How to HD info recovery

[NewSoul]

Hiya all,

I have a simple home network of two computers (Dino EMachine with ME, and modern, but newly dead, EMachine with XP) with the XP machine being my primary. I only used the ME machine basically as a slave just to store backups and other important files that I would need if something ever happened to the good system. Great plan in theory.....

In doing my annual reformat of the old ME backup system, my primary machine took a mother board dump when the power supply died (dang the unlucky timing). Now I sit with a fresh clean dinosaur ME machine without the obvious 'important' backup files on it. I also sit with a pile of parts from the dismembered XP machine that was my lifeline. At this point I assume the contents of the HD are intact as all the 'smoke' appeared to be elsewhere.

So how can I plug in this HD to recover these dozen or so important files? I'm assuming I probably can't do anything on the dino ME EMachine (etower 600 series, doesn't even come cabled to add a 2nd HD in the case, but i do have the piggyback cable from the dead machine). I do have a pair of CD's on the ME system (1 is also a burner), so not sure if there is someway I could do anything that way.

I'm sure in a couple weeks when I have a fresh pile of funds for a replacement system, I would probably be able to do something easily then (assuming Vista doesn't have similar issues with accessing a 'ready to run XP' HD).

So in the meantime is there anything I can do?

 

[bmxfreakrider]

yes there is, im glad you came here, this is a great forum for these types of problems, soo welcome to techist.com!

ok this is what you do: i imagine that the current setup is either one cable that has 3 connectors, one going from the motherboard, to the hdd to the cd drive, or two cables, that go from the motherboard to the cd drive, and from the motherboard to the hard drive.

now my pops has the 300 series (etower e366i2, which is essentally the same system, with a slower cpu)

so what your gonna need to do first, is determine if there is two ide cables (the long grey ones, that connect to the hard drive and motherboard) and i can assist you from there.

oh almost forgot, how many cd drives does it have? the ME system

 

[NewSoul]

Short answer running out the door:

Seperate cables to CD's and HD. (I do have dual HD cable available out of the dead system if needed/works).

2 CD's, I added a 2nd CD burner years ago, and actually replaced it with the faster one yesterday out of the dead system)

Thanks for the help.

 

[NewSoul]

Ok, back with more detailed system info if needed, since my morning answer was kinda short running out for work.

ME system: eTower 600is, added the cd burner out of the dead XP system, added a couple USB's and an Enet port, maxed the memory, and replaced the modem (eeek, the old dial up days are flashing back now... ). Everything else, factory.

Dead XP system: T2642, only memory maxed out, no other changes.

Looking forward to the solution, as people have asked me to do this for them in the past and I never wanted to be bothered. Funny how that changes when it's your own stuff

 

[NewSoul]

bumping as i'm still eagerly awaiting an answer

 

[killians45]

Well, just pop the drive in as a slave, boot into ME as normal and pull the files from the drive, easy as that. You can put it on either IDE cable, as it is going to be temporary, correct? Otherwise, it's best to have HDD on one IDE.

 

[NewSoul]

Well, it doesn't seem as simple as it should be. First tried putting it in place of the 2nd CD, the one I added to the original system. Nothing. (And yes, I did change the jumpers on the original ME loaded HDD to Master from CS, and put the XP HDD from the dead system to Slave). Next, pulled the dual HDD cable from the dead system, and tried plugging them in a more traditional config. Nothing also.

Maybe the original Emachine won't ever physically recognize another HDD, who knows with E's.
Now the reason I didn't jump at this approach right away, I was thinking that ME wouldn't recognize the XP anyway. Isn't ME just FAT, and wouldn't even know XP's NTFS.
So back to the next idea/thought from you all.

 

[bmxfreakrider]

ok, this works with xp, i dont know about me. i am guessing it might be the same, i dont know tho. first, go to control panel, look for somethign called administrative tools, if there isnt one, then nevermind.

i cant remember if it had a device manager, but get to system and try to find it, and search for new hardware (with the xp drive connected, first tho, when it was connected, did the bios recognise it?

and third question, how big was the xp hard drive?

 

[NewSoul]

I had already gone to the device manager (and a few other places) trying to locate the hardware, and it didn't seem to be ther at all. I would have expected a fault/hiccup/failure or something to say bad device or such, but nothing. The XP drive is just a 40, so it's not an 'oversize' drive if that was your next thought.