[Frienger]

Last Friday my dad was planning on installing a second hard drive in my desktop computer, since
I was running out of space. There apparently was a problem when trying to install the second hard drive and now the computer cannot identify the original hard drive. My dad says the two drives might have touched each other. It makes a light ticking sound when it runs. Before the installation, I tried to make a backup of my files on an external drive, but unfortunately the external drive doesnt work. The new hard drive works fine, but I am more worried for the old hard drive with all of my work on it, and I fear the worst. Is there anything I could do to get back all of my data? Thank you in advance.

[etaf]

what type of drive sata or IDE - if IDE did he set the jumpers correctly
Have you removed the driver and tried the PC
how do you know the new harddrive works fine - did you install windows onto this drive

whats the status now - both drives in the PC ??

[Frienger]

He said that the Jumpers were set correctly, and the drive is IDE. There is only one drive, the new 80GB one, inside of the computer and I am actually using it right now.

[etaf]

I think you need to explain a little more

the new 80GB on

Is this a new drive or the original drive in the PC

It makes a light ticking sound when it runs.

The could be a faulty drive http://www.techwarelabs.com/hard-dri...demonstration/

Wheres the old drive now ? - assume this is the one with all your data on ?

The drive on the PC now 80GB - is this an IDE drive

Heres a picture of an IDE drive and cable
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur...1t:429,r:3,s:0

heres a SATA drive and cable
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgur...w=1600&bih=755

So if you have a IDE drive - you need to check all those jumpers for Master/Slave/cable select
Guide to jumpers here
http://freepctech.com/pc/001/install..._devices.shtml

I tried to make a backup of my files on an external drive, but unfortunately the external drive doesnt work.

Do you know why this has not worked ?

[Frienger]

The drive that I currently inside of the PC is the 80GB one. This is the one that my dad was going to install into the computer that would provide more space for the 20GB one. The 20GB one (the "clicking drive") isnt currently inside of the computer- it is on a desk in a ziplock bag...


The 80GB drive is an IDE drive, I can recognize the smiliarities between it and the picture you posted.

I know that the External Hard drive backup didnt work because every time I tried to backup the data, everything would appear to work until I actually clicked the icon for the external hard drive. There were no files within the hard drive when I clicked it. I also tried to manually put files from the 20GB drive into the external one, but a message would pop up in the task bar saying something along the lines of "Writing drive failed". I cannot remember the exact text, since I did this over a week ago.


Sorry I dont know much about hard drives. I hope that clears things up.

[etaf]

so you need to connect the 20GB harddrive up - either onto the PC _ and check the jumpers are correct for where you are placing on the cable
OR
you can get a USB / IDE cable to connect the harddrive to your USB
OR
you can get a case to put the IDE drive in and connect to the USB

It could be the drive is faulty now - BUT you may be able to get data off the drive by freezing the drive - yep putting into the freezer - sometimes that will allow the drive to work long enough to copy data off - of course water and PC dont mix - so you need to be careful of condensation
heres the info
http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/200...over-data.html
http://www.datarecoverypros.com/hard...ry-freeze.html