Hard drive data recovery.

[Sy V]

I want to bring the Stripey project thread up to date and finish it off, but I've realised that a lot of pictures etc are on a hard drive in an old PC (the boot sector of which is infected). I've borrowed one of the IT guys at work's ICY BOX to recover the data, but having removed the old HD (made by Seagate for Dell) it's got a completely different interface.
The ICY BOX wants a normal wide grey band type plug (usually found in PCs) and smaller multi pin. This drive has two separate sockets neither of which are 'normal'. Incidentally it doesn't appear to have a slave/master jumper doodah either.

Any clues (other that 'you're f****d mate) from the assembled masses would be brilliant.

[Enright]

Could you post a picture of the old hard drive's sockets?

[Sy V]

Could the hard drive have an integral adapter to fit Dell machines perhaps.

[Sy V]

Neil

There's one for sale on eBay that shows the sockets:
Click this

[Enright]

Does anyone do a cable adaptor?
Sorry but I'm afraid that's all I can come up with.

[CJ101KT]

I do believe Dell uses a different interface cable than others on some of their machines. Does the old Dell machine not work anymore?

[dapinky]

Sy, until a real wizard comes along with the correct answer, it sounds to me like your HDD is a SATA interface, and you need an IDE interface????

Basically, the 'old' standard was IDE (40 pin plug in two rows of 20), which has been generally superceded by SATA (probably because they're 2d per gross cheaper).

(actually because they allow faster data transfer).

I would suggest that virtually any modern PC will accept the old HDD, if it is the boot sector which is knackered, can you still boot from the Windows CD?

I don't know if there is a master/slave jumper on SATA, because the last time i built up a desktop unit, IDE was the new standard , and I've been on laptops eversince.

I use Novatech for all my bits and pieces ('cos they're local), but they don't seem to list anything that will do it the way round you need novatech

[GeoffSmith]

You mean the HDD needs one of these and one of these ? If so, the Pink one's nailed it and your IT people should have something to suit.

[CJ101KT]

SATA interface cables are easily available but remember this wont necessarily fit into your pc if it does not support this on the motherboard. If it does then I would use it as a slave drive in order to retrieve the data you are after.

[CJ101KT]

Sy, until a real wizard comes along with the correct answer

Real !!!

[al]

if the drive was infected with something nasty then take care - you don't want to infect your new machine with the lurgies (and I don't care what Mr. Norton's and Mr. Kapersky's marketing associates may say - it's an arms race and they're on the losing side)... I'd suggest the least likely to end in tears option would be to take the drive to a friendly geek somewhere (I'm volunteering if you happen to be passing through London) and get them to grab stuff off the drive for you.

Otherwise, if you're feeling more gung-ho about it all, then this will do what you want:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nexons-SATA-Ada ... 570&sr=8-2

plug that in to your old drive, plug in the power supply, plug the USB end into a USB socket on your machine and with any luck you'll then see your old drive pop up inside My Computer on your machine; Robert's your mother's brother (in a temporary, copy-all-your-files-off-and-then-unplug-this-unholy-mess kinda way).

[Sy V]

Hey! Nice one Al, that seems to work for both types of connection.

Good man!

[Sy V]

So impressed are our IT folk, with Al's little nugget; they're going to buy one!
Anyone for a spot of misappropriation!

[al]

No worries, good luck !