Retrieving Data off Broken Laptop Computer

Retrieving Data off Broken Laptop Computer

by A Person | Published on August 3rd, 2010, 9:39 am | Advice

Nfidel wrote: 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.

If we were close I've got a handful I could sell you. I've got everything from 20gb to 120gb to 240gb. I don't use them any more. Even if the disk was free, the case and cable cost $50 which is why you're not seeing anything less than that

Nfidel wrote: 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.

Yes, it does try to be idiot proof and install itself and want you to do it their way. It insists on installing a virtual CD driver. But you can disable and deinstall all that stuff. Its software creates a custom compressed backup of your disk and you need its software to recover it. Like you I prefer to use software that creates actual copies of the files.

Cheryl - in case you can't find it, I answered your question here

I see! Thanks for your patience and explaining it to me. I will go to the website and get te gadget you say - I hope they post to the UK!!

Don't be daft. You don't want to muck around with international shipping, duties etc. That place wasn't the best or cheapest, it was the first that popped up when I searched. I bought mine from a local computer shop

Armed with the right information go to your nearest computer bits shop and buy one.

e.g.
http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/Sea ... &CatId=266
£17.99 inc VAT

Or go on ebay.co.uk and find one
e.g.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-2-0-IDE-SATA- ... 3efb0b507e
£7.45 inc shipping

I had tried to find one in the uk but was unsure what to search for on google or ebay. Just gone to the ebay and couldnt find anything that has the same pins adapter like the one you have. The link you pasted in I looked at it but it is the same as I've already bought and the pins dont fit??

If the one you have looks the same as either of the ones I linked to then it has a SATA conector

I'll describe the one from eBay since it looks most like to your photo, the difference between it and the Bytecc one is that the Bytecc can be plugged straight into the drive, the ebay one needs cables between it and the drive

The SATA port is on the top. In your photo I think it's under your finger.

: SATA1.jpg (41.98 KiB) Viewed 53 times

The hard drive has two sets of pins on it, one (7 pin) for data, one (15 pin) for power. The eBay one needs some cables which it should come with. There should be a a flat data cable - usually red - which goes from the adapter to the drive, and a power cable that goes from the power supply to the drive

: SATA2.jpg (37.51 KiB) Viewed 53 times

Hope that helps

Ah I need the cables!! I didn't realise. Super - thanks ever so much for your help!!

Liv wrote:
data_recovery.jpg

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.

What if the data locked by the old OS, and cannot retrieved by other PC?

If you mean that the data has been encrypted then you have two problems, 1) physically reading the data and 2) decrypting it.

I'm guessing you have data encrypted using Windows XT or similar. If you do not have a copy of the certificate and private key used to encrypt it or you are not a desgnated 'recovery agent' you are out of luck.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308993