Extracting data from HDD

[shifty_uk]

I have an old custom built tower system from a few years back. Unfortunately it died and wouldn't output any visuals, the hard drive still ran though. Possibly graphics card related but I needed an upgrade anyway so abandoned it.

I'm chucking the case and want to extract data(old photos, music, work etc) from the hard drive.

Is this possible without putting the hard drive in a complete system? It would need a power supply I imagine? Something USB related would be ideal.

Cheers

 

[Terrier_Jimlad]

If the rig powers on, boot off of CD (Hirens or UBCD4WIN or any WinPE Env) and transfer the data to a USB hdd or large USB stick

 

[The Slayer_UK]

Is this possible without putting the hard drive in a complete system? It would need a power supply I imagine? Something USB related would be ideal.

yes you need one of these or somthing similar you can pick them up from ebay or various other sites not sure if OCuK stock them

External Hardrive reader

 

[Lukewhitworth]

I do not know if OC sell them, but I got online a sata to usb connector. Was great getting the files from my old pc!

 

[Doco]

I have a device like the Slayer UK is suggesting, you add a HD in and it converts it to usb, got it reasonably cheap via auction, best solution I can think of

 

[honosuseri]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-015-AK

A enclosure is the word so many are trying to describe lol

That is for a 3.5 inch sata drive. You havent said what the HDD is......it could be an IDE drive so dont order that link blindly.

This will allow you to connect the HDD via usb to your working rig to recover the data. The bonus is you now have a portable HDD as well

 

[craarc]

i have an external drive in a enclosure as storage which i take apart and swap drives had this problem when i wanted to recover lost data from a broken which connects either buy usb or firewire icybox enclosure but anyexternal enclosure you should be able to split and do the same thing with tbh

 

[Doco]

Actually the device I have isnt an enclosure XD - its like a plug and play sorta deal, it plugs into the hdd interface and is powered by a sata device then has a micro usb to usb so you can connect it to a pc