hard drive data extraction

[Blaze163]

Lali ho!

My netbook has finally died, beyond all repair. Screen won't switch on, it makes a terrible noise, it's basically F'd in the A. I was cautious enough to back up the truly irreplacable files, like my novels and such, but there's a lot I need to extract. I found this....

http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/833...&gclid=CMeFu9PMnrkCFcaWtAodbnoAzQ#srcid=11270

Now, I'm a total techno-newb. I have no idea what sort of connection goes into what. But can this in theory connect the hard drive from my bog-standard netbook, an old E-Machines running the Atom N270, 1GB RAM, etc, to my friend's machine to extract the data? I can yank the thing out of the back of my netbook, piece of piss. Damn near falling out of its own accord, back panel is damaged but the hard drive itself is fine. I can grab this right now if it's what I need. Advice would be much appreciated as I said, I know nothing.

 

[yusuo]

In theory yes but you'd be better off buying a hard drive caddy, at least then your hard drive will be in a secure shell and a lot more portable/durable
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B002UZO07C

Something like that basically but you may need the ide equivalent depending on your drive

 

[Blaze163]

How do I tell what type I need? Any particular markings I should look for on the hard drive when I extract it?

 

[gloweyjoey]

I would check what kind of connection is on the drive(SATA or mini IDE) then see what connections your friends PC has.

I was able to hook up my laptops hard drive to my desktop with the SATA power and data cables I had connected inside the system already. You never know he might have the hook ups already and you wouldn't need to buy anything.

I would recommend the USB adapter you linked to only if you would be using it with lots of different drives, seeing as it has the 3 connection types. If you're going to just take the data off of the one drive, I would go with the case yusuo suggested, making sure it has the right connecter for your drive be it SATA or mini IDE. Then after copying your data you could format it however you like and have a new portable hard drive.

 

[Blaze163]

I would check what kind of connection is on the drive(SATA or mini IDE) then see what connections your friends PC has.

I was able to hook up my laptops hard drive to my desktop with the SATA power and data cables I had connected inside the system already. You never know he might have the hook ups already and you wouldn't need to buy anything.

I would recommend the USB adapter you linked to only if you would be using it with lots of different drives, seeing as it has the 3 connection types. If you're going to just take the data off of the one drive, I would go with the case yusuo suggested, making sure it has the right connecter for your drive be it SATA or mini IDE. Then after copying your data you could format it however you like and have a new portable hard drive.

So basically that cable I linked to will connect it to pretty much anything and I don't have to worry about not having the right connection 'cause it has all of them? I have no idea what these connections look like having never dealt with this issue before, so I have no idea if its mini IDE or SATA or whatever. Basically I need a simple layman's solution, explained using words of one syllable or less.

 

[gloweyjoey]

So basically that cable I linked to will connect it to pretty much anything and I don't have to worry about not having the right connection 'cause it has all of them? I have no idea what these connections look like having never dealt with this issue before, so I have no idea if its mini IDE or SATA or whatever. Basically I need a simple layman's solution, explained using words of one syllable or less.

Yes, the cable you linked to will connect to pretty much anything and you don't have to worry about not having the right connection because it has all of them.

 

[Blaze163]

Yes, the cable you linked to will connect to pretty much anything and you don't have to worry about not having the right connection because it has all of them.

Thanks muchly, ordering now Hopefully the PS3 will acknowledge the hard drive as just a massive USB keystick and I can watch the films downloaded onto there again but if not I can always just transfer them onto my actual USB keystick. It'll take like, 14 hours, but I only ever need to do it once.

 

[Essometer]

Your harddrive is probably NTFS formatted, which the PS3 dosn´t support.
Your PS3 can´t read your HDD.

 

[Blaze163]

Your harddrive is probably NTFS formatted, which the PS3 dosn´t support.
Your PS3 can´t read your HDD.

Will just extract the usable files to my USB keystick instead then. Lengthier process but same results at the end. Me watching my Blu-Ray rip of Wreck It Ralph

 

[gloweyjoey]

Thanks muchly, ordering now Hopefully the PS3 will acknowledge the hard drive as just a massive USB keystick and I can watch the films downloaded onto there again but if not I can always just transfer them onto my actual USB keystick. It'll take like, 14 hours, but I only ever need to do it once.

Whoa whoa, I wouldn't go ordering it just yet, if the drive is mini IDE im pretty sure it will get it power through the USB, for the SAtA im not to sure how this cable would power it if it doesn't have molex or 15 pin sata ppower adapter.

 

[gloweyjoey]

Whoa whoa, I wouldn't go ordering it just yet, if the drive is mini IDE im pretty sure it will get it power through the USB, for the SAtA im not to sure how this cable would power it if it doesn't have molex or 15 pin sata ppower adapter,which a PC might have inside of it but not a PS3. Yeah and the link you linked to isnt working anymore =/

oops...lol

 

[FAST6191]

Others seem to be heading down the right path. Sata is sata regardless of the size and you can buy a 3.5 inch to 2.5 inch IDE adapter cable so for basic work I have a caddy that does both ( http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Stor...luminium+HDD+Enclosure+U35SF+?productId=54288 is an example of one).
Those caddy devices are not brilliant (never seen a truly good one) but they will get your data back if the drive is not too far gone.
If you or someone you know has a broken external drive it might be worth pulling it apart as they are usually a caddy

I will note though this is not the first time or even the first month in which you have mentioned this thing is on the way out. Generally speaking it is far better to have a backup at the point you know it to be on the way out rather than try to have to recover it now -- 32 gig USB drives are what £10 a pop and bigger models are not exactly that much dearer either.

