

 

[wsawy004]

The hard drive still works. I can turn the old machine on and the fan spins rapidly for awhile. Everything works, but eventually about ten minutes into operation, it freezes up.

 

[USAFRet]

1. Try a different USB port
2. Does that enclosure work with any other drives?

 

[wsawy004]

I've tried all 3 USB ports. I don't have any other drives to try out. However, the enclosure works. When I plug it into the USB port, not only does the red LED light come on, I can hear the hard drive turn on.

 

[casper1973]

Windows 8 should can read/access Windows 7 drives straight out of the box - no changes or additional software required as they both use the same filesystem.

The issue is likely with...

1) Your original hard drive is faulty, which is quite possibly the reason it "died" in the first place.

2) Your enclosure is faulty or not connected right.

3) Your USB port is faulty. Or occasionally USB3 ports can be temperamental so if you are using one try a USB2 instead.


EDIT:
You answered most of this in the time it took me to type it >,<
But I will leave it here anyway.

 

[casper1973]

Have you went into disk management and checked if the drive is present? Sometimes the drive will be there but Windows doesn't assign it a drive letter.

 

[wsawy004]

How can the drive be faulty if I can boot it up from the old laptop? Also, other things work in the USB port and again, it turns the enclosure on and I can hear the hard drive itself being on.

 

[USAFRet]

How can the drive be faulty if I can boot it up from the old laptop? Also, other things work in the USB port and again, it turns the enclosure on and I can hear the hard drive itself being on.

"eventually about ten minutes into operation, it freezes up"
Why does it freeze up? Possibly you are then hitting a bad place on the drive.

As said above, a Win 8 PC can and should read a drive that came out of a Win 7 PC with zero problem. I do that ALL the time.