Hard Drive failure?

Question

I was going to try to transplant a hard drive from one computer to another. It was the C Drive. I have since learned that you cannot just do this, but that aside, here is my problem...

I unplugged the hard drive and was going to put it into the other computer. Upon seeing the SATA vs IDE connection, I realized it wouldn't work and plugged it back into the original computer without changing anything. I connected everything back up then turned it on and it booted up fine.

I left for the day and when I came back the next morning, the computer was dead and would hang up upon trying to load windows. Upon calling IT support, they analyzed it and found serious problems with the system files. The System32 folder which is normally in the "WINDOWS" folder was out of place and hundreds of files were missing. Most of the files in the computer were missing. The User Files that contained important documents were gone. Almost appears the HDD was scrammbled.

HELP!

Running windows XP, it is a Dell system. IDE 40 GB HDD. And yes, it was working before I started messing with it. PLZ help as lots of important data was lost and it is virtually a matter of life and death.

I touched nothing on the motherboard or any part of the computer other than the hard drive. I have done this before with secondary drives and it is very routine. What could have caused this?

Answer 1

OK, I am willing to bet that you don't have a "normal" direct from windows XP disk. If you do, often you can boot from the CD and it has a utility to repair the OS. However, it may overwrite some of the files you wish to save.

However, what I suggest is that you purchase an external hard drive case to install your hard drive in. In doing so, you can use the old drive as an external drive and then manually comb through it in order to pull out the files that you want to save.

I pasted a link to the Newegg section for external enclosures. Good luck!

Answer 2

This would require the use of a CD that you have to download and know how to use. It can read the hard drives, and if there are some problems, it can fix them.

Try http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

This would assume that your computer (the one with the bad hard drive) can run burned CDs (or DVDs, whatever you use).

Odds are if a Windows XP or whatever screen comes up, then there is data on the computer. How much I don't know.

You can also try http://www.bootcd.us/ and get WinPe by Bart.

Note that these procedures are legal, but require expertise in creating and using these tools. You may find a local IT guy who knows how to do this, it's possible.

This is of course the last resort when Safe Mode fails, which it might.

Answer 3

I have seen this problem occur on a DELL Computer.
In the current situation your drive data is not recoverable.
You probably disconnected an important component on the system board.
Sending it to a 3rd party for recovering any files is going to cost you big bucks. Do a google search and ask for quotes for retrieving any files if possible.

Answer 4

This sounds very very corresponding to a creative complicated force failure. undesirable sectors on a disk would be purely that, undesirable and the fix you describe above can restoration them. although, undesirable sectors is often led to do to a terminal errors on the platter of the complicated force. it is many times led to by using countless issues yet is extra straightforward in Laptops with the aid of fact the main reason are the analyzing heads of the complicated force colliding with the floor of the disk. this would happen initially as undesirable sectors yet with rapidly become worse with the aid of fact the undesirable area of the disk gets bodily greater and larger. you should objective doing an entire re-set up of XP, wiping the winning setting up yet I strongly suspect that this would purely be a non everlasting restoration. a clean complicated force is the only particular fireplace therapy.

Answer 5

Static discharge? maybe the system thought it was a new drive and attempted to re-initialize? Take it to a data recovery company and get a free diagnostic done. I took my drive to CBL a few months ago and they were able to get my data back. http://www.cbltech.com
Good luck.