rescuing a file from a bad drive

jimmy_lazers · 8 Dec 2009 at 17:08

So my ide seagate barracuda has failed after 13years of faultless service and luckily I back up regularly across a variety of media. There is one piece of writing however that I'm desperate to save.

I've bought a new Samsung spinpoint and I plan to install windows and then see if I can access my Seagate long enough to grab the file. I won't be able to format my seagate so it'll still have the old os on it.

All I have to do is change the bootable HD in bios to my new drive right?

can anyone see any problem with the method I'm proposing?
thanks.

ChileanLlama · 8 Dec 2009 at 17:41

Remove your old drive, either disable it in the BIOS, or unplug it while you install Windows on the new drive. It avoids any problems later if the Windows install decides to put any boot files on your old drive.

Once you've installed on the new drive, reattach/enable your old drive, and change the boot order in your BIOS and it should be detected as secondary drive once your in Windows.

jimmy_lazers · 8 Dec 2009 at 22:25

despite completely disabling the seagate in BIOS, removing it from the boot order and taking out the master jumper, it still wants to boot from it when it is plugged in.. WTF?

siege2 · 9 Dec 2009 at 10:19

using one ide cable , attach a new drive as master , install os onto it get it to boot etc desktop working, then switch off , attach failing HD as slave , make sure the jumper is selected on the back off failing hard drive as slave. boot up pc the monitor should show up 2 drives on the post screen , then try to get into the failing hard drive through windows should be drive d: or e:

PS. in the bios there may be a boot option for hard drive etc in the BIOS, to select the first bootable device.

jimmy_lazers · 9 Dec 2009 at 19:19

Problem is I don't have another IDE drive. I did change the boot order in bios for my new SATA drive but I couldn't install windows after formating from the xp cd as it would always try and boot from the failing drive. Have installed windows on the new drive now so i will plug in the old drive and see if it actually does what I tell BIOS to do.