New Mobo + Graphics Card, need to access old Hard drives to recover data?

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tomgreg28

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Jan 2, 2015
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Im new to computer building and have just watched friends build them before so I'm not completely incompetent. I recently had my old mobo and graphics card fail on me so had to buy new ones. Ive installed all the components into the case, along with 2 old hard drives. The computer turns on but after the option to enter bios it says 'missing operating system'. Now I am aware this could because of me installing a new mobo and it does not recognise the hard drives but my question can I recover the data off the old hard drives without corrupting it or having to completely refresh them with a clean windows install from scratch.

Lucky I do have a brand new SSD aswell that has not been installed yet. Would it be possible for me to install a fresh copy of windows onto the SSD (as that was my plan after recovering the data anyway) and then access the old HDD's without loosing any data? All my recent uni work is on there and I did not have chance to back it up before the mobo failed, and even worse ive got deadlines due in a week!
 
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lonwinters

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Jan 2, 2015
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I'm no expert on new mobo installs, but I have seen that error message before. It's usually because the BIOS is looking in the wrong place for the OS, the HDD is completely failed or the MBR - Master Boot Record is corrupt.

Check your BIOS settings to make sure the sata ports are enabled and the system drive is connected to the correct sata port on the mobo. If the error persists, boot to a boot disc. Usually the OS install disc will work but usually not an upgrade version. Once you're in with the boot disc, see if the drive shows up and if you can access the files.

This happened to me. I actually did a fresh install of W7 to another disk, and saw that my data had relocated itself - my entire user profile was gone but the files were intact elsewhere. Accessing the files to copy them elsewhere was troublesome as I had to continually set permissions on each sub folder. That's when I discovered a nifty command line tool that made it much easier to copy my files over. IIRC, it also confirmed a corrupted MBR and the FAT had troubles too (File Allocation Table).

If you're comfortable with command line operations, I'll find the download link for you for that program. The program also could reconstruct files from fragments, but I was lucky and didnt' need that. I did come across a few fragments but was able to determine I didn't need to do anything with them. Also, I did have most of my data backed up and this was the first time in 20 years where it paid off.

Once I did get all the data off, the drive finally failed completely. what started the final demise was when i cancelled out of a large file copy from that drive to an external - the system crashed and wouldn't boot, no OS found.

(actually it was a rewarding experience. I got to do what felt like actual computing again. And I at least got to see how data recovery works even if i just scraped the surface. Now I know why it can cost thousands of dollars to have this done.
 
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