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Retrieving Data off Broken Laptop Computer

by Liv | Published on May 15th, 2008, 3:04 pm | Advice
data_recovery.jpg
A typical cable used in retrieving data off a broken laptop hard-drive.


I thought this was worth mentioning. Recently (as many know) I suffered from a laptop that became damaged. While I could have manually transferred all the stuff off of it as it was still partially functional, I actually just waited till I got a USB cable to pull the HD. For us as a lot of people, our laptop became full of family photos, videos, not to mention several data backups for the websites, and my MP3 collection.

I know alot of people take their computers to places like Best Buy where their Nerd Herd charge you unbelievable amounts of money to rescue data off of computers. (I joke not, I looked it up, and the Geek Squad can ask up to $1600.00 for recovery) Now I know in many instances things can damage data, but in my 20 years using computers, if the computer is well taken care of, generally the data on the HD way out survives the physical computer. I have a desktop which has a HD installed from 4 computers ago. It still has AOL 2.5 (before the Internet) and most of my college data on it.

So here it is for those of you who don't know. If your laptop goes bad, as in my case, where my child poured their drink on the keyboard, you simply flip it over, undo the hard-drive compartment and the 2 screws that hold the hard drive in. Slide it out of the IDE socket, and order one of these: IDE to USB cables. I got mine from EMT company. Their customer service was excellent, and the cable arrived in about 7 days. Plugged it right into the hard drive, and had complete access to my old Hard drive, and all the precious data. What would have taken me days of uploading 590megs of pictures took about 2 minutes to copy to its new home on the 250 gig hard drive on the new laptop. I can then burn them to DVD for further storage.
 
 
I've done that trick a few times, I just took apart the USB dive I had and swapped the disk. That cable looks useful though - it seems to have both standard and mini IDE sockets

I am a big fan of USB. I just can't believe we had to wait so long for it.
All stupid ideas pass through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is ridiculed. Third, it is ridiculed
May 15th, 2008, 4:01 pm
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A Person
 
Location: Slightly west of the Great White North
Especially USB razors, USB George Foreman grills.
May 15th, 2008, 4:13 pm
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Liv
I show you something fantastic and you find fault.
 
Location: Greensboro, NC
Thanks for sharing... I'll probably have to revisit this thread since my current laptop will not live for ever. I've already had the harddrive replaced once (because mine is one of the crappy Dell Inspirons that overheats... I had to get a cooling fan pad thingy for it).
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May 15th, 2008, 9:23 pm
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Serendipitous
This is my world and I am the world leader...pretend.
 
Location: in the now
My Gateway, definitely could have used one of those. This one seems to run much cooler, but it has alot more processing power. I still want to pick one up though.
May 16th, 2008, 8:36 am
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Liv
I show you something fantastic and you find fault.
 
Location: Greensboro, NC
My PC just died. I don't know if it is the power supply or the motherboard. It is probably time for a new computer but I need the files on my hard drive. I have far too much stuff, work, family and school. Is there a USB or other device to use to access my PC hard drive?
August 29th, 2008, 12:20 pm
Lsbemail
 
Yep, get a usb cord online, and then unscrew the harddrive from the back and you're good to go.
August 29th, 2008, 2:18 pm
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Liv
I show you something fantastic and you find fault.
 
Location: Greensboro, NC
Lsbemail wrote:My PC just died. I don't know if it is the power supply or the motherboard. It is probably time for a new computer but I need the files on my hard drive. I have far too much stuff, work, family and school. Is there a USB or other device to use to access my PC hard drive?

CompUSA used to see housings to turn internal drives to external USB drives. I wonder if Best Buy or Circuit City has such stuff?
August 29th, 2008, 2:21 pm
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SouthernFriedInfidel
 
Location: 5th circle of hell -- actually not very crowded at the moment.
SouthernFriedInfidel wrote:
Lsbemail wrote:My PC just died. I don't know if it is the power supply or the motherboard. It is probably time for a new computer but I need the files on my hard drive. I have far too much stuff, work, family and school. Is there a USB or other device to use to access my PC hard drive?

