Dell Harddrives

[ecason]

I have a harddrive from a Dell Dimension 4600 (Maxtor 80GB, ATA, 133)
which I put into a generic system in order to extract some files and
photos off of. The system will not boot to Windows XP Home, so I was
wondering if the Dell harddrives are proprietary like the Dell RAM
is. If it is, is there anyway to extract the needed information with
disk recovery software or equipment?

Thanks to anyone who can provide me with this answer.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

I have a harddrive from a Dell Dimension 4600 (Maxtor 80GB, ATA, 133)
which I put into a generic system in order to extract some files and
photos off of. The system will not boot to Windows XP Home, so I was
wondering if the Dell harddrives are proprietary like the Dell RAM
is. If it is, is there anyway to extract the needed information with
disk recovery software or equipment?

The HD should work fine in most any system but NOT as the boot HD. Add it
to a system as a 2nd HD and then after the OS native to that system is
booted then the Dell HD should be visible.

 

[Bob Day]

I have a harddrive from a Dell Dimension 4600 (Maxtor 80GB, ATA, 133)
which I put into a generic system in order to extract some files and
photos off of. The system will not boot to Windows XP Home, so I was
wondering if the Dell harddrives are proprietary like the Dell RAM
is.

Neither hard drives nor RAM is proprietary to Dell.

If it is, is there anyway to extract the needed information with
disk recovery software or equipment?

If you trying to boot the "Dell" drive on another system,
that won't work. Try adding it as a slave drive.

-- Bob Day
http://bobday.vze.com

 

[Miss Perspicacia Tick]

I have a harddrive from a Dell Dimension 4600 (Maxtor 80GB, ATA, 133)
which I put into a generic system in order to extract some files and
photos off of. The system will not boot to Windows XP Home, so I was
wondering if the Dell harddrives are proprietary like the Dell RAM
is. If it is, is there anyway to extract the needed information with
disk recovery software or equipment?

Thanks to anyone who can provide me with this answer.

If you mean just shove it in and expect it to work, no, of course not! The
hardware in the second system will be totally different, and a repair
installation will be required at the very least.

But, if you're talking about the drive itself, they're standard. I took a
120GB from a Dimension 8250 and am running it in box I use as a file-server
(P4 2GHz 512MB - totally generic).

 

[DaveW]

You gnerally can NOT use a harddrive, with the OS on it, from one computer
to boot another computer with a different motherboard. You will get
Registry errors.

 

[Raymond Sirois]

I have a harddrive from a Dell Dimension 4600 (Maxtor 80GB, ATA, 133)
which I put into a generic system in order to extract some files and
photos off of. The system will not boot to Windows XP Home, so I was
wondering if the Dell harddrives are proprietary like the Dell RAM
is. If it is, is there anyway to extract the needed information with
disk recovery software or equipment?

Thanks to anyone who can provide me with this answer.

Dell RAM is not proprietary. Neither are their hard drives. My guess
would be that the OS knows it's been moved from one computer to
another and has invalidated itself. I'll be willing to bet that if
you put that drive back in your Dell, it'll work fine. How about
installing a couple of NICs, fabricating a cross-over cable and using
peer-to-peer networking to move your files? Should cost you a grand
total of $40


Raymond Sirois
SysOp: The Lost Chord BBS
607-733-5745
telnet://thelostchord.dns2go.com:6000

 

[kony]

Dell RAM is not proprietary. Neither are their hard drives. My guess
would be that the OS knows it's been moved from one computer to
another and has invalidated itself. I'll be willing to bet that if
you put that drive back in your Dell, it'll work fine.

It may work fine but that has nothing to do with
"invalidation". It will not invalidate anything to the
extent that it wouldn't boot, at most it would require
reactiviation in that case... what happens is it can't cope
with that much of a change in hardware, XP just isn't
written well enough to do it, often it's the IDE controller
change.

 

[patrick]

I have a harddrive from a Dell Dimension 4600 (Maxtor 80GB, ATA, 133)
which I put into a generic system in order to extract some files and
photos off of. The system will not boot to Windows XP Home, so I was
wondering if the Dell harddrives are proprietary like the Dell RAM
is. If it is, is there anyway to extract the needed information with
disk recovery software or equipment?

Thanks to anyone who can provide me with this answer.

put the drive back.

insert a Live CDrom, or a Knoppix CDrom, and boot it.
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php
http://knopper.net/knoppix

You can mount and then read ALL files on any Microsoft formatted
harddrive, bypassing all of the weak Microsoft 'security'. Plus, the
hidden partitions for Dell, Compaq, etc. are then accessible.

If you right click on the mounted drive icon on the desktop in the
LiveCD OS, you can change read permissions to read/write!

If you cannot do any of the above, you can also look up your nearest
Linux User Group, and ask for personal tutoring...
http://www.lugww.counter.li.org