How to resolve computer failure issue

[Scott Shepherd]

We have a PC that died, it's giving 6 beeps at startup, which best I can tell is a motherboard failure. No big deal. It's only used for two things, email for a person, and running quickbooks, which is backed up. Their email isn't backed up, but there's nothing earth shattering in there that we can't live without. They email very little and get very few emails.

I have a number of computers I can replace it with, but all in all, it would be nice to get access to any info on that drive.

What's the best method for that? Since the hard drive is available, and it was the master, can I just hook it to an external enclosure and get data off it? Being it's the master drive for that computer, I'm not sure how it will react when I plug it in. Do I have to jump it to turn it into a slave? Can I boot from it? No? Yes? Maybe?

The computer I'd replace it with is a small mini-tower, so it doesn't have the slots for additional drives, that's why I'd use the external drive.

Any suggestions?

[Phil Thien]

What's the best method for that? Since the hard drive is available, and it was the master, can I just hook it to an external enclosure and get data off it? Being it's the master drive for that computer, I'm not sure how it will react when I plug it in. Do I have to jump it to turn it into a slave? Can I boot from it? No? Yes? Maybe?


Just put it in an external enclosure and plug it into your PC. Don't need to change any jumpers. It will just show up as drive E: or F: or something, under "My Computer."

[Matt Meiser]

If you don't have an enclosure there are kits that come with a power supply and SATA/IDE to USB adapters for both 3.5 and 2.5" drives pretty cheap. They are really handy to have around for cases like this as well as laptop hard drive replacement.

[Myk Rian]

Take the drive out, and put it in the replacement computer. Copy any files you want to the main drive. Take the drive out when you're done.

[Eric DeSilva]

What OS are you running? I understand you can do what folks suggest with a WinXP drive, but I am not sure that works for a Win7 drive. It is my understanding the Win7 encrypts the data automatically, so it may not be recoverable if you just plug it into another machine.

[Prashun Patel]

There's a lot of ways to try it.

My favorite: go to Geek Squad and have them do it.

[Jerome Stanek]

Geek squad would be my last choice college student would be better. Small mom and pop shop would be much better.

[Rich Engelhardt]

We have a PC that died, it's giving 6 beeps at startup, which best I can tell is a motherboard failure
When you open the box to remove the drive....
Press down on every chip you can find on the board that's in a socket.
Take out any and all expansion cards that are in there.
Reseat all the memory or better yet - remove the memory and take a pen (not pencil, a pen) eraser and rub it across the gold leads.

Chips will work loose over time due to fluctuations in heating and cooling and stand up in the sockets.
A bad expansion card can cause a spurious interrupt that will mimic a bad mother board.
Leads on memory chips are notorious for building up traces of corrosion.

Chill the board if you can using a can of compressed air.
or
Heat the board. Use a blow dryer if need be.

Computer boards are multi layered and quite often a trace buried inside the layers of the boards can break. It doesn't take much of a break. Sometimes either a blast of cold air or hot air is enough to bring the two parts back together long enough to get the system to start.

Failing any of that doing any good, use any one of the methods above to get what you need off the drive.
I prefer to use the native system where possible since often the amount of time available is extremely short and you won't have to search for the files.


It is my understanding the Win7 encrypts the data automatically, so it may not be recoverable if you just plug it into another machine.
EFS has been a feature of the NTFS (NT File System) since version 3.0 - Windows 2000 IIRC.
If I'm not mistaken, Windows 7 doesn't encrypt by default - just as the others before it didn't.

There is a feature that didn't see much use until Windows 7 came out that's domain based that you may be thinking of called Bitlocker.
Bitlocker uses a TPM chip - Trusted Platform Module - and (usually) a Windows domain policy to enforce it's use, to encrypt the entire contents of a drive.
Say someone steals a laptop - w/out Bitlocker they jut plug the drive in and read it. W/Bitlocker, they can't.
I believe Bitlocker first came out with Vista - but -I'm not positive.

Speaking of Win7 and Vista and XP - you need to either stay with the same operating system and patch level, or step up to the next newest or greater operating system to remove a drive and read it in another system.
If the drive comes out of an XP SP3 machine, it may not read properly in an XP SP2 or SP1 machine for instance.
A drive from XP should have any read issues if it's put into a Win7 machine.


Do I have to jump it to turn it into a slave? Can I boot from it? No? Yes? Maybe?
You may have to jump it - it all depends. Older IDE drives had master/slave/cable select jumpers. Most were set to cable select, and on the slave cable one of the wires was cut. You can see a little like, "window" on the cable. If the cable has a litle window on it and it's an IDE drive AND it's being put in another system with an IDE master, make sure the jumper is set to CS.
A SATA drive should j ust need to be plugged into SATA 2 or SATA 3 or SATA 4 on the mother board of the PC it's going into.

If you use the drive from the old machine as the boot drive n a new system, it will discover new hardware when it boots.
It will probably default to a generic VGA video. If you can read the screen well enough to get the files off, then just ignore the new hardware it discovers and retrieve the files.

What ever it says - do not allow the system to reboot if/when it discovers new hardware. Just grab the info you need as quick as possible. Your chances of the drive working in that system go way down once it installs whatever Windows thinks may be the right drivers.

[Curt Harms]

I'll be a bit of a pain here. Live CD/DVD/USB linux installs work really well for this. Just set the PC's boot sequence to try to boot CD/DVD/USB devices first. I've used USB hard drives and USB flash drive to copy data to. Linux won't make any unrequested changes to any drive or try to 'install new hardware' but will read and write FAT32 & NTFS nicely in my experience. Ubuntu and Mint to name 2 don't require any "code"(CLI - Command Line Interface) for this purpose. They have a file manager (Nautilus)that is equivalent to Windows Explorer and should see all drives automagically. Open two windows then drag & drop. Drives are not c: or d: though, they are labeled sda or sdb instead.

[John Coloccia]

What BIOS do you have? 6 beeps does not necessarily mean it's fatal. It could be as simple as reseating the RAM.

[Rudy Ress]

I save a lot of old HDs and use a "CablesToGo" USB 2.0 to IDE or SATA Drive Adapter. Very convenient to keep switching the various drives if you don't want to buy dedicated external boxes for each one. IIRC it was about $30.