CompUSA used to see housings to turn internal drives to external USB drives. I wonder if Best Buy or Circuit City has such stuff?


Intrex Computers has those cables and and a lot more for a WHOLE lot less than BB or CC. There's one over by Wendover (along the interstate close to Sheets) and one on Battleground beside Earthfare.
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August 29th, 2008, 3:44 pm
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BecauseHeLives
 
I have an E-system laptop and it's died on me (!). I'm no expert on computers, but reading this article I'm prepared to give it a go, it sounds straight forward. Do I need to buy a IDE - USB cable for the hardrive? I have another laptop that I can try to transfer the hard drive to, i have ALL my photo's on from years and years ago.

Is this the right cable I need to buy? And when I take the hard drive out of the broken laptop does it have somewhere obvious to plug this cable into ??

MANY THANKS!! :D
August 10th, 2009, 12:24 pm
CT
 
Yep.... just dig out the harddrive and plug it in... plug and play.
August 10th, 2009, 2:07 pm
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Liv
I show you something fantastic and you find fault.
 
Location: Greensboro, NC
If you are going to buy one, look for one that's got a SATA connection as well as IDE/MiniIDE

e.g. http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/US ... 270158CCM8

Older computers are IDE/Mini IDE, newer ones are SATA. Read the instructions that come with the adapter but it's all quite straightforward.
August 10th, 2009, 2:18 pm
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A Person
 
Location: Slightly west of the Great White North
PLEASE HELP THIS IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!!

Got 2 old laptops with family pictures on that have both died. Got new laptop and was delighted when I saw this page as thought I could trf them over with a wire. Bought a wire on line (believe it is the ide - usb cable) but it doesnt fit the 'pins' on my old hard drive. I noticed on both the hard drives in the 2 broken laptops have different pins so would need different cables to trf the data to my new laptop - how do i go finding out which cables i need???

Thank you for any advice!!!! :)
August 1st, 2010, 5:02 am
Cheryl_80
 
Laptop disks are either IDE or SATA and IDE has a different connector for a 2.5" drive and a 3.5" drive. Devices like this from Bytecc have connectors for the three types of sockets in use.

Image

That should work. I have one and it works a treat. - one warning though, some laptops have extra cases around their hard drives with custom sockets - sometimes you have to remove the case and socket adapters to get to the bare drive.
August 1st, 2010, 9:31 am
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A Person
 
Location: Slightly west of the Great White North
I was not aware they used SATA in laptops... I just checked my cable and both ends are IDE... and I know I've used it with the larger desktop drives before and a external power supply.... So I'm guessing they have a SATA drive???

Anyhow, I've updated the links above which were 404'd your device A.P. in case anyone else comes along.
August 1st, 2010, 9:48 am
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Liv
I show you something fantastic and you find fault.
 
Location: Greensboro, NC
They've been using SATA in laptops for several years now. (at least four)

Without knowing exactly what she bought I won't guess what kind of drives she has. If the laptop is less than 3 or 4 years old it's likely SATA otherwise it's one of the IDE types
August 1st, 2010, 10:10 am
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A Person
 
Location: Slightly west of the Great White North
Darn technology... always changing...
August 1st, 2010, 10:26 am
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Liv
I show you something fantastic and you find fault.
 
Location: Greensboro, NC
Oh thank you for the replies, I will buy the gadget and try. One of the laptops is a HP Pavillion, and it is about 5 yrs old. All this technology confuses me, but Im gonna try my best to save all our photos!!!! :)
August 2nd, 2010, 8:01 am
Cheryl_80
 
All these problems and barely a mention of back ups? I had two hard drives on separate computers die the same night. I was lucky enough to retrieve the data, that time, but I'm sure to back up the important stuff as soon as I can. Seriously, as cheap as external drives are these days one could easily have one for onsite back ups and a portable for offsite.

