Hi there.
First post. I'm not a techie person and I'm getting into this a little late in life (almost 40!), but I always wanted to have a little bit more computer science knowledgable, but never had a project to spur me on. Now I have: my mum's very old computer ceased to work, and on it are lots of old family photos that were scanned and subsequently lost, so it would be great if I could extract them using the Raspberry Pi. Is this possible?
A few technical points. The drive is a Western Digital WD400 and it was running (probably) an ancient version of Windows.
Many thanks.
K
Re: Using Raspberry Pi to remove files from an old hard driv
Almost certainly the drive has an IDE interface. Check if there is a large connector with two rows of 20 pins. (One pin may be missing - that is intentional.) If so you need to acquire a drive enclosure with USB to IDE interface (also known as USB to PATA) for a 3.5 inch drive. Enclosures for a 2.5 inch drive or for a SATA drive will not be suitable.
BTW. 40 is not late in life to start computing.
BTW. 40 is not late in life to start computing.
Re: Using Raspberry Pi to remove files from an old hard driv
Hi there krys_k,
I am sorry for the issues you have wih the drive. However, this is a good way to learn some troubleshooting steps which can be of future use to you. Firstly, I would recommend to you always to make backups of your important files, as HDDs might fail and without a copy of the data you might loose it.
As the drive is an old IDE HDD and the current standard is SATA, you could either connect the drive to a USB slot on another computer using an IDE to USB Adapter or connect it to the SATA port of the computer usind an IDE to SATA Adapter.
Then you could check in disk management whether the drive appears there. If it shows up, but you have no access to the data on it then you can use a data recovery software to rescue the pictures. If it doesn't show up you might try recovering them with Ubuntu Live CD. Here you can see instructions on how to do this: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15761/re ... u-live-cd/
I hope this will help you!
I am sorry for the issues you have wih the drive. However, this is a good way to learn some troubleshooting steps which can be of future use to you. Firstly, I would recommend to you always to make backups of your important files, as HDDs might fail and without a copy of the data you might loose it.
As the drive is an old IDE HDD and the current standard is SATA, you could either connect the drive to a USB slot on another computer using an IDE to USB Adapter or connect it to the SATA port of the computer usind an IDE to SATA Adapter.
Then you could check in disk management whether the drive appears there. If it shows up, but you have no access to the data on it then you can use a data recovery software to rescue the pictures. If it doesn't show up you might try recovering them with Ubuntu Live CD. Here you can see instructions on how to do this: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15761/re ... u-live-cd/
I hope this will help you!
-
fruitoftheloom
- Posts: 23337
- Joined: Tue Mar 25, 2014 12:40 pm
- Location: Delightful Dorset
Re: Using Raspberry Pi to remove files from an old hard driv
This is the type of Hard Drive Enclosure you need:krys_k wrote:Hi there.
First post. I'm not a techie person and I'm getting into this a little late in life (almost 40!), but I always wanted to have a little bit more computer science knowledgable, but never had a project to spur me on. Now I have: my mum's very old computer ceased to work, and on it are lots of old family photos that were scanned and subsequently lost, so it would be great if I could extract them using the Raspberry Pi. Is this possible?
A few technical points. The drive is a Western Digital WD400 and it was running (probably) an ancient version of Windows.
Many thanks.
K
http://www.amazon.co.uk/CiT-3-5-inch-SA ... W60MG6E24Q
Rather than negativity think outside the box !
RPi 4B 4GB (SSD Boot)..
Asus ChromeBox 3 Celeron is my other computer...
RPi 4B 4GB (SSD Boot)..
Asus ChromeBox 3 Celeron is my other computer...
Re: Using Raspberry Pi to remove files from an old hard driv
If it's a temporary setup I use one of these instead of an enclosure. Mine is a different brand but it's the same thing.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... Submit=ENE
It has SATA on one side and IDE on the other so it will work with either type drive, and comes with a 12V/5V power supply for the drive. Since it's physically pretty small I'm thinking about incorporating it into the RPi so I can use some of my outdated (lower capacity) IDE drives I have laying around.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... Submit=ENE
It has SATA on one side and IDE on the other so it will work with either type drive, and comes with a 12V/5V power supply for the drive. Since it's physically pretty small I'm thinking about incorporating it into the RPi so I can use some of my outdated (lower capacity) IDE drives I have laying around.