Laptop Hardrive any way to get my stuff back?

hucklebuck73

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Hey all,
Not sure where this topic or question is supposed to go but recently my hard drive dumped and of coruse I had not saved my pix, files and such recently (yes, i should've but didn't.)

Is there any way or any place that's honest to try and recover some of my stuff back?

Also I reloaded my laptop with my XP and yet my office is not installed WTF?

Thought Id try and ask here see if any of you can help out. Thanks
 
did the hard drive crap out or the software on the hard drive crap out?

does it make an evil clicking sound? does windows try to load?


if the hard drive died there may be some tricks to getting files off of it.

if the software died then there are plenty of easy options.
 
It died, at first it was trying to load windows as i was trying to get my stuff off of it and then dump......Its totally my fault i usually save my stuff regular and i just have been busy and havent....Lots of pix, and files (all my arcade sites and info I keep)...LOL I have loaded a new hard drive but kept the other just in case. yes, it has died no noise no trying to load anything, as far as i know hell when i last turned it off it would try and then keep i guess re loading it or trying to. I have no idea if its the whole drive or software I am confused myself as you can see. I had advast on there and spy bot and nothing had showed wrong recently but all of a sudden it just didnt anymore.
 
well if it started to load windows then the drive itself sounds ok. it sounds like the software is bad.

newegg or some other computer place can probably sell you a usb enclosure for your 2.5 inch drive fairly cheap. either sata or ata100. just put the drive in the enclosure and plug it in to a usb port and you should be able to find all your files and swap them over.


you probably need to use the original recovery disc that came with the laptop to recover office and whatever other crap came preloaded. if you used a regular xp cd then you will just get xp.


good luck.
 
as far as the original disk I have windows XP home edition service pack 2 and I did take it to a shop to load the disk (maybe they didnt load office?) (could I input the disk and see if office didnt load?) the reason for that is I burned out my old dvd cd burner drive and have a usb dvd cd burner. The shop did put a cheap just cd rom drive in (no burner) hey could you by chance please explain a bit more about how to do the old hard drive and get the files off? I'm not sure how if I put it back in to the laptop could I find files then or is that thing your talking about do that or show the files??

Ok since the shop put that cd rom drive in my laptop could I put back in my old hard drive and try to reload that disk?

Yes, I do know some stuff about puters hell this is my second hard drive for this laptop and all that i just have got issues with getting my stuff back (lesson learned for sure) Thanks again man so much for all the info.
 
did your first hard drive physically fail (bad media, no power, etc.) or was it just an install of Windows that got eaten up by viruses/malware/etc.?

chances are your original recovery software is in a hidden partition on your original drive, most PC manufacturers just utilize the large hard drives we have today as a means for not having to provide CDs/DVDs, some manufacturers are at least nice enough to provide DVD burners and appropriate recovery disc making software, but some don't give a shit.

it's their way of conning you into either buying a replacement drive from them (significantly more money) or buying the discs that ideally should've came with the thing in the first place.

the fact that you've had to put 2 hard drives in the same laptop kind of frightens me. my Inspiron 8600 is over 6 years old and I'm still running the original drive, and that thing gets the shit beat out of it daily. even though laptop hard drives are better at absorbing shock and the like vs. their 3.5" desktop counterparts, you still shouldn't be doing juggling acts with the laptop on or anything like that.

my dad owns dogs and one of them went out of control one day and he tripped over onto his air desk and sent his Sony VAIO laptop flying in an L against the floor, cracking the back panel of the LCD and effectively crashing the head on the drive.

any and all attempts I made to revive that drive (the head was stuck) didn't work. sometimes if the head gets stuck and doesn't spin freely like it should, there's methods for un-jamming it.

but I don't even know what the problem is with your original drive. perhaps you can elaborate, and maybe I can help you out.
 
And if you cant get it, drive over to ElfShotTheFood's place, point pleasant is a pretty nice beach to visit. Walk the boardwalk while he fixes it for you!

Anyway, office is not included onthe windows disc, as other people have mentioned. If there is a problem with the partition on the old drive, you can run software like runtime's get data back ntfs, or r-studio to recover the files, otherwise when you plug it in to the usb enclosure, it will show up just like a little thumbdrive does.

As for picking an enclosure, look at the back edge of the hard drive. If it has a bunch of small pins in 2 rows, then it is a IDE drive, if it has to small rectangle connectors, black with some gold on them for the contacts, then it is a sata drive.
 
Mecha187:
The first drive would start to load windows to the black screen where it says windows and has the loading squares on it then it would start over, again and again. My first drive I screwed up with letting other ppl use my puter at the fire station, a buddy of mine used my laptop and the goes hey man your puter just died on me.....Thanks buddy, my fault anyways for not making sure it was covered by anti viruses and such. So my last drive (the one in question) I was surprised when it stopped like that out of nowhere, no signs or anything just stopped. The only thing that has went wrong was my dvd/cd burner drive died (to many burning of dvd's to be honest)

ElfShotTheFood:
Thanks I'll have to get one and try it for sure see if I can get my stuff back. Will my files such as pix and vids and files just show up then?

SiLeNtNiNjA1:
Thanks and Id love to take a trip but I'm bout to move north in 8 days. Thanks about the info I do have an a IDE connection.
 
Your files would be accessible with the usb enclosure given what we can see here, it sounds like a software problem, not hardware. You could probably repair the windows setup there given the right tech working on it, but since you already have another drive setup, your best bet is to just get the usb enclosure, then youll find your files under [DRIVELETTER] \Documents And Settings \ [USERNAME]\ Then you will see your desktop, favorites, and my documents folders that you can copy stuff out of. [DRIVELETTER] is the letter assigned to the removeable device when you plug it into your pc, and [USERNAME] is the name you gave your account on the laptop on the old setup.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817193060

Here is an enclosure for you that will work with a laptop ide drive.

Good luck, and let us know if you need any more help :)
 
Hey man thanks so much all of you have been a great help. This one time I have gotten so busy to where i haven't saved my info.....wow Lesson learned for sure. This is a great reminder to keep up with my saving items regardless of being busy. Thanks to everyone that has posted here. I'll get that drive and attempt.
 
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