Hello to all. New here and thankful for the forum. 9 year old HP computer died and it was a good one. Got a used but great newer HP with windows 7. There was room and a space for a second drive in the box so I put the old drive and hooked it up (D drive). I opened up the D folder and I can't locate any of my old data. I have a zillion emails in Outlook Express, business files, pictures and more. I work with insurance and need the files for forms and records. How do I find them? Thanks in advance.
Transfer Data from XP based Hard Drive to newer windows 7 computer
- Thread starter Jclark60
- Start date
bigpinkdragon286
Splendid
- Oct 3, 2012
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Well, unless you know the reason your old computer died, it is safe to include that the hard drive could have been the source of your previous computer's problems. There is no guarantee that the older hard drive still functions and data can be retrieved from it, short of sending it out for data recovery, which is often times prohibitively expensive. In your case, however, it sounds like you could write off data recovery services as a business expense.
It is always possible that the formatting or partition information of your older hard drive became damaged in some way, rendering the data as no longer there. The older computer that was using that hard drive as it's primary would of course no longer work if that happened, and the drive would either appear blank, needing to be initialized, or otherwise not show up as a proper functioning drive. If you have important information on the drive, make sure you don't write anything to it or make any changes you aren't sure will fix the problem, as this could result in overwriting anything important that used to be stored on the drive. It may be worth scanning the disk with recovery software to see if perhaps it's as simple as fixing a partition table.
It is always possible that the formatting or partition information of your older hard drive became damaged in some way, rendering the data as no longer there. The older computer that was using that hard drive as it's primary would of course no longer work if that happened, and the drive would either appear blank, needing to be initialized, or otherwise not show up as a proper functioning drive. If you have important information on the drive, make sure you don't write anything to it or make any changes you aren't sure will fix the problem, as this could result in overwriting anything important that used to be stored on the drive. It may be worth scanning the disk with recovery software to see if perhaps it's as simple as fixing a partition table.
I must apologize for not being more precise with my question. There were 3 bulging capacitors on the motherboard and they were start capacitors. The computer was hard to start for a while and finally died. The hard drive is in great shape. I was able to install it in the new box and it's also an HP. Fired up great and all is well. I found the "My Documents" file but all the other stuff accessed on my old desktop is hidden somewhere. I have all my pics and personal stuff but I had a lot of business files with my insurance and other things that I can't find. Any tips?
bigpinkdragon286
Splendid
- Oct 3, 2012
- 4,648
- 35
- 28,590
Glad to hear your hard drive is fine. 
Perhaps just do a search for the name of a file you happen to remember through Windows Explorer.
Perhaps just do a search for the name of a file you happen to remember through Windows Explorer.TRENDING THREADS
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