tkbirdie said:
I am a complete novice. My hard drive on my laptop became unbootable.
There
are some files on it that I need to recover. I was planning to do a
complete
backup this weekend. The system does not load to the Windows system. I
tried to repair the system. but it said it could not find the hard drive.
I
am having a new one arrive tomorrow. If I run the Recovery Console, will
that allow me to access my data? I am a student and I do not want to pay
for
something that I can do myself. I am unsure of the full specifications,
but
it is a 60GB hard drive for a Dell Latitude D505. The BIOS shows that
there
is no hard drive present.
I hope there is someone who can help me.
Thanks
If the BIOS does not recognise the drive, the recovery console will not be
able to either, and will not allow you to recover anything from the drive.
You have an underlying problem to deal with before you can consider the
recovery console or anything else.
Try physically reseating the drive. If that doesn't work, get a USB2
external drive case built for laptop drives, connect your disk to it, and
attach that to another XP system. You won't need to install any drivers.
Some IDE laptop drives have a special adapter on the header, that has to be
removed before you can attach the drive to the case.
These cases start around CDN$25 or less and use a special cable that plugs
into two USB ports, as the power draw is too high for just one port.
Like this:
http://insidecomputer.stores.yahoo.net/2usb20alhadr.html
You don't have to fully reassemble the case to use it.
If your drive is SATA, there is an adapter you can get that works for both
desktop and laptop SATA Drives, that doesn't use the case. It see these
also around CDN$25.
This is what I mean, but there are other forms of it:
http://insidecomputer.stores.yahoo.net/seatasatousb.html
Listen carefully as you attach the cables to the drive, and watch for
lights, to see if the drive responds at all.
If this works, you may be able to simply copy the files off. And if it
works, it may indicate that there isn't a problem with the drive, but rather
with the latptop motherboard. You'll need another drive to verify this.
If it doesn't work, and the drive electronics have failed (particularly if
the drive does not spin up), you likely face something that you *cannot*
fix yourself.
If the drive has failed electrically, you won't have many choices beyond
walking away from the drive and data, or paying professionals with
necessarily expensive facilities. If the drive electronics have failed,
they may have to disassemble the drive and mount the platters on drive
electronics built for this purpose.
I would not consider returning the drive for warranty replacement as the
manufacturer will not make any attempt to recover your data, and if a
recovery service has to open the drive, the warranty is voided.
I usually see bills starting at CDN$1,000 for this kind of work, depending
on turnaround time and how much data is to be recovered. You may find
cheaper or more expensive rates in your area, but be sure that they can
actually do this kind of work properly.
For example,
http://www.actionfront.com/
is who I've used repeatedly - I see they've been bought by Seagate.
There's one other very simple thing that sometimes helps with laptops.
Unplug the power adapter and remove the battery. Press and hold the power
switch for about 30 - 60 seconds. This usually resets the CMOS. Plug
the power adapter back in, and see if anything has changed.
If you get the replacement drive and that one doesn't work either, the
problem may well be on the laptop itself and covered under warranty. This
isn't as gloomy as it seems since it's normally data that has the higher
value.
HTH
-pk
