Can't access broken hard drive?

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EnderW

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My friend's computer got fried in an electrical storm and she said Dell told her the hard drive was broken. So she's paying me to replace it. First thing I do is just turn it on to see what it does. It gets to the windows login screen, but won't ever go any farther and it's going really slow. Well I figure the hard drive isn't completely dead, maybe I can make an image of it and save myself the trouble of installing everything.
So I hook it up to my computer and then I can't get to Windows screen (yes I fixed the boot order). I unhook it, get into Windows, then connect it (SATA drive). Instant BSOD.

So I guess I'm going to do it the hard way unless someone has a bright idea. I thought of trying an external enclosure.

Oh and is there any chance I damaged anything on my computer by connecting it? A little paranoid now.
 
try hooking up though usb, but most likely the drive is dead.
 
Don't bother making an exact image. Find out what files are most important (pics, documents, school work, etc.) then grab a copy of roadkills unstoppable copier (google it) and get that info off. An external enclosure should work fine for maybe an hour or two (being optimistic). Making an image will tax the hard drive and kill, finding JPEGs and docs are relatively small and easy.

Let me know if that works for you.
 
tmclaugh said:
Don't bother making an exact image. Find out what files are most important (pics, documents, school work, etc.) then grab a copy of roadkills unstoppable copier (google it) and get that info off. An external enclosure should work fine for maybe an hour or two (being optimistic). Making an image will tax the hard drive and kill, finding JPEGs and docs are relatively small and easy.

Let me know if that works for you.
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thanks for the advice, but I tried connecting it via USB and all it would do was make the USB sound and this is kinda weird - it would show for just a second in Explorer, but only right after I disconnected the drive

I resigned the data as lost and just installed Windows on the new drive
 
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