And I agree with that guy above about Intrex. They've always had anything I needed (except the proprietary stuff- think Dell parts)in stock and at a reasonable price. I do think Walmart beats their prices on external HDs though. In fact, I plan to buy a 500 gig Western Digital external this week. I have around five years of photos on two internal HDs (but already backed up on DVDs) that I'd like to move off the drives and this seems like the cheapest and most logical way to go about it. I haven't started the offsite storage yet, but if I had a business that depended on my stored files I would do that today.
August 2nd, 2010, 9:15 am
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Nfidel
 
Cheryl_80 wrote:Oh thank you for the replies, I will buy the gadget and try. One of the laptops is a HP Pavillion, and it is about 5 yrs old. All this technology confuses me, but Im gonna try my best to save all our photos!!!! :)

I have used that Bytetec adapter on a Pavillion of about that age. If I remember correctly there is a metal drive caddy that must be removed to get to the cable adapter that also has to be removed.

pavilliondrive.jpg
pavilliondrive.jpg (57.78 KiB) Viewed 3951 times


Nfidel wrote:All these problems and barely a mention of back ups?


Sooner or later you get caught out. I have a 1TB RAID NAS at home and a 1TB USB disk (Western Digital passport) that I keep at my office. But I have been caught out before and I expect I will be again

I wouldn't bother with 500mb - go to 1TB, they're cheap enough. I can recommend the Western Digital although I don't like the way it tries to install it's own software
August 2nd, 2010, 10:43 am
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A Person
 
Location: Slightly west of the Great White North
I had bought a IDE SATA USB device, and took the casing off like you said but i may have the wrong gadget, or i may not have took teh casing off properly. I have took some pictures but a not sure how you load them onto the page (they are on the computer but won't let me paste them on to here).


ARGH!
August 3rd, 2010, 5:33 am
Cheryl_80
 
When you reply to a message, at the bottom of the page is a tab that says "Upload Attachment". Click that, then click "Browse". Find the photo on your drive, highlight it and click "Open". You should then see the file name in the box to the left of the "Browse" tab. Click the "Add the file" button". Wait for it to upload then click "Place file inline" and then click the Preview or Submit button and you're done. Unless of course you meant you couldn't access the photo from your computer. I can't help with that.
August 3rd, 2010, 7:01 am
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Nfidel
 
A Person wrote: I have a 1TB RAID NAS at home and a 1TB USB disk (Western Digital passport) that I keep at my office. But I have been caught out before and I expect I will be again

I wouldn't bother with 500mb - go to 1TB, they're cheap enough. I can recommend the Western Digital although I don't like the way it tries to install it's own software


I was able to get the 500 gig My Book HD by Western for $53. Although the 1 TB would have been a better value, I plan to soon get a portable HD so I can store backups off site. I really wish one could find 100-200 gig HDs with the prices scaled like the larger drives. In fact even smaller ones would be great for me. Also, I'm sure I'll know soon enough, but do you find that Western's software nags you much? I'd like to just do the backing up myself and I sure don't want it slowing my machine by mirroring it.
August 3rd, 2010, 7:11 am
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Nfidel
 
Thank you! If I've done it right there should be 2 pic's attached to this post. One is the hard drive (and it has a little black bit with pins that pulls off - it is to the left of the picture), and the other is the sata ide usb gadget I bought. None of the pins fit in the gadget - is it wrong or have i not done something with the hardrive i should have?

Thanks - Cheryl :shock:
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August 3rd, 2010, 8:23 am
Cheryl_80
 
The disk is a SATA with an HP adapter. You have removed the HP adapter which is correct

Your USB to SATA adapter should have a matching connector labelled SATA. if it doesn't it's not a USB to SATA device and you need to find one that is. The connector you show in your pic is an IDE socket

This is what my Bytecc adapter looks like, you can see the matching connector

bytecc.jpg
August 3rd, 2010, 9:25 am
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A Person
 
Location: Slightly west of the Great White North

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