The XP Pro o/s on my old computer stopped working. I tried all the options to get the o/s running, but nothing worked, so I retardedly tried to install XP Home onto the hard drive without any partitioning or anything else I possibly should have done. During my attempted installation I got a message saying that if I continued that all data would be lost on the hard drive, but I went ahead anyway. I never got XP Home or Pro running on that computer because as I later learned the motherboard was shot. I just put a new computer together with the XP Home installation cd I bought from Microsoft. How can I check and even possibly recover whatever data might be left on the old hard drive from my old computer? Like I said the computer I am currently using has XP Home, and I was using XP Pro with my old hard drive. Do I just hook up the old HD to my current computer and see if anything is on it? Will I be able to access any of the data with my current computer? Thanks for any replies. xxxxxxxxxx

You need to clarify what you did. Did you reformat the HD or did you use Compaq restoration CD when you were warned that all data would be lost on the hard drive. Either way you should concentrate on making an effort to recover whatever "lost" files first. Click on the link below for a start. http://www.runtime.org/ i_Xp/VistaUser

i didn't get ur point is ur hard disk still working ??anw if it's u can use this program it brings u back some of the lost files after format "Recover my file" her's the link http://www.recovermyfiles.com/ Computer is a gr8 invention :)):D

You can try installing the drive on your new system. You might be able to access and save some of the files. The following web site has some information on how to add a second drive. http://www.helpwithpcs.com/upgradin...

Just put in a Linux cd, boot the system from the linux cd (i use UBUNTU for this) and there you go all the contents of whatever is left on the hard drive, just copy to a usb key or whatever u want to contain your data in. P.s if you have a website and would like to make money from it just use links below to add ads to your page

I want to try simply hooking up the old hd to my current computer. I am not currently using the old hd, and I believe the old hd was formatted during the xp installation. I was getting a lot of virus warnings on my old computer and had a lot of o/s problems, so is it safe to connect the old hd to my new computer? xxxxxxxxxx

888qqq, If you already reformatted it you need to use recovery software to get your data back. I use "GetDataBack" and have great success with it. It'll show you every install with all files, even the deleted ones. You probably the "NTFS" version as that's what's used most ofteen with XP wiredsj