A week ago my well used Dell 8300 desk top stopped working. It wouldn't power up. I replaced the power supply, but still no joy.

I asked a friend to look at it. He is much more knowledgeable about computers than I am.

His best guess was the motherboard was bad.

I wanted to get the data off of the hard drive. He did this by using:

Fideco
SATA/IDE Hard Drive Adapter Converter

We pulled the hard drive from the old computer. Attached the Fideco device to the old hard drive.

Then connected the Fideco to a new computer using USB.

The download took about 2 hours

This is the device on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Adapter...VD-ROM/dp/B077N2KK27

$34


The download was successful.

good tip, i've used individual 3 1/2 sata/eide + 2 1/2 hard drive enclosures to access old hard drives.

nice that this does all 3 in one unit.

thanks

You can also just mount the drive in another desktop using a sata cable and power cable that usually come with all computers - then transfer over the data (much faster than USB, btw).

I use a similar program to keep a clone of my Hard drive in my Laptop. I thought that SSD were pretty much bulletproof.. Wrong. My Sandisk drive just quit with no warning, so I keep a second drive that is a mirror image of it to just swap in .

Back up your stuff!

Office 365 with their 1 TB OneDrive is the best investment you can make with technology. A local plus OneDrive backup is close to bulletproof -- I've never seen both fail. In general modern cloud backup storage is more reliable than most anything I can build locally, even with something like a Synology array.

My Mac is setup for daily, automatic backups as are our phones. Makes life much easier.

quote:

Originally posted by Zecpull:
I use a similar program to keep a clone of my Hard drive in my Laptop. I thought that SSD were pretty much bulletproof.. Wrong. My Sandisk drive just quit with no warning, so I keep a second drive that is a mirror image of it to just swap in .

Yeah, SSD's are not bulletproof.
They do not gradually deteriorate over time like spinners do but the major reason to upgrade is the increased performance.
True, when they die they go fast and hard and there are less options for recovery.
Also it is wise to get a "good" brand like Intel or Samsung, I won't use anything but these for my IT clients.
Then ALWAYS have a backup plan.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
SSD's are not bulletproof.
They do not gradually deteriorate over time like spinners do
...
when they die they go fast and hard and there are less options for recovery

Truth.

Plus, SSDs don't sound any different when they are going bad. Some HDD failures gave a bit of a different sound as they went south.

quote:

Then ALWAYS have a backup plan.

Yep. Back up your stuff, whatever you have it on. When it's gone, doesn't matter whether it had been on a fast SSD or a slow HDD. Only thing that matters is, do you have it somewhere else.

Have multiple backups and backup your files/documents/pictures on a regular basis.

Backup hard drives are pretty inexpensive these days.

One is None, Two is One, Three is Two.

quote:

Originally posted by caneau:
Back up your stuff!

Office 365 with their 1 TB OneDrive is the best investment you can make with technology. A local plus OneDrive backup is close to bulletproof -- I've never seen both fail. In general modern cloud backup storage is more reliable than most anything I can build locally, even with something like a Synology array.

This. I'm glad you were able to recover your data, but it could just as easily have gone the other way and you'd have nada.

Backing up is a good idea. Multiple backups is a better idea.

quote:

Originally posted by lkdr1989:
Have multiple backups and backup your files/documents/pictures on a regular basis.

Backup hard drives are pretty inexpensive these days.

One is None, Two is One, Three is Two.

Yep. I backup to: (1) a RAID 1 (mirrored) drive, (2) a Backblaze cloud, and (3) an Apple Timecapsule. And that's for pictures of my grandkids and my 125GB iTunes library that I rarely listen to anymore because of Spotify. If I had business files or really important stuff, I'd do something more.

This is where I drop my usual line: 3-2-1.

Data should have 3 copies, on at least 2 different storage devices, 1 in a remote location.

Even while traveling, each photo I take will end up with a 3-2-1 storage solution. USB drive, USB stick, laptop computer. The USB stick comes with me when I leave the hotel. On the plane, USB stick stays on my body, everything else on the overhead bin.

Incidentally, I do the same with credit cards and cash while traveling. 3 cards/2 banks/1 kept separate as a backup. 3 sets of cash/2 currencies/1 kept separate as a backup.

quote:

Yep. I backup to: (1) a RAID 1 (mirrored) drive,

RAID is NOT a backup strategy or procedure.
If you are merely saying it is a destination then: fine.