 

[Blaze163]

Others seem to be heading down the right path. Sata is sata regardless of the size and you can buy a 3.5 inch to 2.5 inch IDE adapter cable so for basic work I have a caddy that does both ( http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Storage/Hard Drives/Hard Drive Accessories/External (For SATA Drive)/Arianet 3.5" USB 2.0 SATA + IDE Aluminium HDD Enclosure U35SF ?productId=54288 is an example of one).
Those caddy devices are not brilliant (never seen a truly good one) but they will get your data back if the drive is not too far gone.
If you or someone you know has a broken external drive it might be worth pulling it apart as they are usually a caddy

I will note though this is not the first time or even the first month in which you have mentioned this thing is on the way out. Generally speaking it is far better to have a backup at the point you know it to be on the way out rather than try to have to recover it now -- 32 gig USB drives are what £10 a pop and bigger models are not exactly that much dearer either.

Yeah, it's been dying for months, but now it's completely kaput. Screen won't switch on, there's no reaction aside from the little green light to let me know it even on. I've backed up all my critical data so it's no great loss. Might just install Linux on my PS3 if that's still possible, turn it into a second machine for basic word processing and such. Dunno if that can be done or how it affects stuff like my PS+ membership though so it's on the back burner for now.

EDIT: Found the SATA cable I need (googled to see what my connection is now I've extracted the HDD), only cost me £4.55. Only needs to function once to extract the files to this machine's hard drive. After that I can finally live the dream of hurling the smoking remains of my craptastic netbook from the 16th floor.

 

[FAST6191]

Yeah, it's been dying for months, but now it's completely kaput. Screen won't switch on, there's no reaction aside from the little green light to let me know it even on. I've backed up all my critical data so it's no great loss. Might just install Linux on my PS3 if that's still possible, turn it into a second machine for basic word processing and such. Dunno if that can be done or how it affects stuff like my PS+ membership though so it's on the back burner for now.

EDIT: Found the SATA cable I need (googled to see what my connection is now I've extracted the HDD), only cost me £4.55. Only needs to function once to extract the files to this machine's hard drive. After that I can finally live the dream of hurling the smoking remains of my craptastic netbook from the 16th floor.

Oh? If that is the case then it might just be that the screen has gone or perhaps even the cable has gone (a lot of them were that little bit too short which killed them after you opened and closed the lid a few hundred times), up to you if you want to repair it (I fix a lot of laptops and most people are quite happy to bin their netbook as soon as I get the data off it, I will sometimes still fix p4 laptops for fun after people have left them for disposal but never with netbooks -- that is how worthless most of them are in my estimation). That is besides the point though as chances are it will have a VGA or even HDMI port on the side and you can plug that into any monitor/TV that supports it -- pulling data from a working machine, even if the screen res is awful, is almost invariably ten times easier in general and if you are not quite so versed in computer repair then that number only goes up (rather than pissing around with files, taking ownership and then pulling settings from the registry you run the likes of http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/ to get firefox and thunderbird settings and data saved, files are files, whatever else for whatever else and then punt it across the network/to a USB drive).

As far as I am aware Sony removed the option for linux on the PS3 some time back, you can try to hack it to get it back on but assuming you have updated it since about 3 months after the main fail0verflow hack (so post Easter 2011) it will be a nightmare.

 

[Blaze163]

Quick update. The SATA cable arrived this morning and I can access my files now, but when I try to copy them from the hard drive to my key stick, I get an error message saying that splicing is against permissions or some crap. I'm assuming it's a problem with transferring files from a Windows system's hard drive through Linux? Either way, how do I get rid of this message so I can transfer my files? Got 75GB of movies sat waiting to be watched on that thing, would hate to have to re-download everything.

Further update, after a little searching around it seems that Windows decided to encrypt my files without ever telling me about it. So I can see what's there, but any attempt to access or transfer anything triggers the encryption and I can't do anything with any file on there. So here's the short version. Is there any way to disable that encryption, or should I just call it a day and re-download everything?

 

[trumpet-205]

Further update, after a little searching around it seems that Windows decided to encrypt my files without ever telling me about it. So I can see what's there, but any attempt to access or transfer anything triggers the encryption and I can't do anything with any file on there. So here's the short version. Is there any way to disable that encryption, or should I just call it a day and re-download everything?

Windows will NOT encrypt the HDD without you telling it to do so. if your entire HDD is encrypted, you couldn't even see the files and folders to begin with.

What ever your problem may be it is NOT encryption for sure. Encryption means your data is scrambled that no one can understand it without having a key to decrypt it.

 

[Blaze163]

Windows will NOT encrypt the HDD without you telling it to do so. if your entire HDD is encrypted, you couldn't even see the files and folders to begin with.

What ever your problem may be it is NOT encryption for sure. Encryption means your data is scrambled that no one can understand it without having a key to decrypt it.

Whatever it was, it seems to be affecting random files here and there, but the majority are working now. Alarm over. Started transferring my movies only to remember that some of them won't play through PS3. Derp.

 

[Originality]

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Windows signs certain key folders (Users, Program Files, etc) with either your activation key or the password set for the Admin/User account. This sometimes causes issues when trying to recover files from old system drives using the old drag-n-drop method. However usually Windows is able to get past this with just a couple minutes to decode the signature.

Also, if the filing system is encrypted then the drive is unreadable without the key. If its just the files, then you can browse it but you can't open/copy/extract anything without the key. There are many different standards to encryption.