Recover data from old hard drive

[victor1244]

Hello, I have an older Western Digital HD and would like to recover some of the data on it. Can anyone recommend a program that would help me. I am running Ubuntu, Lucid Lynx.
Thank you, Victor1244

[oz]

Depending on exactly what you are wanting to do, TestDisk and PhotoRec work very well for data recovery. It's best to run them from a liveCD (I like the Parted Magic liveCD), and you can find instructions for using them on their website:

TestDisk - CGSecurity

[Irithori]

Maybe it is as simple as connecting the drive?

In what condition is it?

[victor1244]

Thank you for your prompt replies. All I want to do is see what is on the drive and recover any relevant data. I have the cables to hook the drive to a USB port. The drive is spinning, but I can't retrieve any data (with windows). I have seen a previous post in the newsletter of this website that said there was a program that will recover anything if the drive is spinning. Unfortunately, I cannot find that post as it is at least a month old and I don't know what the title of the post was. Any help will be appreciated. Thank you, victor1244

[Irithori]

Drive spinning itself doesnt mean too much..
Again: In what condition is that drive in?
How old is it, was it accessible the last time it was used, which filesystem(s) is(are) on it, etc

In case data was formatted/deleted: you might want to follow ozarīs hint and try TestDisk

[victor1244]

Thanks again. I don't have any info on the drive other than it's a WD1600 (WD Caviar SE), enhanced IDE. It looks like it's in good shape and I am guessing that it has some version of Windows on it. I cannot find out which file system is being utilized. I have downloaded the aforementioned program and will try to do something with that. Thank you for that reference. Thanks for your help, victor1244

[Irithori]

IF the drive is ok, then a mount might be sufficient.
What does this say?

fdisk -l