How do I copy my old hard drive to a new one?

Question

my computer crashed and I have files on that drive that I desperately need. What do I need to copy that drive to a new one? Thanks.

Answer 1

The shortest solution:
- Pull the hard disk containing the files you need, out of its current computer.
- Connect it to a different computer and as secondary hard disk (jumper set to slave).
- Run this second computer and browse the second hard disk from windows.
- If necessary, run scandisk and let it check for bad sectors (most likely the OS is the problem, but data should be fine).
- Copy important data from the second hard disk into the first one or burn a CD with this vital information.

Answer 2

As you gave very little information...

Assuming that the computer is a desktop, you can try inserting the old hard drive as a second drive into the computer and see if you can access it. With the computer off, temporarily disconnect the two cables from the back of your CD or DVD drive, and attach them to the old hard drive instead. Power up the PC and hopefully you will see the old hard drive as a new "letter" in My Computer. Drag and drop the files you want to the new hard drive.

Answer 3

before the system crashed it would have been a good idea to have cloned your drive using such programs as Norton Ghost or a free one such as XXclone , but now your drive has crashed, I guess the best you can hope for is to set up the corrupted drive as a slave drive to your new hard drive and try to recover the files through the new OS.


http://pctechboard.com/forum.php

Answer 4

take the harddrive out and use an enclosure. connect it to another pc and see if it'll recognize it. if not, then you probably lost everything for good.