Installing corrupted hard drive

[isup]

Is it safe to install a corrupted hard drive in order to try and recover the data? Drive was corrupted while surfing the web. Have replaced it with a new drive and would like to recover the data.

-i

[augidog]

i don't have all the particulars, but i would do a complete AV scan from a boot disk before putting my new data at risk.

[isup]

Thanks, so I add the corrupted hard drive to the PC, set BIOS to boot from this hard drive, insert its boot floppy diskette, then what?
Will adding the corrupted hd. affect the new hd.?

-i

[augidog]

i saw your other posts...
install NEW OS on new drive.
install AV and create boot-disk.
install old drive as SLAVE.
boot to AV disk.
scan OLD drive BEFORE booting to OS with it installed.
if it scans good, you can boot to NEW drive, and use windows explorer to transfer data.

EDIT: this WILL NOT let you "transfer" programs, you will have to re-install them.

[isup]

If the old drive is corrupted can I boot to new drive and try to fix old hd. from there?
If not how will I fix bad hd.?

-i

[augidog]

if your old drive is "corrupted" (virus? bad physical sectors?) then booting to a new drive/os will allow you to check the old drive (set up as a slave) for these problems, and possibly fix them.

[batmeat]

Put in a new hard drive with an OS on it. Set it as the master drive. Set the corrupted drive as a slave drive. Boot your computer and use 'My Computer' (assuming you use windows) to access the corrupted drive. If your data is gone, you can use programs such as PC Inspector to try and recover data from the drive.

[isup]

Installed bad drive as Slave. BIOS settings;

first boot device - floppy
second boot device - hdd0
third boot device - CDROM
other boot device - ENABLE

Powered-up and got this message;

Starting Windows........
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
for troubleshooting and advanced startup options for win2K press F8
Windows 2000 could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt.
<windows 2000 root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe.
Please reinstall a copy of the above file.

Should I have set hdd1 (bad drive) as 3rd boot device?
Had to disconnect bad drive to bring up windows.

-i

[augidog]

now i'm just gonna pretend i'm sitting there and guessing.(possible jumper? did BIOS detect both drives correctly?)

i would try setting this up:

PM: new drive
PS: none or cd-rom
SM: old drive

Boot Order:
1st:Hdd0 only
disable
disable
disable

see what happens, cuss, try something else...

[isup]

Bad hard drive showed up as drive D. In the 'All Users' folder Desktop, Documents and Favorites folders are empty. In the Administrators folder Cookies folder has only an index file. Desktop folder has only a 'Connect to the Internet' icon and My Documents folder has only a 'My Pictures' folder. This hard drive has been in use since 2002 so it seems I have lost my files. Does an internet attack do so much damage?
'Right clicked' the drive and chose Properties, Tools and did an error check. No errors were reported. Clicked Hardware tab and Device Status says 'this device is working properly'. Capacity 37.2GB, used space 981MB, free space 36.3GB (the drive is almost empty).
I had given my machine to a repair shop to fix the problem. Although I built this machine I wasn't familiar with working on hard drives. Technician said drive was corrupted and data could not be retrieved. I don't see any error reported for this drive.

-i