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Recover Laptop Data [Computers]

Started by sbspalding · Hace 1 año

“Inventor: A person who makes an ingenious arrangement of wheels, levers and springs, and believes it civilization.” — Ambrose Bierce

Ever wonder how to get information off of a dead Laptop? You could spend upwards of $100 to have someone do it for you, or you could try this.
Recover Your Data
1. Pick up this handy [...]




These ... Continue reading »

17 comments

  • greggmarshall

    Hace 1 año

    I had collected a number of cases to do what you describe (and to use hard drives like supersized floppy disks for backups), then switched to a $10 USB to IDE/SATA cable adapter I found. It's more flexible, especially for "one of" uses of a drive like you describe.

    Here's one like what I have:
    http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=2020&ca...
    reply
  • myrtle_beach_real_estate

    Hace 1 año

    Will this work even if the laptop see's no drive? I got the blue screen of death and on reboot it can not find a drive... Thanks
    reply
  • sbspalding

    Hace 1 año

    It should work unless the hard drive itself is damaged
    reply
  • Maggy Young

    Hace 1 año

    When the harddrive is damaged it should make clunking sounds on reboot. If no clunk, it should be ok.
    reply
  • Christian

    Hace 1 año

    This is exactly what I've been planning to do since December, when the tech people out here in Mongolia told me I'd have to take my laptop to Moscow to repair it (they said even Beijing doesn't have the equipment to fix a motherboard broken in the particular way mine is...).

    It just seemed like common sense to me, but I guess it might not to everyone.
    reply
  • TigerTom

    Hace 12 meses

    It's the era of disposable everything.

    This is a good idea. There are lots of these little external hard-drive caddies available very cheaply, whereas hands-on help from a technician can be very expensive.
    reply
  • Jolin

    Hace 12 meses

    Are you kidding us?
    reply
  • Used Cheap Laptops

    Hace 12 meses

    This looks great, too bad I was one of the people that spent the $100 a couple of months ago. Glad I found this blog, will subscribe.
    Thanks
    JR
    reply
  • aaron

    Hace 11 meses

    An HD enclosure saved my life, basically. Good post.
    reply
  • Atlanta PC Repair Guy

    Hace 10 meses

    Make sure you get the enclosure that can handle your drive. Keep in mind there are different connectors. IDE, Ultra ATA, Serial ATA, Parallel ATA. They actually sell external cases that will handle all 3, they cost around $20 at specialty stores.

    Keep in mind, now you have an external hard drive, so you can use that hard drive to back up data, etc.
    reply
  • sbspalding

    Hace 10 meses

    Absolutely, great additions.
    reply
  • Ps3

    Hace 9 meses

    Really useful thanks
    But how about jsut keeping a back up on a simpletech drive o somehtign liek that :P
    reply
  • Sanjeev Mehra

    Hace 8 meses

    Nice trick , it would come in handy most of the times but the only issue is people should be able to remove the hard drive and attach the USB port to a working computer properly.
    reply
  • Mark Sear

    Hace 8 meses

    This is one approach but needs to be done with care. It is easy to damage a disk when removing it and fitting it into another enclosure, and if the actual problem is hardware related it is not going to help.
    There is also the risk that repeated attempts to access data from a disk where the problem is down to internal damage could be making the situation worse, in fact unrecoverable.
    It is worth getting advice from someone who understands how hard disks work and who might be able to determine the problem from your description of the symptoms. I work for a data recovery company, I can assure you that a recovery when there is a hardware or serious logical problem will cost a lot more than $100, but any recovery company who takes money when there is not really an issue is not playing fair.
    Of course keeping a backup is the best option.
    reply
  • sbspalding

    Hace 8 meses

    This is really excellent advice, and anyone who is jumping into data
    recovery (especially in less than simple cases) would do well to heed it.
    reply
  • iPod

    Hace 8 meses

    Thanks for this. Recently my cousin spilt beer on his father's laptop. This method may just come in handy!

    John
    reply
  • Laptop AC Adapter

    Hace 5 meses

    Great tip :) It's such a pain if your adapter dies and you can't wait to access your data from your laptop until you can find a new one!
    reply

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