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Laptop HD SATA Data Recovery Q's
Hello, my Sony laptop suffered an unfortunate incident recently. I was in the garage working on the car and had the laptop on top of it playing tunes and logged into PP. I walked past and unfortunately snagged the cord. The laptop went flying and hit the ground pretty hard. Luckily the screen was unscathed but I think the hard drive is toast. It will boot up but I get the boot in safe mode screen and then it reboots. It won't start in safe mode so I guess the drive is scratched.
I know the data is still there but I need to be able to access it. A friend loaned a cable to me so I could connect via USB from another computer directly to the drive. Unfortunately the HD connection on the cable is different than my drive. What is the best way to get everything I need off of the HD? I already found a place to pick up the new HD. Oh and in order of importance here's what I need off of it.... 1) Electronic Flight Logbook 2) My Documents Folder 3) Pictures I don't care about any of the music etc.. Here are some pics of the drive I like the picture warnings in the bottom center of the label ![]() Hard Drive side of the plug ![]() Motherboard side of the plug ![]() Computer carnage ![]()
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-Jess |
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www.ubuntu.com
Download the CD, burn it, and boot the laptop with it. You should be able to read all the data on your drive.... Another option is to use the various changers to get the proper connector on your drive and use the external setup. Once the data is backed up, try formatting the drive and reinstalling from scratch. Could just be data corruption that is causing your reboot cycle.
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“IN MY EXPERIENCE, SUSAN, WITHIN THEIR HEADS TOO MANY HUMANS SPEND A LOT OF TIME IN THE MIDDLE OF WARS THAT HAPPENED CENTURIES AGO.” |
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The Unsettler
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Put in the new drive.
Get an external SATA case and put the old on in there. If it mounts and you can get your data off then try re formating the old drive. If it just has bad sectors you can lock them out of the allocation table and continue to use the drive. If any of the drive mechanism is physically damaged you may not get your old data back anyway. Do you have access to a desktop with internal SATA connectors? ou could always slap it in there. Little Apple plug here. Mac laptops have a sudden motion sensor for exactly this purpose. If it reads acceleration and/or abnormal orientation it immediately parks the read/write heads to prevent drive damage/data loss.
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id1ot- I will try out the CD. After the computer crashed on the floor it was still logged in and running. I was able to navigate around the screen and turned off the computer. After that it had the booting problem.
Stomachmonkey- I'll pick up an external SATA case in case id1ot's suggestion does not work. Unfortunately I do not have a desktop computer anymore, just another older laptop. Supposedly my Sony has the motion sensor built into the hard drive but it obviously did not work in this case.
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-Jess |
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Are you going to join us on Saturday for the Palomar run? If so, bring the drive, I will bring my laptop and the right cables and we'll see what we can do.
Dave
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Dave thanks a lot for the offer! I really wish I could go on the drive but I have to leave for work on Saturday morning. While you guys are having fun tearing up the roads I'll be smashed between two 300 pounders in seat 44E.
Hopefully I can get this thing figured out. I need to get at least my logbook back so I can apply for a few jobs!
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-Jess |
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Try reseating the RAM. Probably not going to help, but free to try. The other ideas offered should work as well. Good luck!
Dave
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Make sure to check out my balls in the Pelican Parts Catalog! 917 inspired shift knobs. '84 Targa - Arena Red - AX #104 '07 Toyota Camry Hybrid - Yes, I'm that guy... '01 Toyota Corolla - Urban Camouflage - SOLD |
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OK I went to MicroCenter and picked up a USB adapter for all kinds of hard drives. I was able to get everything off of the drive and now I'm formatting it. It sure takes a long time but I guess at 120GB this could take a while...
I'll let you guys know how it turns out, maybe I can salvage this drive and keep the $100 in the Porsche fund!
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-Jess |
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Cool! Hope the laptop keeps working.
Dave
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Make sure to check out my balls in the Pelican Parts Catalog! 917 inspired shift knobs. '84 Targa - Arena Red - AX #104 '07 Toyota Camry Hybrid - Yes, I'm that guy... '01 Toyota Corolla - Urban Camouflage - SOLD |
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The formatting while connected via USB to the other computer did not work. A message came up after a while saying it could not complete the format. The drive is now empty and it showed 105GB capacity. I guess this means that 15GB was damaged? I can also hear the arm moving inside the drive a little more than normal. Maybe the drive has more mechanical issues than I thought....
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-Jess |
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