Recovering data from bad hard drive

[djbuttolph]

Hey guys my Alienware M15x recently developed a problem. It go past the alienware symbol then sit there with a black screen and a flashing cursor. I talked to Dell and they sent me a new harddrive and a recovery disc. I've got the OS and everything installed on the new hard drive no problem. There are some things I'd like to get off the old hard drive, but when I tried using the recovery disc on the old HDD it would go through the install and when it restarts, it would go back to the black screen with the blinking cursor. What can I do to get files off of this hard drive? I don't have access to a desktop so anything would have to be done on my laptop.

 

[daswilhelm]

setup the new hard drive, use the recovery disk and download all available updates and drivers. one the system is up and running, connect the bad drive to your system, and see what files you can drag and drop over to the new drive. if it stalls or fails on a specific directory, you have a bad spot there.

 

[djbuttolph]

Das, how would I hook the bad drive to my system? I'm just running a laptop so I don't have multiple bays.

 

[daswilhelm]

oh my bad missed that. find someone with a desktop.

 

[djbuttolph]

Well I realized my dad had a desktop, so i snagged that and was able to get all the data i needed off my old hard drive! Was all in a folder named "windows.old"

 

[daswilhelm]

good to hear.