Accessing old hard disc

jjgreenwood · 23 Mar 2024 at 13:12

Hi

Back in 2007 I did a bit of bitcoin mining and probably managed to mine 1.5-2 bitcoins. After 18 months I gave up on it and eventually changed computers but kept the old hard discs. One of them an SSD I formatted at some point so I know that will need to go to a data recovery company to try and get any of the old data off it. The other a Samsung HD103SJ I am trying to access via windows 11 and can't for the life of me work out how to do it. It is visible in the bios, windows device manager can see it and it shows as enabled but it is not present in file explorer. Has anyone got any ideas on how I can see the data and find out if my old bitcoin wallet is on it?

andy_mk3 · 23 Mar 2024 at 13:13

Open Disk Manager and see if it's listed in there. It might not have any partitions on it. Don't attemept to make any partitions if you want to recover data. Data recovery software should be able to see and access the drive as it is.

jjgreenwood · 23 Mar 2024 at 13:21

Any recommendations on what software to use?

andy_mk3 · 23 Mar 2024 at 13:24

I have used EaseUS Data Recovery in the past. Stellar Data Recovery is something else to look at.

jjgreenwood · 23 Mar 2024 at 13:27

OK I'll take a look just downloaded EaseUS, it doesn't show the drive - it isn't in disc manager either. It is in device manager.

Mcnumpty2323 · 23 Mar 2024 at 16:20

Could try assigning a drive letter
If it shows up in diskpart
Diskpart
List vol
Select vol 9 (or whichever number its shown as)
Assign letter=x (or whatever letter you prefer)

darael · 23 Mar 2024 at 19:59

I wouldn't do anything to the drive that involves any writing to it, no matter how little it is.

Recuva is made by the same people who made CCleaner and it does do a good job, but I think it just supports the basic file systems like NTFS, FAT and FAT32.

I do also like DMDE as it supports more file systems and you feel as though you have more control over it, but it only lets you recover a few files at a time.

Ch3m1c4L · 24 Mar 2024 at 03:06

Partition wizard, easeus, acronis iirc. All have disc tools and recovery software.
Try free versions, see how the drive shows up.
Write nothing /change nothing on the drive if possible don't even recover partitions until you've got a sector by sector image/copy of the drive, just in case.

Can probably just recover the partitions if they are detected, but you never know, and obv don't want to risk losing those btc just to save time/a little bit of money.

Free undelete is a basic tool to read data from a drive that has been formatted/files deleted, although as soon as things get written over they get more and more corrupted.

jjgreenwood · 24 Mar 2024 at 11:48

I've managed to read the drive using an external enclosure. Bad news it doesn't have the bitcoins on it so they must have been on the formatted SSD.

Mcnumpty2323 · 24 Mar 2024 at 11:58

jjgreenwood said:
I've managed to read the drive using an external enclosure. Bad news it doesn't have the bitcoins on it so they must have been on the formatted SSD.

You can recover stuff from formatted drives
Especially if nothing has been written on them afterwards
Even if stuff has been written
Have done it even after I installed windows
It doesn't mean it has overwritten what you want to recover
With a ssd more of a worry would be
If its not been powered on in a long time
They're susceptible to bit rot if unpowered too long

jjgreenwood · 24 Mar 2024 at 12:10

It works I'm trying to use recoverit but it still isn't finding the old files

Mcnumpty2323 · 24 Mar 2024 at 12:27

Is it finding any files at all?
Bit rot wouldn't stop it working
Would be the data that would be corrupted or unreadable
was the ssd shoved away somewhere and left
with no power for years?

And if you could recover it I assume you would
Be able to open it?
No idea but guessing it's passworded
Or secured somehow?

Ch3m1c4L · 24 Mar 2024 at 13:29

What exactly are you looking for on the drive anyway? You want the wallet file, I'm guessing it's just a password protected file? I assume you do you not have the recovery phrase/private key anywhere else?

What's the ssd situation, formatted and then used for years or formatted then unused?

jjgreenwood · 27 Mar 2024 at 16:57

Formatted and unused, all I can see via recovery software is 12 files. It hasn't been used for years just sitting in a draw.

Cyber-Mav · 29 Mar 2024 at 09:48

jjgreenwood said:
Hi

Back in 2007 I did a bit of bitcoin mining and probably managed to mine 1.5-2 bitcoins. After 18 months I gave up on it and eventually changed computers but kept the old hard discs. One of them an SSD I formatted at some point so I know that will need to go to a data recovery company to try and get any of the old data off it. The other a Samsung HD103SJ I am trying to access via windows 11 and can't for the life of me work out how to do it. It is visible in the bios, windows device manager can see it and it shows as enabled but it is not present in file explorer. Has anyone got any ideas on how I can see the data and find out if my old bitcoin wallet is on it?

assign a drive letter to the drive in disk management then you can see it in explorer

Mcnumpty2323 · 29 Mar 2024 at 10:29

Cyber-Mav said:
assign a drive letter to the drive in disk management then you can see it in explorer

His second answer
"it isn't in disc manager either. It is in device manager"
I Did suggest assign a letter in diskpart
though again only works if it shows up

Ch3m1c4L · 2 Apr 2024 at 12:16

Rex95 said:
To access the old hard disk, try assigning a drive letter to it in disk management, or use recovery software like EaseUS or Stellar Data Recovery to retrieve the data.

Try reading the thread at all, before posting.