Recovering data from an old hard drive which crashed during W10 upgrade

[Picatavi]

Trying to help a family member. He attempted an upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10. The upgrade appeared to have been successful, but as Win 10 began the setup routine it crashed, with the dreaded WDF_Violation which then led to a non-stop repair loop. He was unable to get it to boot up, even into safe mode.

At that point he decided to purchase a new laptop (Windows 10). Because he did not have a current backup for the old desktop, he purchased the Sabrent USB 3.0 TO SATA/IDE 2.5/3.5/5.25-INCH Hard Drive Converter. He pulled the old hard drive and used the Sabrent converter to connect it to the new laptop. Once connected, the old hard drive shows up in File Explorer as: OS (E) and HP Recovery (F).

Is there a way to go into either of those and recover the data, User settings, and perhaps IE Favorites without messing up the new laptop? Or somehow repair Win 10 on the old hard drive (without losing the data) and reinstall it in the old desktop so he can transfer files and settings to the laptop? Any help is greatly appreciated.

-Rich

 

[Trouble]

Hello Rich and welcome to the forum. Sorry for the delayed reply to your query but things have been a bit hectic around here with the new update and those associated problems.

Is there a way to go into either of those and recover the data,

Sure. Just open two file explorer windows and copy the contents from his old profile folder (desktop, documents, pictures, music, videos, favorites, etc., etc.) in E:\Users\HisUserName (on the old system) into the appropriate containers in C:\Users\HisCurrentUserName (on the new system).
Shouldn't be a problem.

 

[Picatavi]

I appreciate the reply. That's just what I was hoping to do, but looking at the old hard drive in file explorer, he tells me that the only things he sees are:

OS (E)
HP Recovery (F)​

No C:\Users...

Will I find Users, etc if I drill down into the OS (E)? I was hesitant to do so for fear of messing up the OS in his new laptop.

 

[Trouble]

Yes. the old drive will no longer be C:\ when attached externally.
So C:\Users\OldUserName
Becomes
E:\Users\OldUserName

 

[Picatavi]

Thanks a bunch. Will give it a whirl. Might be several days before we can connect, but I'll report back.

 

[Trouble]

Cool....
Keep us posted.
You may find that you need to create another admin account to use to do the copying. In some cases you may have trouble dropping some of the files into a live account (actively logged in).
So if some of the containers complain about unable to do this or that, then do it using a different admin account or just turn on the hidden admin account and use that.
As long as you are copying stuff that is not there, you should be alright. It's when you start to over-write existing sub-containers that you may get a complaint, something about access denied or probably read only.

 

[Picatavi]

You may find that you need to create another admin account to use to do the copying.

Excellent tip. Thanks very much!

 

[Mubasshir]

I had faced similar problem of data missing while upgrading my OS to Windows 10. I used Disk Drill from http://www.cleverfiles.com/
Most of the files were recovered at the first time, only a few have to recover twice as first time data was not fully recovered. You can try it too if you face this type problem in future.