Posted by Houlihan on November 26, 19100 at 10:04:18:
I had a house fire last year, which damaged my then-current computer. I replaced the computer with a newer model, but I yanked the HD out of the old one, in case I could resurrect it and access the data. I have begun this project by installing old drive as second HD in new computer, but have run into trouble.
My old computer was LBA enabled, and used FAT16 under WIN95. Single partition, no compression. New computer running FAT32, also single primary DOS partition.
Jumper settings are correct as confirmed with manufacturers. I tried with second drive as slave, and with second drive as master on second EIDE channel. In both cases, CMOS in new computer picks up old drive, and autodetect assigns proper geometry. FDISK sees the drive. Dos and WIN98 do not.
I saw several posts where re-partitioning the drive was suggested to force DOS to assign a drive letter. That won't work for me, as I have substantial data on HD I am trying to save (backup tapes destroyed by fire- good argument for off-premises backup).
This spawns several questions:
Any quick solution that I have overlooked?
Could the second drive be cooked, but still show up on AMIBIOS and FDISK autodetect? Any utilities that would confirm drive is cooked?
Is the fact that my current drive FAT32 and the old drive FAT16 cause the problem? Should I try resurrecting the drive in a WIN95 machine running FAT16 (which i do have access to)?
Are there any commercial services that could potentially extract the data onto CD's? Some of this data is at the basis of a lawsuit, so I am willing to pay to get access to it.
Thanks.