Need help recovering data from old Windows HDD!!

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7 Nov 2008
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Edinburgh, Scotland
Hey everyone.

So the other day my system would freeze just after loading windows and my hdd would start making clicking noises.

I figure that the hdd is on its way out after a solid 8 years!

Any way, I've got new Hdds and installed windows blah blah blah

I have the old HDD in a caddie connected via USB in the hopes that it will be able to stay alive long enough for me to grab some data off it.

But the disk isnt showing in disk management and it did pop up saying i have to format it the first time i plugged it in.
What steps / software do i need to get this drive mounted? There is no odd sounds coming from it as i type this so I would say that its still 'alive'.

Any quick help would be greatly appreciated!
P.s im on windows 7 pro sp1 now.
 
The drive should be shown in Disk management, you might need to assign a letter to the drive which can be done without a format.

Is the drive actually spinning in the caddie - daft question :p
 
postmanfw said:
Free option is recuva

https://www.piriform.com/recuva

other good ones too but cost £

Getdataback and powerdata recovery are other ones i use.
Click to expand...

Cool thanks, I'll check it out!

RJC said:
The drive should be shown in Disk management, you might need to assign a letter to the drive which can be done without a format.

Is the drive actually spinning in the caddie - daft question :p
Click to expand...

Not showing in disk management at all.
Drive is spinning :P


I think the thing that's stopping it is i can see it under device manager as an 'Unknown Device'
Clicking into the device it reads:
Code: 
"The drivers for this device are not installed. (Code 28)

To find a driver for this device, click Update Driver."

choosing update drive doesn't work as it says a driver cannot be found :(
Its a Seagate Barracuda 500gb st3500320as
 
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It might be the caddy giving you issues, it might be worth (if possible) to remove the optical drive power and sata cables and connect the hard drive direct to this and then turn on the pc and double check the boot order and see if Windows can see the drive this way, I have done this many times in the past.
 
RJC said:
It might be the caddy giving you issues, it might be worth (if possible) to remove the optical drive power and sata cables and connect the hard drive direct to this and then turn on the pc and double check the boot order and see if Windows can see the drive this way, I have done this many times in the past.
Click to expand...

Right.... So its not booting at all now after i shut down.

Pushing the error
Code: 
reboot and select proper boot device

I have 2 drives in raid 1 (volume 1) and a 3rd drive on its own.
I disconnected the 3rd drive and replaced it with the old drive and the above error happened immediately on reboot. Have I broken the raid?

I plugged the 3rd drive back in, still pushing the same error. In the raid settings all 3 drives look good and is 'bootable'.
Any ideas? Do i need to recreate the raid?

Mobo is an Asus Rampage 2 extreme.
 
Scratch that.... In the BIOS i had to set the 3rd drive as the primary boot drive... Some how that drive has got the system info on it. Is that easy to move across to the other RAID drives?

Also, Plugged the old drive into an additional port and its alive! Auto assigned a driver letter and files are being backed up!
 
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