Yesterday I finally got around to backing up a client’s laptop hard drive onto DVDs for him. The laptop had motherboard issues and was 4 years old, so I simply removed the hard drive to hook up to my computer and burn some discs. Simple for a geek, right?
That’s what I thought.
Hooking it up to one cable, the computer wouldn’t boot: no operating system found. I tried another, same thing. I tried the last one, and I got a blue screen of death and an immediate reboot before it ever logged me in. I tried going into Safe Mode, and that froze for 20 minutes. Giving up, I slapped my stuff back together and turned on my computer to get my own, permanent error of no operating system found.
I’m sure it has to do with mixing old drive technology and new drive technology and will require a new hard drive to back up all my “little” drives, and then will still require another Windows installation to set everything in place. Gorgeous thought I had done something foolish with my system, and I was starting to wonder myself. Then, when I was lamenting in my chats while trying to get the darn thing back up, a friend said the same thing had happened to their brother when he tried to rescue a laptop hard drive. I didn’t feel quite as bad then.
I was able to get the computer to boot again, though only with the Windows CD in there. I’ll take it, for now. I have too much work to do to be concerned with making it perfect. I guess I’ll just be using my laptop more.
I am seriously considering trying to get OS X on this system after reading Lifehackers’ “Hackintosh” articles: Hack Attack: Build a Hackintosh Mac for Under $800 and
How To: Install OS X on Your Hackintosh PC, No Hacking Required
Did you change the jumper settings on the old harddrive?
If it was the main drive on the old computer it was likely set as the master drive, that would conflict with the new PCs master harddrive. Especially if you’re running it of the same IDE port. Change the old harddrive to slave (I think, it’s been quite a few years since I diddled with more than one HD in my system) and that *should* fix your problem.
Another possible option which I have toyed with, but haven’t done, is to pick up an external harddrive cradle. These gizmos provide the power supply and electronics for connecting via a USB port. All you do is provide the drive. I’ve got a couple of old harddrives I really should get data off, I just need to buy one of these gizmos.
Did you change the jumper settings on the old harddrive?
If it was the main drive on the old computer it was likely set as the master drive, that would conflict with the new PCs master harddrive. Especially if you’re running it of the same IDE port. Change the old harddrive to slave (I think, it’s been quite a few years since I diddled with more than one HD in my system) and that *should* fix your problem.
Another possible option which I have toyed with, but haven’t done, is to pick up an external harddrive cradle. These gizmos provide the power supply and electronics for connecting via a USB port. All you do is provide the drive. I’ve got a couple of old harddrives I really should get data off, I just need to buy one of these gizmos.
Yeah, this drive is jumper-less, and after much debate yesterday, I’d decided that I either needed to get a 250gb SATA drive to back everything up on a second SATA so that is all I have in terms of hard drives, or get a USB connection to treat it as a removable drive.
Good eye, Stropp.
It just pissed me off that SATA and IDE can’t live in harmony.
Yeah, this drive is jumper-less, and after much debate yesterday, I’d decided that I either needed to get a 250gb SATA drive to back everything up on a second SATA so that is all I have in terms of hard drives, or get a USB connection to treat it as a removable drive.
Good eye, Stropp.
It just pissed me off that SATA and IDE can’t live in harmony.
Jesse,
I don’t think it’s a SATA IDE harmony issue, unless maybe it’s one of the very early computers that supported SATA. My computer has 4 IDE drives and 2 SATA drives. They all get along fine, even with dual booting Linux and XP.
Still, an external drive housing is a great tool for salvaging drives among other things.
Jesse,
I don’t think it’s a SATA IDE harmony issue, unless maybe it’s one of the very early computers that supported SATA. My computer has 4 IDE drives and 2 SATA drives. They all get along fine, even with dual booting Linux and XP.
Still, an external drive housing is a great tool for salvaging drives among other things.