Nasty, sounds like the drive might be completely dead. I would remove the drive from that old machine and inspect it, check if it looks ok (no burnt chips etc). If you think its ok, turn off your main computer and hook the drive up in place of your CD drive (saves finding cables etc). Boot the machine up and it should detect the drive (if it doesn't then you will need to seek the assistance of a professional data recovery center) and still boot from you main drive. After Windows loads the drive should be detected, mounted and given a drive letter, browse "My Computer" and you should see it, and the files your chasing there. Copy them to your main PC then shut down and remove the drive again. Put it back in the old machine and see if it is detected again, if not it could be problem with the old machine's PSU or motherboard, but that's another matter....
Hey,
Im trying to recover my data of an old hard drive i havent used in about 2 years. I just plugged it into my current PC and it says 'BOOT DISK FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER'
I put in my Win XP CD so that i could use the recovery console fix the damaged boot sector and possible missing or corrupt ntldr ntdetect.com files.
When i pressed R it says 'Set up did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer. Make sure any hard disk drives are powered on and propperly connected to your computer, and that any disk-related hardware configuration is correct. This may involve running a manufacturer-supplied diagnostic or setup program.'
After following this advice i now have no idea where to go next.. i would really love recover the data of this drive.
Any ideas? Thanks Rob

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