ok, I finally just took a IDE cord out of the old computer......When I first started I did not want to change/move much and not be able to reconnect everything the correct way.....and I did not want to open up the new computer (the wife won't be happy that i did :-) .......

I can finally see both parts of the "old" hard drive.....VICTORY....sort of............
When I try to view the contents of drive f: the "old" hard drive it says I need to format it......that means I have "lost" the info on that drive....correct?

all this work and I won't even accomplish what I wanted...saving the data from the drive..........please any other suggestions on how to retrieve the data?

Steve

Look in Disk Management and see how the drive is described.

File formats on various partitions etc.

To access Disk Management, right click on My Computer, and select Manage from the context menu – this will open the Computer Management console (alternatively, Disk Management may be accessed from Control Panel> Administrative Tools> Computer Management).

the file system says RAW.......

Staus says HEALTHY (Active, primary partition)...........

capacity says 100% free.............

so I take it the data is gone????? :-(

Steve

Well that is what Vista says. In other words Vista cannot recognize any data.

This does not necessarily mean it is gone. Unless you formatted or wiped this drive the data is most likely there.

My next step would be to try it on an XP machine.

The step after that is professional recovery options. At that point you will ask yourself what the data is worth to you because you will need to start paying to get it back.

I did some Internet searching for a data recovery software program and found one that shows the data I want, but it is only a demo and it will cost $70 for the program......any suggestions of a free or low cost program that would be comparable, it was EASEUS data recovery.......

I'd say at $70 your already looking at low end software.

Make sure there is a guarantee before you buy.

This one claims a guarantee:

http://www.nucleusdatarecovery.org/h...-recovery.html

More Googles:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&r...ry&btnG=Search

You can also send it away for complete results but you are talking several hundreds at that point.

Trying it on an XP machine is worth a shot in my opinion. But if that fails expect to pay @ $70 at least.

Another: http://www.stellarinfo.com/recover-windows-nt.htm