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Saving the memory of dead computer

Discussion in 'Other Hardware' started by crazy_girl_83, Feb 7, 2008.

  1. crazy_girl_83 Newcomer, in training

    Hi all...

    My computer is dead... power supply is gone. Can anyone tell me how to recover data from the dead computer to an external drive? Please note I can not turn the computer on. It'd have to be from the internal drive to an external.. how do i do it? HELP ME! Thanks. :D
  2. tuant TechSpot Enthusiast Posts: 254

    Remove the hard drive from the malfunction computer and connected it to a working computer. Or you can purchase an HD enclosure depending upon what type of HD you have ( sata or IDE) and simply connect this via USB to anything computer. You should be able to see the hard drive and grab any information off of it.
  3. raybay TechSpot Evangelist Posts: 10,720   +6

    You cannot do it without power, unless you become very lucky.
    If you have Windows XP, you cannot move the drive to another computer. Windows XP will detect that it has been moved into a different configuration, and then it will not run. But you can migrate the files off of it, if you have another drive.
    Unfortunately, you cannot remove the files unless the drive is spinning. The drive needs power to spin.
    So first thing you do is install either a borrowed old power supply, or a new power supply... leaving the hard drive in the computer where it was.
    Power supplies can be had for as low as $35 new, or $10 refurbished.
    Tell us more about what happened.
  4. DeepMartin Newcomer, in training Posts: 89

    i've done that a thousand times just add the hhd as a slaved hhd on another computer and copy the files from it

    and then do whatever you want

    you can just replace the psu....
  5. Row1 TechSpot Enthusiast Posts: 277

    i disagree- you can put it as 2nd drive internal

    the comp won't try to boot from it when it is 2nd drive.
    then you just read and copy the files.
  6. tuant TechSpot Enthusiast Posts: 254

    You can set it to slave and/or force the computer by configuring to BIOS to not boot from that hard drive. On the other hand you can just purchase an external enclosure. In any event, I hope this works out for you Crazy_Girl
     
  7. DeepMartin Newcomer, in training Posts: 89

    I agree with your disagreement lol