Data rescue advice needed

[doradoo]

Morning all!!

I have a wee problem and wondered if anyone could give me some really really basic info....

My old desktop pc has stopped booting - my DH would like to recover some data from the harddrive which I hadn't backed up frequently enough....

As we can't get it to boot a friend has suggested we try something like this: www.digitus.info/es/productos/accesorios/datenspeicherung/hdd-anschluss-zubehoer/usb-20-mini-festplattenadapter-fuer-ide-und-sata-da-70200/

Here come the questions....

1- do I need to take my hdd out of the desktop to use one of these - or do they just plug in the back?

2 - does it then become like an external drive to my laptop?

3 - if I do need to take the drive out - any pointers on where to start?

4 - should I just call a professional?

Thanks in advance from a semi luddite :)

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. It's relatively easy, with the right set of screwdrivers. I'm sure there are videos on youtube
4. Probably not

Do you know what's preventing it booting? If the hardware isn't too badly knackered, before you get into mucking about with hardware, I can make an alternative suggestion.

I assume that it has at least a CD drive and maybe a network connection.

Download and burn Linux live CD/DVD and see if you can get it to boot from that. If the hardware isn't completely knackered, it may be possible to get it to boot Linux and copy data out over the network or onto a USB stick.

The CD version of Linux Mint is quite usable www.linuxmint.com/download.php

Obviously, if the power supply or motherboard is knackered, it won't boot anything and you'll have to take the disk out anyway. If the disk itself is knackered, you won't get anything off without taking it to the professionals.

Thanks for that - it seems to half boot - we get the windows start up screen then just as you think it's about to load into the desktop, it reboots itself.

Can't even manage to boot it in safe mode :(

Is the linux interface fairly userfriendly - never used it before.....

How old is your desktop PC? And have you replaced it with a new desktop or a laptop?

Because if you've a new desktop then you may not even need to buy anything.

What i sometimes do is pop out the old drive and connect it to the new PC by using the (SATA) cables which are plugged into my DVD drive. It all depends on how old is 'old'. Sata's been with us for quite some time now so chances are, you may be lucky.

It's about 8/9 years old. We've new laptops but no new desktop.

In that case I'd suggest doing what Cruel suggested. Download a CD version of a recovery tool, boot up from it, insert a USB drive and copy your files off.

8/9 years old? wow. By modern standards that's prehistoric! lol

Linux Mint has a nice, easy to use interface. It might struggle a bit with an 8 year old machine. The system requirements say it requires 512MB RAM.

Running from CD is always a bit slow, but as you only want to copy stuff off, you should be OK, as long as you have enough RAM.

Update - somehow I've managed to get it to reboot in its last known good configuration and saved the data that way.

So thanks for all your suggestions but fortunately I didn't need to take the plunge into linux (scaredy cat emoticon!)