Recovering data from SATA HDD with a ATAPI HDD

skrubnikskrubnik
edited May 2009 in Hardware
I have started something that I've since discovered is over my head. I have two desktop PCs. One is an older model that doesn't support SATA, the newer one has an SATA drive that has become nonfunctional. After running everything I could think of (chkdsk, fixboot, HDD diagnostic boot disk) without success, I had the brilliant idea that I could just pull the the ATAPI HDD out of my functional PC and run it as master on the SATA PC to see if I could salvage ANY data. I plugged it in and turned it on, then went into BIOS and changed the disk arrangement to have the ATAPI drive as primary and the SATA as secondary, however when I save and try to reboot, it just cycles through the "how would you like to start windows" screen continuously. I tried unplugging the SATA drive to see if I could just get the ATAPI drive to come on (and changed the appropriate BIOS settings) to no avail. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Does anyone have any ideas? I have a TON of pictures on the drive that I stupidly have not backed up anywhere else. Any help or ideas or even insults will be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited May 2009
    You cannot pull a drive out of one computer and expect it to boot on another unless the PCs in question are very similar in model; i.e. they have the same chipset, hard drive controllers, etc.

    Your best bet right now is to put your working PATA drive back into your old computer, and get either an Adapter of some sort to hook your SATA drive as a slave to your working system to pull data off, or get a PCI SATA card for your old PC and hook it up natively to the working system.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited May 2009
    You cannot install a copy of Windows on one computer, then move the hard drive containing that installation of Windows to another PC.

    Return the ATAPI drive to its working and original computer and then follow the steps outlined in this data recovery guide.
  • skrubnikskrubnik
    edited May 2009
    Of course you can't do that. I feel so stupid. I'll get an adaptor and try my luck hooking up the SATA to the old PC. It seemed like a good idea though ;-)

    Thanks so much for your help
  • skrubnikskrubnik
    edited May 2009
    P.S. Just to justify my actions, I thought I could do it because I once had two laptops, one with a broken screeen, the other with a crashed hardrive, and I swapped the harddrives with no ill effect. However, they were IDENTICAL laptops, which I didn't realize made a difference. Thanks again for your help.
  • SoundySoundy Pitt Meadows, BC
    edited May 2009
    skrubnik wrote:
    P.S. Just to justify my actions, I thought I could do it because I once had two laptops, one with a broken screeen, the other with a crashed hardrive, and I swapped the harddrives with no ill effect. However, they were IDENTICAL laptops, which I didn't realize made a difference. Thanks again for your help.

    It helps that they were the same laptop... if they were old enough, it might also have helped that they were an older version of Windows or some other OS :)

    The problem arises with newer (Win2K and later) versions of Windows that use a HAL - once the chipset-specific driver loads, if you move the drive to a machine with a different drive controller, the drive simply disappears, and you get the wonderfully enigmatic "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE" warning.

    BTW, Microsoft does have a workaround for this, at least for PATA drives - you simply make sure the necessary "generic IDE" support is in place, and update the registry to tell Windows to use it. It may or may not work with a SATA system drive.

    Back to your main problem: you can use a PATA/SATA adapter, or a PCI SATA card... but I really like having one of these around:

    http://a-power.com/product-5442-251-3
    ap_images.php?r_imageid=4919
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