Purchasing new hard drive for an early 2000's computer
November 13, 2019 9:28 PM Subscribe
I am trying to access documents on an early 2000's computer for which both hard drives are broken. I think I could access this data by installing a new hard drive from the same era with Windows ME installed (I think that was the Microsoft OS before XP).. I am a bit confused about where to find a suitable hard drive and what details I need to check in terms of compatibility (possibly relevant may be RAM details, whether I need a 32-bit or 64-bit operating system)?
There may be a more straightforward solution for accessing legacy hardware which I haven't thought so if so please let me know your thoughts. Both hard drives are broken (primary and secondary drives) so I don’t even have DOS, only the BIOS, so networking to another more recent PC is probably not an option at this stage?
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
There may be a more straightforward solution for accessing legacy hardware which I haven't thought so if so please let me know your thoughts. Both hard drives are broken (primary and secondary drives) so I don’t even have DOS, only the BIOS, so networking to another more recent PC is probably not an option at this stage?
Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.
cosmicbandito is right; data recovery is your best bet here. I've had good experiences with Gillware -- they'll give you a free preview of the recovered files, and you only pay them if they find the data you need. Plus they have a blog post about successfully recovering data from a mid-90s hard drive, so they shouldn't have any trouble handling your disks.
posted by Rhaomi at 10:03 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by Rhaomi at 10:03 PM on November 13, 2019 [1 favorite]
While I agree that if you say the drives are broken, you'll need to go with the professional data recovery... Have you tried putting the drives in an external enclosure (which is then plugged into any running computer via USB and treated as an external drive)?
You'd need to check connector types since your drives are most likely IDE, and SATA is the current standard.
posted by itesser at 10:05 PM on November 13, 2019 [6 favorites]
You'd need to check connector types since your drives are most likely IDE, and SATA is the current standard.
posted by itesser at 10:05 PM on November 13, 2019 [6 favorites]
You don't need a suitable new hard drive, and you don't need Windows ME to test whether you can access any data on those drives.
What you need is either an USB stick or CD/DVD with some flavour of Linux on it, which that computer can boot off. I would suggest either Knoppix (geared towards dealing with all kinds of hardware and data recovery, but somewhat peculiar) or Linux Mint (easy to use). 32 or 64 bit does not depend on RAM but on the processor; 64 bit might not work on a system of that era, 32 bit will, and for data recovery it doesn't matter. Any 32 bit Windows newer than ME would work too, but you would need to actually install it first before you can use it; Linux allows you to run off an USB stick or CD/DVD without installing, as a kind of test drive. Creatng that media can be done using any computer.
Set the BIOS to boot off USB or CD/DVD as appropriate, put the media you created in, and start the system. With Mint as well as Knoppix you'll get a 'live' desktop from which you can start its file manager. If the hard drives are not terminally broken or corrupted beyond the ability of the OS to deal with, you will see one or both hard drives show up, and you should be able to navigate to your data. Insert another USB stick or connect a portable hard drive and copy the data you need (you can't use the stick you booted off for that).
posted by Stoneshop at 11:04 PM on November 13, 2019 [11 favorites]
What you need is either an USB stick or CD/DVD with some flavour of Linux on it, which that computer can boot off. I would suggest either Knoppix (geared towards dealing with all kinds of hardware and data recovery, but somewhat peculiar) or Linux Mint (easy to use). 32 or 64 bit does not depend on RAM but on the processor; 64 bit might not work on a system of that era, 32 bit will, and for data recovery it doesn't matter. Any 32 bit Windows newer than ME would work too, but you would need to actually install it first before you can use it; Linux allows you to run off an USB stick or CD/DVD without installing, as a kind of test drive. Creatng that media can be done using any computer.
Set the BIOS to boot off USB or CD/DVD as appropriate, put the media you created in, and start the system. With Mint as well as Knoppix you'll get a 'live' desktop from which you can start its file manager. If the hard drives are not terminally broken or corrupted beyond the ability of the OS to deal with, you will see one or both hard drives show up, and you should be able to navigate to your data. Insert another USB stick or connect a portable hard drive and copy the data you need (you can't use the stick you booted off for that).
posted by Stoneshop at 11:04 PM on November 13, 2019 [11 favorites]
If you think the hard drives have any useful data on them I would look at a "USB 2.0 to SATA IDE Adapter" or just one that had IDE the older drive comnector, to plug the old drives temporarily into a different computer. They run around $30 from starlink and other manufacturers.
If the drives are totally dead, the old computer isn't storing your data anywhere else.
posted by TheAdamist at 5:24 AM on November 14, 2019 [5 favorites]
If the drives are totally dead, the old computer isn't storing your data anywhere else.
posted by TheAdamist at 5:24 AM on November 14, 2019 [5 favorites]
Yeah, can you say more about what you mean by "broken"? Is it just that the operating system installed is messed up or do you suspect there's something physically/mechanically wrong with the drives?
If the drives are ok mechanically, you should be able to use either of the above suggestions about running linux from a USB stick or putting the drives into a an enclosure and hooking them up to another computer. Linux from a USB stick is probably the easiest way to check because you won't have to open up the computer, but there might be a bit of a learning curve to figure out how to transfer the data after that.
posted by needs more cowbell at 5:47 AM on November 14, 2019 [1 favorite]
If the drives are ok mechanically, you should be able to use either of the above suggestions about running linux from a USB stick or putting the drives into a an enclosure and hooking them up to another computer. Linux from a USB stick is probably the easiest way to check because you won't have to open up the computer, but there might be a bit of a learning curve to figure out how to transfer the data after that.
posted by needs more cowbell at 5:47 AM on November 14, 2019 [1 favorite]
I have had to do this several times, recovering data from a hard drive that wasn't mechanically dead, but was corrupted enough that the computer wouldn't boot to a usable OS on its own. I've always gone route TheAdamist suggested, using a USB to IDE adapter for older drives, or just mounting the suspect drive in my computer as an additional drive. There have been a couple cases where Windows refused to acknowledge the suspect drive at all, but if I booted into Linux (Ubuntu for me), the drive was recognized right away.
The biggest thing if you're doing this yourself is to never make any destructive changes. If you get a message saying something like "This drive must be initialized before it can be used," STOP. The last thing you want to do is accidentally do a destructive format on the drive, further complicating your recovery efforts. If the drive isn't recognized and allowing you to browse the files on it, try doing this under a different operating system.
If this all seems a bit beyond your comfort level, your Friendly Local Computer Shop (not a Geek Squad, good gods never Geek Squad) probably has the tools on-hand to do this for you, for a nominal fee.
posted by xedrik at 8:39 AM on November 16, 2019
The biggest thing if you're doing this yourself is to never make any destructive changes. If you get a message saying something like "This drive must be initialized before it can be used," STOP. The last thing you want to do is accidentally do a destructive format on the drive, further complicating your recovery efforts. If the drive isn't recognized and allowing you to browse the files on it, try doing this under a different operating system.
If this all seems a bit beyond your comfort level, your Friendly Local Computer Shop (not a Geek Squad, good gods never Geek Squad) probably has the tools on-hand to do this for you, for a nominal fee.
posted by xedrik at 8:39 AM on November 16, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by cosmicbandito at 9:48 PM on November 13, 2019 [9 favorites]