Moving stuff from one drive to another

[jwfilion]

A week ago, an electrical storm knocked out power in our small town and apparently, knocked my old computer down for the count! When I first turned it on, a screen came up stating the computer had shut down due to one of several reasons, and started a 30 second countdown to start up with a few options. Several years ago, I fried the ps2 keyboard plug and have never been able to access the BIOS on start up in safe mode, so I just let it start as usual. This time it didn't. As soon as the start screen came on, the computer shut down. After several attempts, it won't even do that. The mobo fan starts spinning and stops a few seconds later.
That old machine was a generic brand with WinXP home and was used for web searches and emails. The newer one is more powerful and I used it exclusively for audio/video processing. It is an HP Compaq dc7100 with WinXP pro.
Before this fiasco, I was in the process of moving info to the HP. Now I have 100 Gigs of my "stuff" on the old machine and would like to know how to get it off the old hard drive.
I thought that if the old hard drive was unscathed, I could put it into another machine and be able to transfer the info eventually to an external drive I have. Is there a problem with this? I would be afraid to try this on the HP, but I have an old 386 with Win 98 se on it. Would the operating system even matter? Both are sata drives. I would appreciate any help with this. I don't know if the hard drive is fried. I hope you can diagnose the situation with the info I've given.

[Geek-9pm]

Welcome to CH.
Most likely  you can get 'your stuff' off of the old drive.
You said SATA? On the Windows 98 machine? Please clarify The older machine had PATA, not SATA.

[jwfilion]

Sorry, you are right. The ribbon cable ends on the 386 and the crashed machine appear the same.

[Geek-9pm]

May I suggest you try a USB drive adapter. About $7 to $12 on eBay. Takes about a week to ship.



The one in the photo about has a  round plug used in Europe. . If you are in North America, you have to get one with the standard blade plug.
I have used these things often. Most of the time they work. But once in awhile they don't. But for the price, it is worth a try.

Otherwise, you have to connect the drive  inside to your new computer. You can try using the ribbon cable for the CD-ROM drive. That should work. Do not power on until you have it all connected. Be careful, drop a screw on the motherboard and it can be damaged.

[jwfilion]

Thank you for your reply. I'll see if I can find one of these. Not sure if they will solve the problem, but the lost info is worth the price.

[Dumb_Question]

you can buy one on ebay http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.XUSB+2.0+to+SATA+IDE+2.5+3.5+Hard+Drive+HDD+Adapter&_nkw=USB+2.0+to+SATA+IDE+2.5+3.5+Hard+Drive+HDD+Adapter&_sacat=0&_from=R40 for < US$10

I bought a near identical one to the one pictured by Geek, been using for a few days to quickly verify internal SATA drives without putting them in PC.  It comes with all the cables you need, is suitable for ATA and IDE/PATA types, but I have never used mine with IDE/SATA.  Easy to connect.

Ensure you the correct mains plug for your region.

I have a number of small concerns with mine (in UK). The mains adapter gets hot when plugged in.  Not too hot too to pick up, but more than warm.  The mains lead does not appear to be fused [to contain a fuse] (I might be wrong, the plug fits into a wall point, but it is very small, and sealed.  The adapter end is standard IEC (in the UK, 'kettle'), so that lead is easy to replace.  The mains lead does not fit very deeply into the mains adapter and so sometimes does not go in properly.  The adapter itself has a grreen LED on it though, which will confirm that it's plugged in ok though.  The LED takes about 1s to come on after you plug it in to the mains.

(I also bought an IDE <-> SATA adapter which plugs into a SATA disk providing a connection to the internal IDE ribbon cable, I think it works the other way round too, but you might need a variety that has different sex connectors, it was about US$5 including p&p)

Dumb_Question
30.August.2013

[Geek-9pm]

Right. They are cheap, but work. Do not leave it plugged into the mains when not it use. It should only be occasional use. The thing does overheat and will fail when a certain temperature is reached. You let it cool off and it will work again. Cheap. Thee is no visible fuse.