Thank you for being a valued part of the CNET community. As of December 1, 2020, the forums are in read-only format. In early 2021, CNET Forums will no longer be available. We are grateful for the participation and advice you have provided to one another over the years.

Thanks,

CNET Support

General discussion

Data retrieval from hard drive

Sep 29, 2004 6:13AM PDT

(I'm not sure what Forum this question should go on.)
Problem: How to get the data off a hard disk that I pulled from my daughter's dead (and old) computer. Hard Disk works. But I could not install it to another computer as a slave because none of my home computers has an empty 3.5" bay. So I have just bought on-line a 3.5" External Enclosure. It arrived today and I had no problem placing the HD inside of it and connecting it to a working computer via USB. I see its contents on-screen. The HD operating system is Windows 98. I see 2 folders on the main screen: PROGRA~ and WINDOWS. Within these are the various other Windows folders such as CHAT, COMMON, etc. But I cannot access the contents of the subfolders of these 2 main folders (with the exception of the COMMAND subfolder which shows all files and their properties). I have tried changing the attributes to Archive from Read-Only. I am stumped. I have this HD as a disk drive on a Windows XP system if that is useful info. Other info: I do know that the dead computer OS was set up to 4 User Accounts, each with a password. Perhaps this is preventing me from gaining access (?). All I want to do is retrieve saved images, Word documents, Quicken accounts, emails. I do not need to save the Win98 OS or any installed applications. What to do now????

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -
Re: Data retrieval from hard drive
Sep 29, 2004 6:19AM PDT
- Collapse -
Re: Data retrieval from hard drive
Sep 29, 2004 7:10AM PDT

Computer Grandma,

I use the same set up to pull data from clients systems.

To clarify...
Old drive had Win98 installed w/4 accounts
USB ext enclosure recognized by O/S
Only two folders showing Program Files and Windows
Unable to open sub-folders

Unless PROGRA~, a DOS expression, is shorthand the drive may be corrupt. I don't see user accounts and passwords stopping you from opening the files. If you did not see the drive at all then it is dead or Go Back is installed.

At this time I would unhook your existing drive and connect the old drive. (loose, no need to unattach anything. Boot the system with a boot disk (do you know DOS? )
-> Type C: - press enter ->
-> type DIR/w/p or DIR /w/p
if you see multi files the drive is readable.

Now XP and FAT 32 (or 16) may be having a problem. If so you will need to find a system running Win9x to transfer your data off this drive to CDs'.

Bill
.

- Collapse -
Re: Data retrieval from hard drive
Sep 29, 2004 7:19AM PDT

Thank you both who have replied so quickly. (PROGRA~1 is, indeed, the folder name that appears.)In the meantime while awaiting your reponse, I noted that the HD in question is shown at FAT32 in My Computer (on the XP system) while Drive C on the same computer is shown in Properties as NTFS. So maybe that's a possible problem. I didn't want to get into opening my computers that are running XP because of the DSL and networking that I have set up on them. But I do have an old system running Windows 98 and the hard drive on it appears to be failing as it just grinds away and will not load past the splash screen. I can put Daughter's HD in that computer and that should do it. Thanks everyone who replied. I needed essentially to know whether the user profiles were interferring. (Sorry to be so wordy -- I'll learn.)

- Collapse -
Re: Data retrieval from hard drive
Sep 29, 2004 7:36AM PDT

Computer Grandma,

I like wordy, can get a lot of information that way

Good luck

Bill
.

- Collapse -
Re: Data retrieval from hard drive
Oct 1, 2004 3:09AM PDT

The partition where Windows 98 operating system resides is formated as FAT. Thus, file security is not appllied like NTFS format. The local user name and password will not prevent you from accessing local file or folder. I don't think your data were saved in PROGRAM FILES folder nor WINDOWS folders.
Check other folders like MY DOCUMENTS under D(or what ever letter assigned to your old hard drive). Most likely, all your documents were saved under this folder unless you specified different folder(directory or path) when you saved. If you not sure where you saved old documents, let go to Start, Search and search files you need. The searched results will give you the path to the files.
Make sure XP operating system resides on FAT partition also.
After you found the path (folder) containing your old documents, copy it to FAT formatted hard drive, floppy, zip, or CD. Whatever available! good luck. E-mail me if you like at tuan2yh@yahoo.com