The access problem you seem to be experiencing might actually be helped by keeping the drive extremely cool when trying to recover the data. Some suggest putting a hard drive in the freezer but you have to be extremely careful and this probably isnt necessary. Just being patient and letting the drive cool down in between attempts to get data from it is helpful. Try keeping the drive very well ventilated, and if youre desperate, rest in on top of an ice tray. You could put the enclosure in a fridge or freezer if your cables are long enough but you should be very careful with condensation and water etc.

The old operating system wont be a problem because youre not booting from it. If you want an alternative to accessing the drive from Windows you could try using Knoppix to recover the data.

USB or internal hard drive that is Fat32 formatted to copy the files onto. Knoppix hard drive recovery is detailed several places online. Be sure to do some research. Definitely do diagnostics before you rely on that drive again. Copy: Install both functioning hard drives in the same computer and copy the files via the operating system. CD or DVD, and then transfer the data to the destination drive. Internet or a Local Area Network, and copy the files via HTTP, FTP, NetBIOS, LocalTalk, or Samba. Ghost Image: Create a ghost image of the source hard drive.

The file can then be applied to a destination drive essentially creating a clone of the source drive.

Among the software packages that can create clone images is Norton Ghost by Symantec. Data Recovery If the source hard drive is not functional, an option may be to use a hard drive data recovery service. These services can retrieve data from drives that have experienced hardware failure, but they may be expensive. Regularly back up sensitive data, especially if the hard drive is exhibiting any symptoms of impending failure, such as clicking, grinding, or other unusual noises.

Shut down your PC, unplug your USB drive, restart your PC and plug your USB drive back in. You should be able to see your files with Explorer if the drive has no physical damage. Try USB drive in another PC. You may need to use recovery software.

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