Very old hard drive - listed as 'Unknown Not Initialised'

hughtrimble · 15 Jun 2014 at 21:59

Evening all,

I've just removed a hard disk from a computer that was stashed into storage many, many years ago (a Dell Dimension 5000, Intel Pentium 4) and have plugged it into my Win8 machine. It is plugged into the relevant cables that a secondary hard drive usually runs off, so I know those are working fine.

This old hard drive only appears under Computer Management > Disk Management, and is listed as:

''Disk 1
Unknown

Not Initialised''

Is there any way I can get the data off the drive? It has images of pre current war Syria, and other pictures that I would love to retrieve.

Any suggestions?

Hugh

xb8browney · 15 Jun 2014 at 22:00

Linux live CD will probably be able to access it.

Azza666 · 16 Jun 2014 at 02:22

I would imagine that with it coming from an old dell it would be FAT file system. If windows can't see it as an initialised drive then that does not look good. The file system may be corrupt. Maybe try looking for some data recovery tools.

I'd definitely try the previous posters suggestion first though.

hughtrimble · 16 Jun 2014 at 08:57

xb8browney said:
Linux live CD will probably be able to access it.

I've always shied away from Linux for some reason...now is the time to get better acquainted with it!

Thank you for your suggestion

hughtrimble · 16 Jun 2014 at 08:59

Azza666 said:
I would imagine that with it coming from an old dell it would be FAT file system. If windows can't see it as an initialised drive then that does not look good. The file system may be corrupt. Maybe try looking for some data recovery tools.

I'd definitely try the previous posters suggestion first though.

Do you know how I might be able to confirm whether or not it is FAT?

I'll have a crack at Linux, and hopefully that'll reveal all and if not, on to data recovery tools. Do you have any to recommend?

I've long had these pictures down as lost, but finding the computer has given me hope again!

Hagar · 16 Jun 2014 at 09:36

hughtrimble said:
Do you know how I might be able to confirm whether or not it is FAT?

I'll have a crack at Linux, and hopefully that'll reveal all and if not, on to data recovery tools. Do you have any to recommend?

I've long had these pictures down as lost, but finding the computer has given me hope again!

PCLinuxOS is a simple and comprehensive sysytem with all the relevant CODEC's for multimedia in place. I use the LXDE lightweight version on a Dell latitude X1 netbook, but the KDE version is good as well.

EDIT Download Unetbootin and the Linux ISO file. Create a USB key to use to boot PC with. This leaves the DVD drive free to write the files to a DVD disk.

KIA · 16 Jun 2014 at 10:01

Linux live CD is a good idea. You can use fdisk -l to list the partitions.

It will probably be NTFS unless it's super old.

Have a look at this.

hughtrimble · 16 Jun 2014 at 10:06

nkata said:
PCLinuxOS is a simple and comprehensive sysytem with all the relevant CODEC's for multimedia in place. I use the LXDE lightweight version on a Dell latitude X1 netbook, but the KDE version is good as well.

EDIT Download Unetbootin and the Linux ISO file. Create a USB key to use to boot PC with. This leaves the DVD drive free to write the files to a DVD disk.

Thank you for this.
I do not have a disk drive in my current PC (it's only a gaming machine) but I assume I can copy the files straight onto one of my hard drives?

hughtrimble · 16 Jun 2014 at 10:07

KIA said:
Linux live CD is a good idea. You can use fdisk -l to list the partitions.

It will probably be NTFS unless it's super old.

Have a look at this.

Thank you kindly for the links and the further support for having a crack with Linux Live CD.

Hopefully I won't need to go down the data recovery software if all works well, but I do like their option to try using it first and if it works you then pay for it.

Hagar · 16 Jun 2014 at 10:15

hughtrimble said:
Thank you for this.
I do not have a disk drive in my current PC (it's only a gaming machine) but I assume I can copy the files straight onto one of my hard drives?

Yes, or another USB key.

Unetbootin is a good program to create a bootable system on a USB key as many live disks are CD/DVD only.

wonko · 16 Jun 2014 at 15:25

This is a SATA drive? If the pc is old enough to have an IDE drive and you're using an IDE to SATA converter, then these aren't known for being reliable...

hughtrimble · 16 Jun 2014 at 16:14

wonko said:
This is a SATA drive? If the pc is old enough to have an IDE drive and you're using an IDE to SATA converter, then these aren't known for being reliable...

Is the converter something that I wouldn't be aware of, as it's running by itself?

I simply plugged this old hard drive into the PSU and mobo as I would any other hard drive, so I'm not knowingly using converters!

tom_e · 16 Jun 2014 at 16:15

hughtrimble said:
Is the converter something that I wouldn't be aware of, as it's running by itself?

I simply plugged this old hard drive into the PSU and mobo as I would any other hard drive, so I'm not knowingly using converters!

Nope, you'd know if you were using a converter.