One SATA drives files to copy to another "new one"

[doggit]

I recently posted that after a windows update my machine crashed and rebooted round and round not even getting to the log on screen. Now feeling flush after trying safe mode,with networking,command prompt,windows normally and finally last known working configuration to no avail. I bought another Maxtor SATA 200gb internal drive and loaded windows up fine.Incidently to let anybody else know I installed every available windows update without a hitch as well so now comes my question. How can I transfer my precious files(My kids photos,films,etc) from my old hard drive to my new one? I have an ASUS K8V SE deluxe mother board and it has four SATA sockets 1 of which is already used if that helps.I have already plugged it into the SATA socket above the other one but it is not recognising and the computer gets to the windows xp loading screen and then stops dead so I did not carry on with that and disconnected it.Many thanks in advance for all replies.

 

[Char_X]

If I understand, you plugged old HDD along new. But did you switch it to slave? If youll access to load windows with old HDD, and you couldn't detect it, probably you'll need recovery partition software.

 

[mailpup]

I don't know the answer to your problem but I can say that master and slave doesn't apply to SATA HDs.

 

[tdeg]

I fear it may be lost.

Those files are probably fairly important to you, I would take to a computer shop and see if they can do something for you. It might cost a little, but how much is that stuff worth to you?