Is it naive to think I can reuse my old hard drive?

Chomeur

My computer has died. That's OK, it was five years old and I was expecting it to happen sooner or later. I have a backup of my documents on a CD which is about a month old so the data loss isn't catastrophic. The man who originally sold me the computer advised me to take out the hard drive and get a "caddy" so as to be able to reuse it. I agree with him that it makes sense to do so for the following reasons:

1. To have a backup storage for the new computer that I will buy;
2. To access my music. I have ripped all my CDs onto my old hard drive. It took a long time and I'd rather not have to do this again on my new computer; and
3. To access documents that I modified since I last backed up.

So I went into Maplins where they sold me a "3.5" IDE/SATA to USB 2.0 External Enclosure" for £40. I've plugged this into my laptop and there are two problems:

1. It doesn't always show up under My Computer; and
2. When it does show up I can't access "My Documents" on the drive. I'm told that access is denied. I do not appreciate whatever steps it is by which Microsoft have decided to deny me access to my own documents. They have some incredibly complicated instructions on how to fix this http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308421&Product=winxp
which require me to start my laptop in Safe mode. When I try this my laptop just freezes.

I've spent three hours on this so far without any benefit. Should I cut my losses, write the hard drive off, take the caddy back to Maplins, and resolve to make backups to CDs at least weekly in future?

vfish

It's only a suggestion which worked for me but when I did this and was having real trouble reading the drive I opened run and did chkdsk /r and rebooted and it did find bad sectors but worked well after this and let me see all my documents.

mttylad

You need to take ownership of the my documents folders in the drives security settings/properties.

closed

how has the old pc died?

RussJK

That's very expensive for a 3.5" hard drive caddy, and I'd take it back for that alone. You can get ones with e-sata for half the price.

To take ownership of the files, you only need to be in safe mode if you are using XP Professional. For some reason I doubt you are using that version of Windows. Just log in as normal, and follow these steps from the link you provided:


How to take ownership of a folder
You must have ownership of a protected folder in order to access it. If another user has restricted access and you are the computer administrator, you can access the folder by taking ownership.

To take ownership of a folder, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the folder that you want to take ownership of, and then click Properties.
2. Click the Security tab, and then click OK on the Security message (if one appears).
3. Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.
4. In the Name list, click your user name, or click Administrator if you are logged in as Administrator, or click the Administrators group. If you want to take ownership of the contents of the folder, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.
5. Click OK, and then click Yes when you receive the following message: You do not have permission to read the contents of directory folder name. Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control?
   All permissions will be replaced if you click Yes.
   
   Note folder name is the name of the folder that you want to take ownership of.
6. Click OK, and then reapply the permissions and security settings that you want for the folder and its contents.

Or here's a youtube video showing it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nithzd6wBzo

Just a one time affair. I'm not sure what else you want from us - that's the method. Do it if you want access to your files?

donny-gal

Could it be the old HDD is switched to master, and needs to be changed the slave (where the pins are the litle bit of plastic that changes it) Sorry cannot get more technical than that. It is what I had to do with mine. DG

Chomeur

vfish wrote: »

It's only a suggestion which worked for me but when I did this and was having real trouble reading the drive I opened run and did chkdsk /r and rebooted and it did find bad sectors but worked well after this and let me see all my documents.

Thanks, did that. It required me to reboot. It spent an age doing a check of my C Drive and found no bad sectors. Having rebooted, it still can't see the external drive.

closed

you ran it on the wrong drive. what's the original problem

Chomeur

closed wrote: »

how has the old pc died?

Over the last two months it got more and more sluggish at starting. Sometimes I had to try several times. Eventually it stopped altogether. I called in at computer stores and they said it was probably the power supply. They didn't have a new power supply in stock so I ordered one especially. That didn't help matters so I have sent the power supply it back.

I think the lesson I'm learning from this is, if your computer no longer starts, throw it out straightaway and buy a new one. Don't try to hold on to any of it - you'll just waste too much time.

closed

does it boot or not?

Chomeur

RussJK wrote: »

That's very expensive for a 3.5" hard drive caddy, and I'd take it back for that alone.

Yes I suspected I was paying over the odds, but the frustration and amount of time this is taking led me to agree to their price. If I take it back it will be the third thing I've had to take back to them.

Hold on, the drive has just appeared, fifteen minutes after I rebooted. I'll have a look at it.