How to connect a hard drive that was previously removed from the system unit and no longer shows signs of life?

Question

Iron

Hello!
There was a problem, my friend initially had a hard drive with files, there are pictures, videos, etc.
He has an old computer 2002-2005 and there was not enough disk space, and I had a free disk, also from an old computer around 2003. I took everything apart for him, inserted this disk, connected it, launched it, and the error disk read error occurred. Ok, I removed it, he had another disk at home, also from an old computer, I tried to insert it too - as a result, an error occurred during loading.
In the end, I removed all the disks and left the one that was, but it also does not start. He doesn't even write anything.
In general, the computer itself starts up, but the Windows boot window does not appear, as a result, it reboots itself.
Operating system Windows XP.
Why? And what should be done? Can it be restored?

Answer 1

There was a similar problem. If both IDE drives are on the same cable, then when you mistakenly set them to the same mode (both masters, or both slaves), a "little magic" happens, and both screws lose data. You can only restore "by hand". That is, I myself found lost partitions through WinHex, found the necessary files in them, and restored them. Unless, of course, there was something left of them.