13 replies to this topic

[positiveContact]

I have an old HD that I want to retrieve some data from.

I tried to use an enclosure but I think this drive was formatted in a way that this new enclosure doesn't know how to handle or something. The enclosure does work on some other drives so I know it works in general.

But anyway my next attempt was going to be to temporarily plug it right into my PC mobo. My case has storage expansion for 2.5" hard drives. This drive is 3.5". Will the sata power connectors that are there (intended to be used with 2.5" drives) work with my 3.5" drive? I'm not sure if all PSUs rate those connectors to work with any drives or if some can supply more wattage than others. Before I try and mess up my PC I figured I'd check if the PHBT knew for sure.

Edited by postSingularityHumanoid, 25 January 2023 - 05:58 AM.

[positiveContact]

So I just went for it lol.  sorry PHBT but I'm impatient.  the drive did power up just fine and no smoke but Windows 10 still claims it doesn't understand the formatting of this drive and it wants to format it.  Any ideas on that front?

[positiveContact]

so I tried using the HD enclosure with my chromebox (the HD in question had cloudready OS installed on it previously) and the drive does show up but I can't seem to find any data on it that I would have expected.  Like I know for sure that the chromeOS download folder had a bunch of pictures in it but I can't seem to find anything.  it's really weird.

Edited by postSingularityHumanoid, 25 January 2023 - 06:51 AM.

[badogg]

Weird.

Was it a drive that used to be in an enclosure? That's the only time I've run into that when I ripped a drive out of a Western Digital external drive. I used a Linux live CD to access it.

[positiveContact]

Weird.

Was it a drive that used to be in an enclosure? That's the only time I've run into that when I ripped a drive out of a Western Digital external drive. I used a Linux live CD to access it.

 

the story of this drive is a long one lol!

 

I bought my parents a dell PC many years ago.  I can't remember what version of windows they were running but at some point the hardware couldn't support new windows, might have been 7 they couldn't update to??  and then they couldn't get new browser updates and websites weren't rendering correctly, etc.  it was causing problems.  so instead of tossing it I reformatted the drive and installed cloudready OS which is based on chromeOS.  that worked for them for many years but one day the computer just wouldn't power up and I didn't have time to debug it beyond the easy things to try so I just bought my dad an actual chomebox.  well recently he realized he wanted some pics from that old drive.

 

so I bought an enclosure.  as I mentioned that did not work with my windows 10 machine.  the enclosure is fine though as I have some old HDs from my old win7 machine and those can be viewed just fine with this enclosure.

 

then I tried plugging the drive right into my win10 machine's mobo.  windows still thinks the drive should be formatted so no dice.

 

now I put it back in the enclosure and plugged it into my old asus chromebox.  the chromebox can see the drive and there are files and folders and stuff in there but I can't for the life of me find any of the pics I expected to be on there.

Edited by postSingularityHumanoid, 25 January 2023 - 07:00 AM.

[badogg]

A little digging and it looks like ChromeOS might be using the Linux ext4 filesystem. Windows won't read that.

[Beejus McReejus]

You could boot up the Windows machine to a live Linux disk and it should be able to read that drive.  You can use an Ubuntu or Mint disk and there should be a boot option to just run it without installing the OS, then use the disk manager app (I don't remember what it's called offhand) and mount the drive and check it out.

[positiveContact]

so the chromebox should be able to read it fine, right?  and it kind of does except I can't find any of his pictures or anything on there.  there is a random picture of a capybara on there which is strange though

[badogg]

Not sure what sort of pictures these, maybe start looking for a hidden folder?

Being it is a Linux OS you can try something like this in the terminal:

sudo find / -name *.jpg

Eta:. Or maybe:

grep -rn "some thing to grep" --include=*.{jpg,jpeg,bmp,png} *

Edited by badogg, 25 January 2023 - 06:30 PM.

[positiveContact]

Naw, these are just pics of grandkids, hunting and fishing pics, etc

[zymot]

If time is more important than money....

I am spitballing here.


You can buy a cheap chromebook and maybe that can read the drive. Maybe?

[positiveContact]

If time is more important than money....

I am spitballing here.


You can buy a cheap chromebook and maybe that can read the drive. Maybe?

I have two, lol!

I could try those as well but I figured my Chromebox would be the same.

[positiveContact]

yeah, I see the same stuff when I plug the drive into this chromebook I'm on right now.

[positiveContact]

Not sure what sort of pictures these, maybe start looking for a hidden folder?

Being it is a Linux OS you can try something like this in the terminal:

sudo find / -name *.jpg

Eta:. Or maybe:

grep -rn "some thing to grep" --include=*.{jpg,jpeg,bmp,png} *

 

I don't use linux that often.  I installed the linux terminal on my chromebook.  I assume I need to navigate to the drive first but I'm not sure how to do that as there is no letter associated with the drive that I know of.

 

When I look in the chromeOS file explorer the drive shows up as VLI_Product_String with what I assume are 2 partitions.  One is H-STATE that is a good sized partition ~300GB and the other is a small partition called OEM that is probably left over from when this HD was a DELL machine.

Edited by postSingularityHumanoid, 26 January 2023 - 04:49 AM.