Recovering data from laptop

rob w

Hi,

Looking for some help or advice on what to do with my laptop!

Its a Packard Bell Easynote TJ68, a couple of years old, the battery is pretty crap on it so its always plugged in.....not sure if this could cause a problem or not!

Anyway, turned it on today and just presented with a black screen and nothing else. Was working fine yesterday evening before I powered it off.

So I tried hooking it up to an external monitor thinking the monitor was gone, but that didnt work. Have tried powering cycling, giving it plenty of time, but no response except for the fan is just ticking over.

The next thing Ive noticed is that it is making a loud warning beep when I disconnect the power lead......this only happens if its plugged in or out during the boot up (i.e. Up until before the windows password screen appears) so im guessing its not even getting that far.

My local repair shop told me the Graphics Card was gone after a quick look, and quoted 145 to replace. Now im not to concerned with the laptop itself, just the data on it is very important and I really need to recover it. Im really hoping theres no issue with the HDD.

Ive gotten 2 quotes from local repair shops to recover data at 80e and 65e.

Im just wondering if I should have a go at recovering myself....is it just a case of popping out the hard drive, putting it into an external enclosure and extracting data by usb? Or should I leave it to the experts for the sake of saving a few quid and possibly messing up my data?

(I am handy enough with technology/electronics and would be confident enough to try....but don't want to risk losing data if thats a possibility!)

Any advice greatly appreciated

mp22

Im just wondering if I should have a go at recovering myself....is it just a case of popping out the hard drive, putting it into an external enclosure and extracting data by usb? Or should I leave it to the experts for the sake of saving a few quid and possibly messing up my data?

(I am handy enough with technology/electronics and would be confident enough to try....but don't want to risk losing data if thats a possibility!)

Any advice greatly appreciated[/QUOTE]

Well worth a try.

davo2001

Buy this or something similar:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/DIGIFLEX-Drive-Caddy-Enclosure-Laptop/dp/B002UZO07C

Take out the HDD from the laptop, connect it to the caddy (and a different PC/ Laptop) and you should be able to recover the data.

rob w

Thanks for the replies....think ill give it a go!

Anything to watch out for when removing the hard drive, i.e. sensitive parts prone to breaking/damage etc?

Marinabeer

davo2001 wrote: »

Buy this or something similar:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/DIGIFLEX-Drive-Caddy-Enclosure-Laptop/dp/B002UZO07C

Take out the HDD from the laptop, connect it to the caddy (and a different PC/ Laptop) and you should be able to recover the data.

That's been really useful thanks for that.;)

fionny

rob w wrote: »

Thanks for the replies....think ill give it a go!

Anything to watch out for when removing the hard drive, i.e. sensitive parts prone to breaking/damage etc?

Nope the hard drives are normally away from any sensitive bits, just dont drop it

Good luck!

A2LUE42

Look for a youtube video on how to take the hdd out and it should guide you along and provide some reassurance.

GarIT

rob w wrote: »

Thanks for the replies....think ill give it a go!

Anything to watch out for when removing the hard drive, i.e. sensitive parts prone to breaking/damage etc?

All of it maybe? Don't touch the connectors, don't bang it off anything or let it fall even a cm, be gentle with it, don't move it while it is plugged into the other computer. They are not normally that sensitive but can be.

rob w

Thanks all!

Will report back when I get a chance to do it!

PropJoe10

Hold the hard drive on the sides, do NOT touch the mechanism underneath or the connectors at the top. Also, touch a radiator just before you touch the internal components, it helps siphon off any static electricity that may be on you, which could damage the internal components.

28064212

rob w wrote: »

but don't want to risk losing data if thats a possibility!

It's a really bad idea to learn on a device you don't want to lose data off. You should not be risking stuff when you're still learning

Spiritiser

rob w wrote: »

Hi,

Looking for some help or advice on what to do with my laptop!

Its a Packard Bell Easynote TJ68, a couple of years old, the battery is pretty crap on it so its always plugged in.....not sure if this could cause a problem or not!

Anyway, turned it on today and just presented with a black screen and nothing else. Was working fine yesterday evening before I powered it off.

So I tried hooking it up to an external monitor thinking the monitor was gone, but that didnt work. Have tried powering cycling, giving it plenty of time, but no response except for the fan is just ticking over.

The next thing Ive noticed is that it is making a loud warning beep when I disconnect the power lead......this only happens if its plugged in or out during the boot up (i.e. Up until before the windows password screen appears) so im guessing its not even getting that far.

My local repair shop told me the Graphics Card was gone after a quick look, and quoted 145 to replace. Now im not to concerned with the laptop itself, just the data on it is very important and I really need to recover it. Im really hoping theres no issue with the HDD.

Ive gotten 2 quotes from local repair shops to recover data at 80e and 65e.

Im just wondering if I should have a go at recovering myself....is it just a case of popping out the hard drive, putting it into an external enclosure and extracting data by usb? Or should I leave it to the experts for the sake of saving a few quid and possibly messing up my data?

(I am handy enough with technology/electronics and would be confident enough to try....but don't want to risk losing data if thats a possibility!)

Any advice greatly appreciated

could you boot it with a a bootable disk and then transfer the data to an external disk

riclad

do NOT touch the pcb,underneath drive,
circuit,board.
Put some plastic tape on the pcb, gently,
to protect it, from short circuits.
look on youtube, how to upgrade hardrive,
REMOVE battery ,and power cable, from laptop,before you
touch the drive,or open acess panel.

Lay drive down on a cloth,be really gentle at all times.
if drive under 300gig,

a sata drive caddy.using usb cable for power is the one to get.
cost 15 euro.
DO NOT buy a metal caddy,get plastic unit.
LEAVE it in a clean dry place.

rob w

All done!

Picked up a caddy yesterday (plastic one), after the advice here, popped it out and into the caddy this evening. Surprisingly straightforward! All data is there, just had to get the rights to access it on another laptop as its password protected!

Going to back it up now on another drive. Its probably going to heat up quite quickly though without the laptop cooling fan to help cool it down though, is it?

Maybe not a good idea to leave it transferring files via usb for hours on end? Slowly but surely i guess! Then ill be salvaging all the rest of the working parts from the laptop I think!

Thanks again to everyone for the advice, you can get anything sorted on this site!

riclad

RUNNING A live cd,
eg boot from linux cd, mint 7,

on a laptop, cd, bypasses all passwords,
you can browse ,or copy any windows ,files ,folders ,
look on youtube,
MINT linux ,it fits on 1 cdr disk.
make live cd linux on youtube,

copy the most important files, folders first.
you can ignore c/ windows,folder.
apart from user ,your files,username;/
my documents,music, my pictures etc

you can still use the old drive for storage,
or just leave as is, AS a file backup.