Ok, so here’s my problem i have an old hard drive from a computer that died long ago, its a Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 8 40Gb ATA 133, ultimately I want to get these files onto my laptop thats running vista but i got my hands on an old desktop PC that’s running XP pro Service pack 2. This has a Hitachi Deskstar 40Gb HDD. Need more info?... How would I get my files from this old hard drive to the desktop computer or even the laptop? Also the old HDD already has XP Pro and is password protected would this cause any problems? The desktop Pc has nothing i need on it so i'll take any suggestions.. I have No idea which wires go where so a detailed explanation or a link to an article would be much appreciated. Thanks
The hard drive uses a PATA interface, which has a big ribbon cable connector. This is also known as an IDE cable. To get the files off this, you need to install this as a secondary hard drive into your other computer. First look at the jumpers on the hard drive, and using the diagram on the HD label set it to "slave" mode. While taking [google]anti static precautions[/google] you need to open up your PC and find a spare IDE port, either on the motherboard itself or use a spare connector on an existing cable (IDE cables can support 2 devices each). Plug the cable into the back of the hard drive until it's firmly seated. Then connect the HDD to the power source using a molex connector, which is a plastic connector with 4 wires, used to connect disk drives to the power supply. Once that's done, reconnect your PC to the power and turn on. Windows should detect the drive and you should be able to grab the files easily.
you need to set the maxtor drive as slave you do this by changing the small jumper to the slave position, the jumper is located between the power & IDE connectors, the other HDD may need to be set to "master with slave present" unless the drive just says "master" BTW: you won't do any damage to either drive by setting the jumper wrong then attach both drives to the IDE cable & the 4 pin molex (power) connector and turn the system on, both drives should be automatically detected by the BIOS but Windows won't recognize it yet BTW: i don't use Windows, i can't remember how Win does things, but here's a link that'll help you
