SillyDog701

[firefly0507]

I recently had to buy a new computer after my old one was struck by lightening and I need to access the information that was on the hard drive in my old computer. My question is how can I do this without having to put the old hard drive in my new computer? Is there a way to transfer that information from the old internal hard drive onto an external hard drive?

UserAgent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 7.0; Windows NT 6.0; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.0.04506)

[Antony]

If your old computer still works, just connect to the old computer directly or via networking.

If your old computer does not work, you will need to get the hard drive out, and hope that your old Hard Drive was not damaged by lightening.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5) Gecko/20070713 Firefox/2.0.0.5

[PaulD]

Tutorial response for a general reader. See bottom for specific answer.
Antony's second paragraph is key.

A device, in this case a disk drive, has to have a working interface (power and data connections) in order to move data.

This is possible in only two ways that I know of:
1. Install it temporarily in another computer that has an open bay. The drive will make its connections via the connectors that are available to the bay.

2. Install it in an 'extrnal drive enclosure'. This is a 'box' that will:
- supply power to the drive by plugging it (the box) into a mains ('wall outlet') receptacle
- connect to the computer via a USB (or perhaps FireWire) connector.

Note that one must ensure that the interface in the computer (1) or enclosure (2) is compatible with the interface of the old drive - PATA (aka EIDE; more common), or SATA (newer technology). Also, don't confuse an enclosure (2) with an external drive, which has a disk drive already installed in it.

For more than you want to know about computer disk storage you can plough through the Western Digital site. I don't see that they offer an enclosure-only however.
= = = = = = = = =

Is there a way to transfer that information from the old internal hard drive onto an external hard drive?

Procedure (2) would appear to be the answer. Stuff the old drive into an enclosure. However, you need to evaluate if the old drive should be trusted for continued use, considering that the computer had been damaged by a lightning-induced power surge.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.0.9) Gecko/20061206 Firefox/1.5.0.9