Gday Rally
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it was really more a case of the OS and software, mail, web browsing,
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Same for me
I could easily load the faulty HDD via a USB to IDE adapter and see it in my W7 box, so could go in at the last minute and save the Firefox and Thunderbird data ( which was my biggest worry ).
I found there is a sneaky way to just save one directory and one ini file per app and if you are forced to reload the app, you just replace those directories and the ini file, and all your settings come back :-)
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Pretty sure you can now get the same external USB to SATA/IDE. . . hardware adapters
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I had one of those "new" USB3 units, but it died part way through.
Luckily, i had 2 old external USB2.0/Firewire to IDE enclosures so just used them. A bit clumsier, but they just keep working.
I also have some IDE to SATA adapters that allow you to just plug the IDE drive direct to the SATA cabling in the W7 box.
These work well with my old Maxtor drives, but the BIOS wont detect my WesternDigitals when set up the same way, as the Maxtor is SMART enabled but the WDs arent. All gets very finnicky, and i dont want to set the BIOS back to legacy IDE, as then i lose performance on my main drive.
That said, what i did see recently whilst prowling for ways to get out of the poo without doing a full rebuild, ( and will probably buy one to just try ), is a SATA to IDE adapter.
Ie you plug this gizmo onto a SATA drive, and then plug that to the IDE cable in the old box.
Supposedly, it is "invisible" to the O/S or BIOS so should work on a W2K box.
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/SATA-7-15...38.m2548.l4275
Andrew