How to Get Data From Your Broken Hard Drive to Your New One

Your hard disk is broken and you have replaced it with a new drive. But you want the data you had on it. What is the easiest thing you can do to recover that data. Your absolute best scenario would have been that you were a responsible computer user who backups their data regularly. However, as someone who fails this practice pretty regularly, this is an attempt to recover data after a crash. Depending on the nature of your crash you may be successful, however not always.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Screwdriver
• SATA or IDE to USB cable or enclosure
• Anti-virus software
• Anti-mal ware software
• Patience

1. 
   USB/Firewire enclosure

   If the old hard disk was not physically damaged and you want to reuse this hard disk as a secondary drive, or a drive to store backups of your data, pick up a hard disk enclosure. This will be a box that supplies power to your hard disk. It will also have the connections available to hook up your hard disk's data connection. There are a few different kinds of hard disk drives, so make certain you get the correct enclosure. If your hard disk has a PATA/EIDE connection it will require a different connection than a SATA hard disk. When in doubt search the internet for the model number of your hard disk. You should be able to tell from the results what kind of drive it is. There are a number of vendors online like, Newegg or Tigerdirect who sell these pretty reasonably.

2. 
   EIDE/SATA to USB cable

   If you do computer support for a living, or for a lot of friends, purchase instead a USB to EIDE/SATA combo cable. It is quicker and easier to setup, and quicker and easier to remove. Again, Tigerdirect and Newegg are good vendors for such a cable.

3. Follow instructions given with the enclosure or cable. However, prior to installing onto your new computer make certain you have current up to date virus definitions. If you don't have an anti virus program, AVG provides a free one for personal use. Download also, anti-mal ware software. Malwarebytes.org provides again a free version.

4. Plug in the drive to your computer. When your computer recognizes it as a hard disk you will hear the sound the computer makes as it finds a new piece of hardware. First thing, scan that drive with your anti-virus software to make certain that there is no virus' on it. Follow that with the mal ware search. When done, you should be able to get to your data, depending on the type of crash your hard disk had.

Tips & Warnings

• If you had data in "My Documents" or pictures in "My Pictures" etc, you will find those on the new drive under e:\documents and settings\username\My Documents. Assuming that "E" is the drive letter given to the new drive.
• Physically damaged hard drives will create a harder problem. This process may work for them, however the drive may not be recognized by your new computer. You could also have data in bad sectors of your hard disk.
• When working with the hard disk, installing it, make sure you discharge any static electricity that you may have by touching something metal which is grounded.
• If when plugging it in, it makes your computer hang for a couple of minutes, unplug the device from the computer. If the computer starts responding again, chances are you have a physically broken hard disk and this will not work. However if the data is that important, there are expensive services that will recover it for you.
• If it plugs up fine, and you are searching through your data, and try to copy a particular folder and it hangs then. There could be chances that that area of the disk where the data was stored contains corrupted disk media. If plugging it in and trying again with different folders work fine, then use your own deduction to figure out what data you can reasonably recover.