Can't access old hard disk

[murmansk]

I took my computer to have a new solid state drive fitted in place of its hard drive. I asked them to give me the old hard drive. The computer has a second hard drive for storage purposes, which has remained in place.

I have kit of cables and a power supply which allows me to connect the old hard drive (SATA) to the USB port so I can access it (almost as though I’d put it in a caddy) but I’m having problems accessing it.

When I plug it in and try to look at what’s on the drive in “Computer” it refers to “Drive F: reserved” then it disappears and it refers to “Drive G:” and says it wants to format it before I can use it.

I can’t get to look at what’s on either of these partitions plus it’s almost as though it thinks I keep plugging and unplugging the cable as it makes that kind of “dee dum” noise spontaneously every few seconds.

I’d be grateful if anyone could give me some clues as to how to access the files on this drive.

Thanks

 

[JohnD]

have you got a spare SATA port in the computer?

 

[murmansk]

Yes, I think so, are you thinking I could stick it inside the computer and access it that way?

 

[JohnD]

yes

if it tries to boot from the old disk you can change BIOS to make it boot from the new one first.