My SATA hard drive failed last week in my fairly new Dell Inspiron 1720. I called Dell, they sent a new hard drive, and I installed it on Friday. I just realized that there are some files that I forgot to copy from my old hard drive before I send it back to Dell. My question is: can I re-install my old hard drive in the available slot and find and save my files without jeopardizing the new hard drive or anything on my computer? And will it be a lengthy project or can I do it quickly? I'm not experienced with all of this so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations Mike Lewis on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
Hard Drive Failure 3
- Thread starter emileeaw
- Start date
-
1
- #2
I am slightly confused by your description.You say your drive has failed but you mention that you forgot to take off all the files which implies you have managed to save some of them?
I guess what I am trying to say is if the drive was able to have some files saved then you should be able to connect this old drive on one of the lower SATA drive connectors (2,3,4 etc) and as long as your new drive is set as boot, Windows should detect and make the old drive excessable.
Martin
On wings like angels whispers sweet
my heart it feels a broken beat
Touched soul and hurt lay wounded deep
Brown eyes are lost afar and sleep
I guess what I am trying to say is if the drive was able to have some files saved then you should be able to connect this old drive on one of the lower SATA drive connectors (2,3,4 etc) and as long as your new drive is set as boot, Windows should detect and make the old drive excessable.
Martin
On wings like angels whispers sweet
my heart it feels a broken beat
Touched soul and hurt lay wounded deep
Brown eyes are lost afar and sleep
-
1
- #3
- Thread starter
- #4
I'm sorry for my vague discription. It's been a very frustrating week, to say the least! Anyway, my hard-drive was headed towards failure. My laptop all of the sudden froze one evening. I was able to do a hard re-boot, but when Windows started up normally, it took forever for the computer to respond to my mouse clicks. After a while, I re-booted into safe mode and did a diagnostic test and it said "Msg. Unit 1: Drive Self Test failed. Status byte = 70..."
Later, out of desperation, I tried to perform a system restore. The error message I received was: "The disk OS (C
has errors. Windows has detected file system corruption on OS (C. You must check the disk for errors before it can be restored."
I then called Dell and the technician asked me a few questions and determined that I needed a new hard drive and sent one out that day.
In the meanwhile, I was able to boot-up in safe mode and save most files and all of my pictures, etc., to a disk.
The files I was referring to in my first post were those I'd saved on my AOL account (mostly important emails). I completely forgot about them before un-installing my failing hard drive. So...
Hopefully this is more clear. I just need to get ahold of my AOL files saved in my account and copy them and then permanently delete them.
Later, out of desperation, I tried to perform a system restore. The error message I received was: "The disk OS (C
has errors. Windows has detected file system corruption on OS (C. You must check the disk for errors before it can be restored." I then called Dell and the technician asked me a few questions and determined that I needed a new hard drive and sent one out that day.
In the meanwhile, I was able to boot-up in safe mode and save most files and all of my pictures, etc., to a disk.
The files I was referring to in my first post were those I'd saved on my AOL account (mostly important emails). I completely forgot about them before un-installing my failing hard drive. So...
Hopefully this is more clear. I just need to get ahold of my AOL files saved in my account and copy them and then permanently delete them.
The files I was referring to in my first post were those I'd saved on my AOL account...". Never used AOL personally, but I assume what you mean is you have a folder on your (old) hard disk drive which contains these saved files? Or do you mean they're saved on AOL's (remote) server?
If the former, then can you not replug the old hard drive and copy off the wanted files?
For the latter, just log on to your AOL account once you've set up the new drive with AOL software, and view on line/download them, as appropriate.
ROGER - G0AOZ.
If the former, then can you not replug the old hard drive and copy off the wanted files?
For the latter, just log on to your AOL account once you've set up the new drive with AOL software, and view on line/download them, as appropriate.
ROGER - G0AOZ.
- Thread starter
- #6
"If the former, then can you not replug the old hard drive and copy off the wanted files?"
That's what I'm curious about: If I put the failing hard-drive in the second hard-drive slot temporarily to retrieve the files saved on, or I guess in my AOL saved mail/folders (which is not on a remote server, it's on the hd), would that jeopardize my system as it is now...
In other words, can I re-install the bad hard-drive (putting it in the second slot), start the computer up, safely retrieve my info., and then take it out?
That's what I'm curious about: If I put the failing hard-drive in the second hard-drive slot temporarily to retrieve the files saved on, or I guess in my AOL saved mail/folders (which is not on a remote server, it's on the hd), would that jeopardize my system as it is now...
In other words, can I re-install the bad hard-drive (putting it in the second slot), start the computer up, safely retrieve my info., and then take it out?
-
1
- #7
If you can safely restart it, it will not affect the new drive. this is just the old OS, or otherwise... no settings on the old drive carry over to the new drive if you are just replacing the drive. You should even be able to attach the drive via USB interface and try to suck the files off that way, if you've the equipment.
cckens
"Not always my best shot, but I hit the target now and then"
-me
cckens
"Not always my best shot, but I hit the target now and then"
-me
Do as cckens suggests... I further suggest that you locate your files on the other hard drive and then get your antivirus to scan just the relevant folder(s), just to be sure nothing nasty has got attached. Shouldn't take long, and then to you be comfortable with moving 'em over into the new drive...
ROGER - G0AOZ.
ROGER - G0AOZ.
- Status
Similar threads
