Total System Failure.

Upon Infinity · June 27, 2014, 02:34:33 PM

Ok, so my main PC just died last night. Does anyone here have experience recovering hard drives? What have you found works best? I did a little preliminary research and discovered that there are these SATA / IDE to USB adaptors that look promising. I'll probably try one of these first.

archonforest · June 27, 2014, 02:47:57 PM

The adapter works well. U can also just take your HDD and stuff it in another PC and download the data.

Hope your hdd did not died...

Upon Infinity · June 27, 2014, 02:52:12 PM

Quote from: archonforest on June 27, 2014, 02:47:57 PM
The adapter works well. U can also just take your HDD and stuff it in another PC and download the data. Hope your hdd did not died...

Yeah, me too. I could lose between 6-8 months of work. The BIOS is still working and I attempted to back it up through Windows Recovery, but it gets part way through the system scan and then shuts the machine off. So the HDD is at least partially working, and it looks as though only the Windows is corrupted. In any event, I won't be rendering for awhile.

jaf · June 27, 2014, 04:20:57 PM

I use a "Thermaltake BlacX eSATA USB Docking Station". It's sold on Amazon and several other stores. It's showing it's age (usb2) but it's nice that you don't have to open up another computer.

Upon Infinity · June 27, 2014, 11:26:32 PM

I use a windows tablet. Can I use this adapter without an installation cd? Will it just be plug and play?

Dune · June 28, 2014, 03:03:50 AM

You need backups, always! Hope you can recover your work.

Upon Infinity · July 01, 2014, 12:19:23 AM

Okay, adapter works great! Looks like I can recover everything. Kind of makes you wonder why we have passwords, though, when these things can be backdoor hacked so easily...

archonforest · July 01, 2014, 09:02:25 AM

Quote from: Upon Infinity on July 01, 2014, 12:19:23 AM
Kind of makes you wonder why we have passwords, though, when these things can be backdoor hacked so easily...

This is not that easy as u have to remove the hdd from the case. I had a faster solution before. A bootable CD that was able to change your windows password...

Less than 10 minutes you can do whatever u want with that PC. I used it once to delete my forgotten Admin password...

Upon Infinity · July 01, 2014, 06:01:13 PM

Scratch the thing about it being easy. Looks like my old user folder is giving me some trouble due to permissions. Looking online, it looks like there is a way to access it, but it's not going down without a fight.

archonforest · July 02, 2014, 08:59:18 AM

wow! Never had this problem. I thought when u go via an adapter u must have all rights to copy or whatever...