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You don’t have to lose everything. And you probably didn’t.

I’ll just say this before I go any further. If your hard drive totally crashes, as in you dropped your computer and it makes this horrible noise when you try to turn it on, You’re Screwed!

Otherwise, a simple crash that keeps the system from booting doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ve lost all your files and pictures stored on your computer. I believe that most people are under this impression. Although you will have to replace the hard drive, you can most likely recover most of your data. If any sectors were damaged, it will probably take the files that were there along with it.

This article is for those who are at least a little computer savvy and have at least opened up their computer case a couple of times. If this frightens you, then get some help, but don’t let someone just wipe out your hard drive without saving your files first. It happened to me, and I’d hate to see it happen to you!

Here are some common signs of a hard drive about to crash. I’ll give this list in order of early signs to critical signs.

1) Starts taking a little longer to boot up. Seems to be getting sluggish and taking a little longer to retrieve files.

2) Unable to find files from time to time.

These first two reasons usually get ignored. Simply because there are actually a number of other reasons these two symptoms can occur. Such as acquiring a few minor viruses, and just general aging of the computer.

3) The red (LED) light stays on all the time or most of the time. It should only be on (or flickering) when the drive is storing or retrieving.

5) A clicking sound. This is caused by the read/write head within the drive. Power down immediately and replace your drive.

I highly recommend doing a daily backup. There are some nice backup software utilities available you can purchase. There are also some nice one’s that can be downloaded for free. You can use the one that XP provides, but personally, I’ve found it to be unreliable.

At least this way, if you have a good backup, you won’t have to deal with the steps ahead!

Now, let’s talk about how you can recover those files and pictures from a hard drive that still works, but won’t boot up. Once again, if it completely froze up, your options are beyond the scope of this article. You’ll have to look into data recovery methods from a professional if there’s something on the drive you have got to have.

Step 1)
Remove the bad hard drive from your computer. Change the jumper setting on the back of of the drive to slave. This is done by pulling the little plastic jumper out and putting it over the pins labeled slave. There’s always a diagram somewhere on the drive to show which pins are which. If it’s already set for Cable Select, rather than Master, you can try it with that setting. If this is a SATA II drive, there is most likely no jumper. Lucky You!

Step 2)
After purchasing a new hard drive, you’ll have to mount it in the existing bay that the damaged drive was in, and install your Operating System on it. I will be covering that in another article, but at this time, there are good tutorials available to get help with this. Here are a couple I found: Microsoft Help or PCStats.

Once you’ve gotten the computer going again with the Operating System installed, necessary drivers, etc., move on to Step 3.

Step 3)
Note: No need to mount the old hard drive, as this is only temporary anyway.
For IDE hard drives:
Most computers still use the IDE ribbon for connecting the drive to the motherboard. SATA drives have been out for a few years now, but plenty of older computers still have the IDE connection and drive.

On the IDE cable, you’ll see another connector about 6 inches below the existing hard drive. It only connects to the hard drive one way, so you can’t screw it up. Then plug an available power supply connector to it. (Also connects only one way).

For SATA drives:
You’ll need another SATA cable like the one used for the existing hard drive. Plug that one in just like the existing one, only using another available connector on the motherboard.

Step 4)
Turn the computer on. For an IDE drive, the computer should recognize the drive you just added. It most likely will for a SATA drive also, but there’s a chance it won’t. If this is the case, follow these instructions that I’ve found at PCGuide. If this is too much for you, this may be where you want to ask a friend who has the expertise to help. Otherwise, go on to step 5.

Step 5)
Once it’s recognized, it’s a matter of copying files. Follow these steps:
a) go to Start / My Computer. Your old drive you just installed should be called (D:). Right click on it and click Explore. This will show you everything that’s on the drive.

b) Now find the files you want to save. To simplify the exchange, you might want to pre-arrange the files to be removed inside of folders to speed things up. Right click on the folder, then click Send To. Choose where you’re going to save this at. You could send it to a CD, a DVD, or maybe to a Flash drive by choosing the appropriate drive if you want a backup. Otherwise, just send it to Drive C:, which is your new hard drive. You then have all of your original files back on your computer again. Remove the damaged drive. You might want to save it for a while in case there was something you missed.

A quick list of some files you might want to think about moving over.

• Your address book from Outlook Express, or whichever email client you’re using. This is located under Program Files / Outlook Express (or your email client) / WAB for Outlook
• Your browser favorites
  • Internet Explorer favorites are located at: Documents and Settings / Your Documents Folder / Favorites
  • Firefox favorites are located at: Documents and Settings / Your Documents Folder / Application Data / Mozilla / Firefox / Profiles

That’s it. No lost files! Most importantly, you don’t have to just say good bye to all that information you had stored on the old drive.

Related posts:

1. Is Your PC Pooping Out? Let’s Optimize It