[help] data retrieval

[pcandpc]

Hello?

I just replaced my systemboard but I need to retrieve

some data from a hard drive that was on an older board

in this new system. How do I do that?

The drive is recognized in the BIOS but can't be accessible

anymore in the new systemboard.

I thought about installing the same OS on another drive

and make this older drive a secondary and access the data,

but this had failed me.

Thanks.

[mmarable]

What OSes are we talking about here? How exactly do you have it installed with the new systemboard? Is it an IDE drive? When you say that it is not accessable, what exactly is happening? What the old drive working before replacing the systemboard?

All things being equal, you should be able to set this drive up on either the secondary controller, or a slave on the primary (if it's an IDE) or on the secondary SATA controller if SATA. You can then install your OS onto the new drive and access the data stored on the older one.

Or, you can buy an external USB drive enclosure to house the older drive. Set up your new system and then plug the USB drive in to get to your data. When you're done, format and use the USB drive to backup the new system.

Right now, there are too many unknowns in your situation. Are you trying to boot from the old drive and it's crashing?

[eyeball]

if its just a new mobo and the hdd had windows xp on it, then just do a repair install. it will preserve all your data and also install your OS while your at it

[pcandpc]

Hi mmarable and eyeball,

Thanks for your feedbacks.

eyeball,

Actually, I've already tried your method but

couldn't successfully reinstall the same OS

on the drive.

So, I ended up just reformatting the drive.

[TheFlash428]

Well, if you reformatted the drive then it's probably too late to get the data off of it, but what I usually do in this case is use a Linux Live CD (like Knoppix) to boot and gain access to the drive by mounting it to the file system, then, you can copy the files you need to a different drive, USB flash drive, network drive, etc.

[pcandpc]

Hi theflash428,

Well, actually, I've already tried with that approach too but failed.

Thanks.

[Ponch]

I guess the data didn't have much value to you.

Either the disk is good and the data was still on it, but apparently not worth the small effort,

either the disk has gone bad from the operation and reformatting it is not really a solution.