Recently my Dell Inspiron 620 would run very slow or freeze up. I ran the diagnostic test and got error code 2000-0142 (hard drive failure). The startup repair did not fix it.
I installed a new hard drive with the SATA cable into port 0 (same as original hard drive) and re-installed Windows 7 from the recovery disks. Everything is running fine.
I wanted to try to recover data from the old hard drive. First I went into BIOS to confirm the name of the new hard drive. After power down, I installed the original hard drive in the 2nd bay, connected the SATA cable to port 1 and connected the 2nd connector on the power cable. The DVD is on SATA port 2, where it always has been.
I then started it and went immediately to BIOS. BIOS showed both hard drives. The new hard drive was set to 1st boot, DVD to 2nd boot. After saving the BIOS settings, the PC freezes at the Starting Windows.
Is there any other way to try reading the old hard drive? Or is this a lost cause?