How can I retrieve files from a crashed computer?

Question

I was told by people at Dell that I need to reinstall windows xp home edition and buy a new hard drive. I have some important files and some music/pictures that I'd like to save. I'd call someone to do it but it'll cost $250, at least. Is there any way I can do this myself? I'm pretty computer literate when it actually works but have no clue what to do at this point. Anyways, can anyone help???

Answer 1

buy a new hard drive, hook it up, install windows, install the crashed hard drive as a "slave" and hope fully u can access it through "my computer" and take what u want off it

Installing a second hard drive is relatively easy even for novices, but there are a couple of things you have to watch out for.

Unplug your PC and touch part of the chassis to drain any static electricity from your body before touching the drive (static can damage the delicate electronics in the drive and computer).

First, before you install the drive in the bay, you need to set the jumpers for the new drive. Jumpers are the tiny black or brown squares of plastic you'll see in a row across the back of the drive, near the connector ports. They fit over pairs of little pins, all arranged in a row. When a jumper is installed over a pair of pins, it's described as being a closed connection - if the pin is taken off, the jumper is "open" because no connection is made over that circuit. Sounds complex, but all you have to worry about is setting the jumpers so that the second drive is your "slave" drive. Look in the drive's manual or on a sticker on the top of the drive itself for a picture of what the pin/jumper setting should look like to make the drive a slave.

Then you hook up the power cable (pick any spare one hanging inside your PC), and the IDE ribbon cable. The IDE cable can be stiff, so be careful with it - if you bend it around too much during installation, it can break the hair-thin wires inside.

Make sure you install the IDE cable so that the tiny red line running along one side of the cable matches up with "Pin One" of the connector. The red stripe should usually go on the side of the connector closest to the power socket, but check on the drive - Pin One (or Zero) is often labelled on the drive, and it should be specified in the manual as well. It's VERY important you do this properly, as IDE cables can fit in either way. The problem is that if the red stripe is not lined up with the first pins in the connector, the connections will be wrong and you can damage your drive and computer. I know someone who actually melted down cables and fried some of the computer's electronics by putting the IDE cable on the wrong way.

Once the jumpers are set properly and the cables are hooked up, install the drive in an open drive bay in your PC. Use only the screws that come with the drive, as screws that are too long can interfere with the internal electronics and platters.

The only difficulty you may have is that if the computer case is small, it may be hard to maneuver the drive into the bay with the ribbon cable attached. If this happens, disconnect the ribbon cable and install the drive. Then reconnect the ribbon cable, making sure the red stripe is facing the right way.

Reboot your PC, and it should recognize the drive as D:, shuffling your optical drives down the line to E: and F:.

One note of caution: Some programs that need an optical disc to run are very inflexible. If you install from a CD or DVD drive that is the D: drive for example, the program will always look for the disc in the D: drive before it will run. If you install a second hard drive that takes over the D: spot and your CD/DVD moves to E:, F: and so on, you may end up having to reinstall some of your programs so that they can "find" the disc.

Answer 2

You could try hooking your hard drive to a different computer as a "slave". The primary hard drive would need to have it's jumper set to "Master". If the drive still functions, you would be able to copy all of your data to, lets say, a CD or possibly a thumb drive.

Next time do a backup of your personal data. You can back up to CD's, DVD's, or a second hard drive.

Answer 3

If you have a storage pod, sort of like a floppy disk, but with more space and different looks... It's called a flash drive. Turn off your computer, and before turning it back on, stick in the flash drive. It may be recognized, and you might be able to get most of your files off.

Answer 4

start up the laptop with the sturdy no longer easychronic as prevalent on the different computing gadget, yet connect YOUR no longer easychronic as secondary. Boot as much as the unique no longer easychronic and pass to My computing gadget and retrieve your stuff out of your no longer easychronic. desire you have a flashchronic or some thing to deliver your retrieved products to. you will no longer have the means to retrieve any courses as they are tied into the registry, yet a minimum of you are able to replica your records and pictures, and so on.

Answer 5

IF the harddrive is not what crashed, then you can buy a setup, less than $50.00, to connect it to a different computer thru the USB connection. If the harddrive is crashed you are out of luck, unless you want ot spend thousands of dollars.

Answer 6

if the hard drive is still viable, just pull it out of the old computer, change the jumper on the back to slave, install it into another computer and you can retrieve the info that way. in the future, remember.....back up early, back up often.

Answer 7

HI, it all depends how bad ur hard drive has crashed ? if only boot sector from ur drive has crashed then ur lucky u can get back some data, but if the fat or ntfs file system with which ur hard disk was formatted, has failed then i fear. Well search for a software called "GET DATA BACK" on google. if ur crashed hard disk was formatted with ntfs then download the ntfs version of the software, or if ur crashed hard drive was having FAT formatting , then download fat support of the software. any querries mail me back... [e-mail]

Answer 8

by a external drive case, install drive from old computer. then plug usbdrive into another pc , and search the old drive . then transfer the files you want to save.. coast about. 35.00$ and 30min of work