Laptop Data Recovery

[Sylvus]

So my girlfriend's laptop crapped out this weekend, and even though I told her to back everything up a long time ago, she apparently chose to go a different route on that. Laptop BSOD's on boot, can't even get to the OS in safe mode.

I'm looking at options for getting the data off of her hard drive, and someone suggested buying one of those external HD cases. Anyone have any experience doing that, or maybe a better suggestion or recommendations for which external case to buy? I'm not even positive the size of her HD, don't have the laptop with me right now, but I could crack it open to look when I get home.

It's a Toshiba laptop that she bought in (I believe) 2005, if that helps at all.

Gracias.

[Fash]

You can just put a windows disk in and install over it, the data won't be affected... you don't format it.

Also there are live cd's that could boot and access the drive to get data off of it.

p.s. what's a latptop?

[miir]

I recommend an external drive enclosure.

Ten bucks for IDE
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 817334008R

Fifteen bucks for SATA
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817182140




teehee latptop

[Sylvus]

Are the connections for a laptop hard drive the same as for a desktop?

For example, if this is a one-time thing, could I just pop it out and plug it into one of my desktop machines to retrieve the data?

That'd be the cheapest solution of all!

[miir]

The SATA interface is the same on 2.5" and 3.5" drives meaning you could plug a laptop SATA drive into a desktop with no issues.

A 2.5" IDE drive uses a different interface than a 3.5" IDE drive.


If it was bought in 2005, it will probably use IDE meaning you'll need to get an external enclosure or an IDE adapter like this:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.as ... 6816133024

[Ashur]

I second the HDD enclosure/adaptor route. I've done this for the last two PCs (desktop and laptop) that Joyful, the Scourge of Infernal Machines (i.e. my wife) has destroyed and I was able to get her data off of the drives each time.

/e prays that this Dell laptop of hers lasts longer...

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

You can get an adapter to plug them in for about $25. You should probably see if you can find a bootable ERD disk online and do a hive restore. I have fixed literally hundreds of PC's with that.

[Sylvus]

I think we're just going to get her a new laptop. She's gotten this one "fixed" (including a full wipe and reinstall, by me) several times, with increasingly frequent problems, until it straight up died this weekend. I'm just hoping I can get a bunch of pictures and financial information off it for her, and we'll probably just buy her the Dell $500 laptop deal of the week.

She doesn't need it for anything more intensive than MS Office or browsing the internets.

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

Plugging it in with a cheapo adapter will do it. Her first problem is buying a Toshitba. I would rather be anally raped by a mule deer than to willingly hand over money for a Toshitba laptop.

[miir]

Toshiba laptops are consistently at or near the top in reliability and customer satisfaction surveys.

[Funkmasterr]

I've never had any issues with any of the Toshiba products I've owned, including the LCD tv we got recently. I did my homework and like miir said their products were rated pretty high everywhere I looked.

[Aslanna]

Toshiba laptops are consistently at or near the top in reliability and customer satisfaction surveys.

Stop confusing the issue with facts. That's not how we operate around here.

[Soreali]

Can I post replies yet?

[Funkmasterr]

Can I post replies yet?

No.

[Soreali]

[Soreali]

Lets try this again..

Slyvus.. PM me with the stop error. Should say Stop: 0x0000 something. Just need the first set of numbers..

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

I work on all 4 major brands...IBM, Dell, Toshitba, and HP. Toshitba is far and away thwe absolute worst brand of PC to ever have been this place. Every user who ends up on one ends up wanting off as soon as possible due to repeated hardware issues. If it is me, I am going for Dell first and it is not even close. Toshiba is a definite last and the other two are pretty similar and tied for #2.

[miir]

Whatever man, you're entitled to your opinion...



I know lots of people with favorable experiences with Toshiba and consumer surveys are usually a pretty good barometer of how good/reliable a company and their products are.

[Fash]

Yes, customer reviews are the best ever, with Xyun filing all of them from different IP addresses.

[Ashur]

When I worked at CompuServe/UUNET/MCI/WorldCom in Product Marketing in the late 90s early 00s) we used Toshiba laptops pretty much exclusively. The big ones (satellite?) for most of us and the tiny ones (portege?) for the execs. I liked them and I don't recall any issues, and we beat the hell out of them, road-warrior style. That said, quality, like telecom companies, is a fleeting thing.

Recently I had the mispleasure at work of using an HP laptop and it went through 2 HDDs in two years. My wife's HP laptop just DIED after 18 months. I got a Dell Latitude D620 as a replacement and so far it's been pretty rock solid even though I treat it horribly (I almost never shut it down. I close it and let it sleep. take it back and forth to home. Plug it in there about every other day. I only reboot about every other week. It just takes too much time to get from startup to usability, even when I was doing it daily - we're talking 20-30mins of desktop/network scripts etc.).

Wife ended up with a Dell as well (thx Best Buy special). The only thing she really does (so far...) is beat the hell out of the power supply/ac adapter - she manages to twist the fuck out of the cord and we'll have to end up replacing it in another 6 months if the HP cords were any judge.

[Funkmasterr]

Yes, customer reviews are the best ever, with Xyun filing all of them from different IP addresses.

