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My old CPU was a sony vaio. its kinda old and had xp on it. My gf thrashed it - the cd drive went and she tried fixing it by messing with the configurations bios etc. the actual laptop is really fried the keyboard doesn't work, etc.

However the hard drive is still intact. I tried putting the HD in my new CPU (toshiba runnig win7) and it looks like its gonna boot up it goes to the screen with the logo and the status bar starts to load. then it flashes a blue screen for a split second, and goes to the black screen where it says windows did not shut down properly and gives options to (start windows normally, safe mode, safe mode with networking, safe mode with prompts) I've tried every option but it always goes back to this screen. I need to get into the hd because i have very important files. is there anyway?

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For about $15 you can pick up a USB - 2.5" IDE housing or adapter. Put the old hard drive in there. Boot up the new PC, plug in the USB adapter and start copying files from old to new.

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  • By far the simplest solution.
    – ChrisF
    May 22, 2010 at 14:20
  • I think Ubuntu LiveCD and copying the files to a USB stick works pretty well... For free. May 22, 2010 at 14:26
  • Life gives us many options.
    – Chris_K
    May 23, 2010 at 23:59
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I brought a SABRENT USB to SATA/2.5 IDE/3.5 IDE adapter. It is just a base with three connectors and a MOLEX power plug for IDE power (The SATA connector includes power). It has an external power supply. Plug in the drive and it makes it look like a USB drive. You plug in the USB cable (permanently attached) into any USB and you can read all the drive folders except for the USER folders. These are the folders windows creates (downloads, pictures, documents). These folders are locked on the drive and cannot be opened without a great deal of effort and knowledge. All other folders can be opened or moved to your computer or another USB drive. I have a 3.5 IDE drive from a HP computer with Windows XP. It read the data fine (Old Visual Basic 6.0 files). Good Luck.

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I didn't know that Sony and Toshiba made x86 CPUs, but you learn something new every day.

I need to get into the hd cuz i have very important files. is there anyway?

The rebooting MAY be mitigated by booting into Safe Mode from the boot prompt or at least booting with automatic restarting disabled. This will give you a chance to see what the problem is, or even get into Windows.

The cause of the reboots will be that your new laptop (not CPU) has different devices from what Windows has the drivers for. For example, if your old hard drive is SATA then the old laptop may have masqueraded it as an IDE drive instead of using AHCI and the new laptop uses AHCI. Windows doesn't have the driver for it.

You have a few options

  1. Restore from a backup. You make them regularly anyway, it shouldn't be much of an inconvenience.
  2. Boot using a Linux LiveCD and copy the data across to a USB stick or via the network to a network share
  3. Put the hard drive in another computer, but not as the primary drive. Boot the computer up and then you should have a new drive (let us call it F:) that will be your old drive containing your data
  4. If you're SOL you can reinstall Windows over the top of your old hard drive. Don't format it. This will replace your Windows installation but leave your data mostly in tact.
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  • very sorry im sure you are giving me sound advice but its a little over my head... I tried putting the HD into my new laptop but thats where i get the funky boot sequence. Is there a way to rig a usb to this old laptop drive to view files maybe in xp mode??
    – user37983
    May 22, 2010 at 13:16
  • You need to put the drive into a desktop computer that supports having two drives. If you don't have a desktop pc you need a Linux livecd or maybe an external drive caddy. See en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_enclosure?wasRedirected=true - but check to see whether your drive is SATA or mini IDE or whatever (google image search for the acronyms will show you the connectors). But I think your best bet is a livecd. Google "ubuntu livecd". There is plenty of help available. May 22, 2010 at 14:25

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