Ancient Computer & Hard-Drive Recovery

[MuziKid]

i'm a lil nervous to be talking on here not as smart as most o' yall...lol sorry if it doesn't make sense BUT...

lemme warn yall, this is an OLD computer...it has a pentium 3 processor, 80gig hard drive, 512 meg of ram, etc...the OLD STUFF! well i was trying to build a computer just to get by for next week then, this summer, i'm gonna save up and buy a nice desktop..any suggestions for a computer under a 1000 bucks??
AND...
i have a linux ubuntu installer cd and i was using it live to access my, other wise, corrupt hard drive. well...it's not reading it what do i do to access the files on my hard drive. a friend told me that when reformatting, it only puts up a "note" to the computer that it can rewrite over that section. is it possible to reformat my hard drive, installing an OS on it, and recover at least SOME files??

 

[American Zombie]

Re: Acient Computer & W/ No Moola

Try GetDataBack.

 

[Taurus]

Re: Acient Computer & W/ No Moola

for hardware suggestions, it helps to know what you intend to use the computer for (gaming, audio/video editing, etc), if you have any priorities (low noise, low power, small space, etc), and if you want peripherals included (monitor, keyboard, speakers, etc).

 

[Aprox]

Re: Ancient Computer & W/ No Moola

Edited thread title for clarity.

 

[MuziKid]

American Zombie, i'll try GetDataBack

Taurus, and the new computer, my intentions are to use it for a in-home audio (and photo) studio. to record, edit, produce music as well as pictures. with the little knowledge that i DO have, i can see i will need a much better, faster computer. the speakers i have is a home theater system (sub-wolfer, center speaker, two back, and two front speakers). my monitor? just a decent sized one, that i can see everything on. i may use the default keyboard and mouse that comes with the computer (if one does) if not, i have a wireless mi keyboard/mouse set that i bought thats sufficient.

thanks for the help

 

[roirraW "edor" ehT]

I wouldn't recommend reformatting/reinstalling and then trying to recover your files. Windows has thousands of files on the drive and the likelyhood that your files are the ones that won't get overwritten by the new installation is very small.

GetDataBack looks pretty good but you really would need an additional working computer in order to use it. For one thing, you need someplace to recover your files to, and you should never recover files to the same hard drive that you're recovering from.

Do you own a flash drive, to be able to recover files to it using GetDataBack or some other solution? It looked to me like GetDataBack really required either a running Windows installation to do the recovery, or one to perform the steps necessary to create a bootable CD that you can run GetDataBack from. So either way you need a working PC.

 

[MuziKid]

Would it be possible if i used another hard drive that i have (blank), install XP on it and then hook both up to that computer and recover that way?

 

[roirraW "edor" ehT]

Yes. Of course it's yet to be seen how recoverable the one hard drive is so your mileage may vary, but I would do what you said. You may not need anything like GetDataBack so I would try without it first, just trying to copy the files using Windows Explorer.

Are you familiar with hooking up hard drives and changing jumper settings, et cetera?

By the way, as far as recommending a specific computer, I would wait until within a week or so of when you're ready to make your purchase to ask for recommendations. Hardware and prices changes so fast that anything we recommend now either might not be available at that later date, or something better might have come along.

Personally, of course, I'll never buy a pre-built computer outside of a laptop. I enjoy getting exactly what I want and the best bang for the buck by building my own system, but I know that's not an option for everyone; just my two cents.

 

[MuziKid]

Ok, thank you for your help, i'll tell you how it turns out.

And yes, i know how to put multiple hard drives in a computer. And it just so happens that i do know what jumpers are as well, only problem is that on BOTH of my hard drives it doesn't tell me in which position to place the jumper so that it can recognize if it's a master or slave, etc.

Also thanks for the idea about buying the computer. And i will wait. But it will be sooner than the end of the summer i believe too, because i just got a much better job than what i had recently! Thanks to my older brother!

 

[roirraW "edor" ehT]

Congrats on the new job, and good luck. You'll find the jumper settings on the web either by just googling for them or through the manufacturer's web site.

 

[MuziKid]

Thanks for the tip!