dead main board - retrieving files

[nofishfisherman]

So my 5-6 year old sony viao died the other day.

Took it into General Nanosystems and got word that the main board went bad. It just froze up one day and after a restart the fan came on but nothing else. The guy switch around all types of stuff with known working components and nothing doing.

So I went out and bought a new gateway desktop.

Now I am wondering if there is a way to get all of my old files off my hard drive even with the main board being dead? I do have a back up disk that I made but its a few months old. Just hoping to get the newer files of the computer, some songs some pictures, really nothing vital just stuff that'd be nice to have.

[LMITOUT]

Is this a Viao laptop or desktop?

Either way, I have an adapter that will connect to laptop and desktop hard drives while they are out of the computer so you can pull the files off of them.

All you do is connect this adapter to the data port of the hard drive which has been removed from the old computer, and then connect a USB cable from the adapter to your good PC. The good PC will see the hard drive as "removable disk" just like a flash drive, etc. and you can just drag and drop the files you want to keep to your new computer.

The one I have is made by Newer Technology and it's called a "USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter". I did a search online and found a few different vendors that sell it. They run about $25.

[upnorth]

Yes and depending on the type of hard disk that was in your sony you may be able to just pop the hood on both PCs and connect the Drive out of the old pc to your new PC and pull the files off that way. Just need to be sure the type of drives are the same. Ide or sata. Newer ones are going to be sata. And depending how you set it up you may have to change the jumpers so that the old drive is a slave.

But LMITOUT's solution would be the easiest tho.

[nofishfisherman]

Its Sony desktop.

I'll have to look into that drive adapter. Sounds pretty easy. I need to get over to general nanosystmes yet this week, perhaps they sell them.

Thanks for the help.

[jwhjr]

Great tip on the drive adapter, it sounds like it would do the trick for me on a drive in an old desktop where the power supply went bad and I don't want to fix it. I'm missing about 20 pictures that I didn't have backed up when it went out.

[LMITOUT]

They also work good when the hard drive fails. In some instances you can get lucky and retrieve files off of a bad drive and was the primary reason why I sought it out. It's worked on three failed drives so far and has paid for itself already.

[nofishfisherman]

For $20-25 its not a bad bit of added insurance knowing you have yet another back up if something goes bad.

[Shack]

Since it is a desktop, I would almost say the harddrive is a 3.5". Sony could be different with their desktops though. The 2.5" is mainly reserved for laptops?? As far as the hard drive is concerned it could be a SATA, IDE, SCSI, PATA. It think when it comes to the enclosure, size (2.5"-3.5") is what matters. It will matter when purchasing, because most place will not return enclosures.

Yep, as long as your harddrive powers up (turns on/spins), an enclosure with USB is all you need. Just slave it to your new desktop and do what LIMT said. If the hard drive is not a 2.5" SATA, it might involve jumper pins and a power supply. Should come with the enclosure.

This is not the quickest thing depending on what size files you transfer and your harddrives, but at least you get your files back.

What size is the new harddrive in the desktop? Do not just transfer the entire slaved drive out to the new desktop. Go in and just take software and files you need. If you transfer the entire slave drive, you will take up GB's you do not have to loose. Plus it can cause issues if your main concern with the other computer was caused by a virus.

Good luck.

[spearchucker]

Great tip on the drive adapter, it sounds like it would do the trick for me on a drive in an old desktop where the power supply went bad and I don't want to fix it. I'm missing about 20 pictures that I didn't have backed up when it went out.

You don't always need the adapter. Just install the old drive in your new PC. I believe that a 2.5" sata drive will plug right into a 3.5" sata port on a desktop and vice versa.

[jwhjr]

Originally Posted By: jwhjr

Great tip on the drive adapter, it sounds like it would do the trick for me on a drive in an old desktop where the power supply went bad and I don't want to fix it. I'm missing about 20 pictures that I didn't have backed up when it went out.

You don't always need the adapter. Just install the old drive in your new PC. I believe that a 2.5" sata drive will plug right into a 3.5" sata port on a desktop and vice versa.

We have laptops only now, so it will be a tight fit

[Jakesbuds]

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[walleyewild]

I am with Shack and LIMT on this.

I have 3 enclosures 2 2.5 and 1 3.5 for this very purpose.

I have a couple of 2.5 60 gig drives that I use for backups.

One has music that I have digitally recorded from my old albums, and the other is personal stuff like pictures and stuff backed up from my laptop.

Being an Electronics Tech and seeing what happens and how mad people get when they don't have stuff backed up I learned to back up important files all the time, some of the important stuff is also on an 8 gig flash drive.

Never know when computers are going to crash.

No Fish,

As long as you're going that far, spend a few extra bucks and pick up a flash drive or 2 for pics and othe important documents, and put it in a safe place at home.

WW

[LMITOUT]

Just to be clear I don't use an enclosure. Not much reason with the nifty USB adapter, not to mention you're dealing with a junk hard drive that will only be on the desk/table long enough to get the desired files transferred off of it anyway.