Hilarious, I thought of that just before I read your comment too.

[Funkmasterr]

When I worked at CompuServe/UUNET/MCI/WorldCom in Product Marketing in the late 90s early 00s) we used Toshiba laptops pretty much exclusively. The big ones (satellite?) for most of us and the tiny ones (portege?) for the execs. I liked them and I don't recall any issues, and we beat the hell out of them, road-warrior style. That said, quality, like telecom companies, is a fleeting thing.

Recently I had the mispleasure at work of using an HP laptop and it went through 2 HDDs in two years. My wife's HP laptop just DIED after 18 months. I got a Dell Latitude D620 as a replacement and so far it's been pretty rock solid even though I treat it horribly (I almost never shut it down. I close it and let it sleep. take it back and forth to home. Plug it in there about every other day. I only reboot about every other week. It just takes too much time to get from startup to usability, even when I was doing it daily - we're talking 20-30mins of desktop/network scripts etc.).

Wife ended up with a Dell as well (thx Best Buy special). The only thing she really does (so far...) is beat the hell out of the power supply/ac adapter - she manages to twist the fuck out of the cord and we'll have to end up replacing it in another 6 months if the HP cords were any judge.

I've also had nothing but bad luck with HP computers, including my own (my first PC was a HP) and many of them that I have worked on for customers.

[miir]

My two most recent experiences with HP/Compaq have been less than favorable... at least their customer support is pretty good.

[Funkmasterr]

My two most recent experiences with HP/Compaq have been less than favorable... at least their customer support is pretty good.

True on the customer service. Sony has been worst for that, in my experience. Last time I had to call them was for a customer when I worked at Circuit City. I just had a question about what kind of RAM (I think) was in the computer and the person on the phone wanted me to give them all of my information just to answer that question. I was soooo pissed off.

[Xatrei]

Odd, the last 3 laptops I've had have been HPs (4 if you want to count the the pre-merger Compaq I had before that), and I've had almost no problems with them other than normal wear and tear. The only manufacturing defect type problem I had was with a brand new HP battery for my last Omnibook that died about 3 weeks after I got it. Of course I skipped a few generations of HP laptops by holding on to my last Omnibook for so long (I didn't need a more powerful upgrade and I liked the bigger display on it), so it's possible that things have been shabby the last few years. So far the latest one I bought in November has given me no problems.

[Fairweather Pure]

I have an HP laptop and it has been fantastic. I don't have a single complaint.

[Ashur]

Not surprising actually. if 10% of a major brand had big problems it would be significant, but you might be hard-pressed to find someone w/ a problem since fully 90% of the users wouldn't. I tend to listen to people who see the trends (a la Kilmoll and a lot of our folks here who support laptop builds/repairs) versus the single person who never had issues.

[Xatrei]

Not surprising actually. if 10% of a major brand had big problems it would be significant, but you might be hard-pressed to find someone w/ a problem since fully 90% of the users wouldn't. I tend to listen to people who see the trends (a la Kilmoll and a lot of our folks here who support laptop builds/repairs) versus the single person who never had issues.

Agreed, although I wasn't trying to imply that there are no problems with HP's gear, just that I haven't experienced that myself with my various HP laptops. Of course, one must remember that a handful of problems does not necessarily make a trend, so as always one must do their homework when researching this sort of thing. I will add that at a previous employer, we had mostly HP laptops and desktops, the procurement and support of which was part of my responsibilities (not directly, though, it was delegated to one of the managers who reported to me). I was a big fan of HP at the time, but that was before the company was laid low by Fiorina, and what was true then is not necessarily true today.

[miir]

Haha... at IBM we had a theory that Carly was a double agent working for IBM to destroy HP.

[Kilmoll the Sexy]

HP's aquisition of Compaq took HP's business laptops and turned them into complete shit. I still cannot understand why they bought Compaq and then used their designs (which were complete and utter shit) to pump out to businesses across the globe. Truly, their laptops marketed at consumers are better machines than the ones marketed at busineses.

[Psyloche]

Depends on how much data you're talking about moving I guess. When I have issues booting to something that I really need the data off of, I use Knoppix to boot and move whatever files I want/need across a network or portable HDD.

Disclaimer: I barely read the problem, I just read recovering data off of something that doesn't otherwise boot.

[Drolgin Steingrinder]

I decided not to buy any HP product when it took over three hours to get hold of a driver for a 2 year old scanner my mom had. 2 hours of searching everyfuckingwhere known to man and an hour of downloading from a taiwanese site at 0.1k/sec. Horrible, horrible support.

[Funkmasterr]

I decided not to buy any HP product when it took over three hours to get hold of a driver for a 2 year old scanner my mom had. 2 hours of searching everyfuckingwhere known to man and an hour of downloading from a taiwanese site at 0.1k/sec. Horrible, horrible support.

Just be glad it wasn't Sony, right now you would still be on the phone with the rep telling him what your fourth cousins favorite color is.

[Canelek]

Mule deer, eh Kilmoll?

[Zaelath]

I'm going to side w/ Kilmoll on the Toshiba hate... they always seem to be style over substance, and I'll never forgive them for the techra that you had to reboot 12 times to install the drivers for Windows 2000 (once per driver)