Pictures on old hard drive.

We have a fairly old computer that’s not been used for some years. We were just reminiscing about some of the photos on there of our children when they were younger. I was wondering how feasible it is to somehow access these pictures again? The computer itself most likely won’t start and the last time I tried to get to the photos it was going really slow. I quickly looked online and there were guides saying it is posible with an adapter, but they didn’t indicate if age/number of years unused would make it impossible. Plus it seemed a little too easy.

I was wondering what thoughts more knowledgable people had on this.

Thanks

Lee

Do you have another computer at all?

If you have then it should be possible to transfer them to it but you will need a hub that will accept the drive which could probably be an IDE hard drive. Unless they have been dropped or damaged in any way then hard drives normally last years so its age should not be a problem when retrieving files.

If you do have another PC then you will need to use a docking station that has IDE/SATA with USB out. Take the hard drive out of the old PC, plug it into the dock and then transfer the files to the newer PC.

We have a fairly old computer that’s not been used for some years. We were just reminiscing about some of the photos on there of our children when they were younger. I was wondering how feasible it is to somehow access these pictures again? The computer itself most likely won’t start and the last time I tried to get to the photos it was going really slow. I quickly looked online and there were guides saying it is posible with an adapter, but they didn’t indicate if age/number of years unused would make it impossible. Plus it seemed a little too easy.

 

I was wondering what thoughts more knowledgable people had on this.

 

Thanks

 

Lee

take out the hard drive, put it in an external usb caddy, plug that into another computer, you will see all the documents, copy and paste what you want into the documents folder on the computer you are using

I think I'd go for tryig the old PC and a USB pen drive... with a couple of words of caution.

If the PC at any stage asks to fix a drive, DON'T

DON'T put it on the internet

BE patient. PC's are like us, when they get old, they get a little slower.

And lastly, COPY and paste to the pen drive. DON'T cut and paste, just in case.

Lots of caps used there but not meant as an insult, just things I've seen go wrong over the years. I have one of those IDE to USB adaptors but seem to remember it being very hit and miss. If I can find it, you are free to use and return it. Just let me know and I'll have a look.

If you can remember if the last time you used the machine it powered off cleanly and you have access to another machine I would download cd image of SolydX 32-bit community edition of GNU/Linux from here:

https://solydxk.com/downloads/community-editions/

Download imgburn from https://ninite.com and burn to cd.

Before using your old computer's cdrom drive you may need to clean the optical lense with one of these or similar:

https://www.stoneaudio.co.uk/?product=allsop+carbon+edge+cd+%26+dvd+lens+cleaner+(59146)

Then if you have an external hard drive boot the live cd then attach external drive and copy and paste photos.

I advise SolydX over any other distribution for older machines because it does not have PAE drivers which would prevent it from booting.

Sorry for the late reply and thanks to everyone who offered advice.

I’ll probably dig it out and try taking the images straight from the computer if I can find the leads etc. If not I’ll give the process I originally queried a go. Hopefully I’ll have some luck.