Replaced 500gb HDD With A 750GB SSD. Old HDD With OS, My User Files Not Showing Connected Via USB

[skibbles]

Hi

Experiencing a small issue locating important documents on a HDD with my old OS installed. 

So recently replaced the 750gb factory Samsung HDD with a Samsung EVO SSD, creating a recovery disk using a USB device to install the OS onto SSD which was straight forward. The previous HDD was left intact with OS installed etc just in case.

After connecting the HDD as an external drive using USB to Sata cables, everything looks okay. Correct HDD size and usage appears giving the impression all data files are fine.

When trying to access my user name no files appear, only 2 one is an Appdata folder another a File which can't be opened which can't seem to recall the name of now for some reason, I'm sure you know what it is anyway.

Total of 2 Users on the old OS both accounts requiring passwords to enter.

Assuming the issue is to do with permission however the second users account which also has a password showed all their files fine after selecting 'OK' when asked for permission to view. However when selecting my user name it first requested permission however no files show. When hovering over the folder prior to entering it shows 7 folders.

After researching around have attempted a few methods listed below, yet to see any results:

1) Accessed folder view options, changed setting to show all hidden files 

2) Installed WinZip 

Attempted to Boots from the HDD connected via USB to see if files were okay. After changing setting in BIOS everything seemed to load okay till a light blue screen appeared saying their was an error loading and would restart, After restarting it looked like it went into recovery and asked to enter language, keyboard, location as if the OS we being recovered or installed again. Not sure what was going on, decided to abort just in case. 

Restoring boots setting in BIOS and connecting the HDD externally again just to check and everything appears okay however still unable to access files.

Is their an easy way around this or will I be forced to insert the old HDD back into the internal bay , load old OS and back up files first.

Curious to hear your thoughts on this, hopefully my files are okay and their is an easy work around.

Thanks in advance and look forward to hearing from you

which came as a surprise

[banhien]

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@skibbles wrote:

... Is their an easy way around this or will I be forced to insert the old HDD back into the internal bay , load old OS and back up files first.

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@skibbles 

You did a wrong order. If you wish to keep ALL user files and programs you have to do that first. Now, connecting old HDD as an external HDD you still can access to your files but you won't be able to copy your programs.

When using USB and old HDD as external HDD you can see new drive (for example say E:\ OS). It has many folders and your files should be under E:\User.  (note: E: is my example, yours can be a different letter).

Regards.

[skibbles]

Thanks for your reply

The HDD was simply not backed up yet as plans were made to do this later on, was simply checking to see if everything was in order as it should. Had no intentions to ever boot from the external drive either.

The E:User Folder is exactly what my message is regarding. Out of the two users only one users files are showing. 

My files under the respective user name are not present, which is also the admin user. Hope that makes more sense..

Anyway looks like i'll have to reconnect the HDD as primary, hopefully my files are okay..

is it possible to boot from the external HDD safely to recover files if need be?

Also i'm only interested in my files (documents, images, pdfs, presentations ) no programs. Hoping it's nothing to be concerned about..

any more input would be much appreciated..

[skibbles]

Quick Question:

Connected the old HDD and booted OS and files were all intact. Since i'm short of a spare external drive to back up 200gb worth of data I did the following:

Connected the SSD with fresh OS installed, via Sata - USB cables. Transferred over 100gb of data to a new folder created in C: named Backup. After few hours of transferring files, backing up what was needed, swapped drives over again.

The SSD with fresh OS loaded fine however upon checking the C: directory no files or folder where their and for some reason the data usage has also refreshed as if no data was added to being so now showing as full. Did windows just delete all the data on the SSD when booting from it due to file location?

would this have worked if I simply transferred files to a folder under the user: directory instead of creating a new folder on c:..

need a way to back up files without a spare drive apart from the old and new both of which have the same OS installed..

any suggestion would be great. looks like i'll have to open it up for the 3rd time to get the data... 

thanks in advance

[skibbles · Accepted solution]

All done:

Simply reinserted old HDD, backed up data before swapping over again. 

Also for record noticed the files in question where actually moved to a different user folder. Anyway that's a questions for another topic..