Oh Bother (polite version) - just lost my C drive. How can I recover data on D drive

elektra

Had an old computer (win 95) which I was perfectly happy with. Then we got this new wizzy PC. Had started to transfer some stuff to this PC but not all, as old PC only had floppy disc to write to.

Went on old PC the other dat to print something but and it sounded a bit clunky. Today it came up with scandisk and cluster errors but never really got into a state where I could start backing up from. Now it won't boot at all - if I boot with boot disk it can't find any other disjk. So C: knackered which means I've lost things like emails and microsoft money files.

I think most of my other data is on D drive. Can I take D rive and install on another PC and retrieve my data?

albertross_2

Is the d: drive a partition on the same physical disk?

GreenNotM

Quick reply - yes as long as your D Drive is a seperate drive - it may just be a partition as W95 could only read partitions upto a particular size.

You may be able to read the disk fine in your new pc - you never know - just try ...

elektra

No, D drive is a completely separate drive but I don't think hubby will let me try and install on this pc

albertross_2

Well, you can either attach it as a slave, or put it in a usb - eide caddy, and get the files of using a usb connection.

Consider buying Norton Ghost or Acronis Trueimage in future, and backup to DVD or external HD.

elektra

GreenNotM wrote:

Quick reply - yes as long as your D Drive is a seperate drive - it may just be a partition as W95 could only read partitions upto a particular size.

You may be able to read the disk fine in your new pc - you never know - just try ...

It was a completely separate purchased drive that we put in but we has to use software called 'ontrack' ( I think ) to recognise the size of it.

GreenNotM

well it should be okay - perhaps look at getting a disk enclosure for an IDE drive (pata) if hubby won't let you open his toy ...

are the disks visable in the w95 pc's BIOS - have you needed to reset the date recently on that pc ?

The BIOS battery may have died and the bios lost its config details ....

GreenNotM

elektra wrote:

It was a completely separate purchased drive that we put in but we has to use software called 'ontrack' ( I think ) to recognise the size of it.

No doubt the W95 only can see up to a certain size of disk thing ... a long time ago now ..

elektra

albertross wrote:

Well, you can either attach it as a slave, or put it in a usb - eide caddy, and get the files of using a usb connection.

Consider buying Norton Ghost or Acronis Trueimage in future, and backup to DVD or external HD.

I definitely will on this PC but old PC only had floppy drive and read only CD. Managed to save some genealogy data and images( by uploading to net) but annoyed I never backed up mailbox.

GreenNotM

Mailbox may still have the mail in it on the server - unless you set ur client to delete on download.

albertross_2

If the W95 PC at least starts to boot, you may get some data off it, by using the usb method, but if it is clunking, then you may not.

The disk manufacturers usually have a free hard disk fitness test utility, to check the state of disks, provided that the bios can see it.