Page 1 of Retrieving information from old hard drives

I recently bought the Medion PC from Aldi. THe main reason being my old pc packed up, presumably the proicessor, and it just wont fire up at all. I have removed the hard drives from the old pc...how can I retrieve the information?
Sorry not a computer whizz kid, but fairly competent, so keep it fairly straight forward!!
Many thanks,

PJ

The easiest way is to set the old drive to `slave` (there should be a jumper /tag on a set of pins usually near the IDE cable connector. move the jumper to the primary slave position - this will be either marked on the drive label, or if you go to the manfacturers website, they`ll have a config sheet or email them the drive type/number).

Then open up the PC case (first remove the power cord, then touch a metal pipe or radiator to drain away any static charge you`ve built up - or if you have one, attach an anti-static wrist strap to yourself and clip it to the metal chasis when you open your PC), track down the PC harddrive cable(Grey) which will have a second connector `bout half-way down the cable. Connect the old drive to this, then connect one of the spare power connectors to the drive. I usually rest the drive on an empty bay - don`t bother screwing it down. then, with the top off your system, boot the PC, go into the BIOS (usually F1, F2 or DEL keypress when prompted) and check the installed drives. You should have at least 2 (drive 0 - your PC drive and drive 1 you - old drive - now a slave). If the old drive is not detected, then set the drive setting in the bios as AUTO or INSTALLED and exit the BIOS, saving the settings. This should reboot your system and you`ll have your old C: drive, a D: drive and an E: drive. Now this is where you have to be careful! Your PC allocates drive letters by primary partions - so it goes like this :-
Drive 0 Primary partion ==C:
Drive 1 Primary partition ==D:
Drive 0 logical partion = E
Drive 0 other logical (partitions if you have them) F:, G:, H:,......Z:

Then just copy files from D: to C: or E: Remember applications will need to be re-installed - you can`t just copy your old drives` MS-Word `cause it won`t work! I`d recommend creating a folder called `old drive c` and copy all your stuff there first. When you`re finished, power down and remove the old drive and reset it to a Master drive (put the jumper back across the original pins). Case-up your PC, reboot and all should be well. (if you get a `drive not found` message don`t worry - the bios should reset itself back to it`s orginal settings. You`ll also find your drive letters back in order.

Have fun!

SN