Lesson learned.

[faeriegodess612]

So,..day before yesterday my laptop kinda died. It wouldnt go past the boot up screen. I tried every freaking F number on the keyboard, and I mean,..seriously, exhausting all options that BIOS would give me to fix it, and it still wouldnt fix itself. So, after talking to my husband, we decided to use some of savings and just buy a new one. Off to Best Buy I went, hoping that the problem with my laptop wasnt the hard drive. Good news: I'm now the proud owner of a HP Pavilion desktop with a 1TB ( that's right TB ) hard drive, 6 GB RAM, an AMD Athlon II 645 Processor ( no likey Intel ), DVD burner w/ Lightscribe, Wireless LAN, and an ATI Radeon HD 4200 Graphics card. Bought a 20" HP monitor to go with it. Bought this particular one because it had the best looking contrast and color. ( Yes,.. I know it probably still needs to be calibrated,..but that'll have to wait. )

The sorta serious bad news: ALL my photos, save for the few on my external, and the ones on Facebook and Flickr are on the other hard drive. Because I was stupid and didnt back up my photos on my external on a regular basis. Everything new that I've taken?, Stuck on the old hard drive. I bought a kit to retrieve the info from it, and unfortunately, the partition that has all the files that I need on it I can't retrieve the files from it like I'm supposed to be able to. It wants to format the drive in order to retrieve them. (kcoppock has been helping me try to retrieve it. ) If anyone else knows of any programs or things that I can do to retrieve them,..by all means please suggest it. I would LOVE to be able to retrieve whats on it,...but if not,..I'm sort of in this odd state of mind like "Well, at least I dont have all the crappy first-starting-out P&S photos crowding up my folders anymore." I'm pretty sure that the ones that are the most important to me are on my external. I've been so busy installing things that I havent been able to hook it up to check yet.

Silver lining- New desktop compy that will be better for editing anyways.

[Izzy]

If your old drive is a sata drive then it should just plug right into your new computer. If it is an IDE (one with loads of pins) you will need a different cable for it. The first thing you should do is scan the drive before you try to recover anything from it once you get access to it.

It is likely that a virus is what has your laptop in the condition it is right now.

Now....... There is another way.

If it is running win7
Re run set up DO NOT allow it to blow away the partition. Choose custom install. When you run the install it will put all the old files in a "windows.old" folder. Once you are done you will have windows re installed you can then access the drive and move your photos.


USUALLY - BB will transfer your stuff free of charge.

[scootermcq]

Just get a 2.5" hard drive enclosure (either IDE or SATA depending) and plug your old Notebook drive into your desktop computer as an external drive

[faeriegodess612]

That's what the kit is. I took the hard drive out of my laptop and plugged in this kit. I think its a SATA drive. Plug one cord into the hard drive, then plug it into USB port on compy. Plug another cord into hard drive, and plug into an outlet. Turn the thing on, and new compy pulls all the info on it. I'm learning a lot about data retrieval.

I think Geek Squad charges for that. Also,..i didnt have the hard drive out of the laptop when I bought the new desktop. I had to buy a set of screwdrivers from the computer store to get a philips head small enough to get the screws out.

It's possible that a virus is what caused it I guess,..which is why the guys at the computer store where I bought the kit told me to make sure I had Microsoft Security Essentials downloaded before plugging it in. As well as Malware Bytes. And both laptop and desktop have Win7.

[Izzy]

Originally Posted by faeriegodess612

That's what the kit is. I took the hard drive out of my laptop and plugged in this kit. I think its a SATA drive. Plug one cord into the hard drive, then plug it into USB port on compy. Plug another cord into hard drive, and plug into an outlet. Turn the thing on, and new compy pulls all the info on it. I'm learning a lot about data retrieval.

I think Geek Squad charges for that. Also,..i didnt have the hard drive out of the laptop when I bought the new desktop. I had to buy a set of screwdrivers from the computer store to get a philips head small enough to get the screws out.

It's possible that a virus is what caused it I guess,..which is why the guys at the computer store where I bought the kit told me to make sure I had Microsoft Security Essentials downloaded before plugging it in. As well as Malware Bytes. And both laptop and desktop have Win7.

There is a small bios of sorts in enclosures. They detect most drives just fine. I have only ever seen one that it did not. DO NOT let that thing do error checking because it will do it at the expense of your files. I learned that one that hard way.

If it is a sata as you say just go get a sata cable and plug it directly into your desktop (motherboard connector) most have between 2 and 5 for expansion. When doing this you dont even have to bolt the bugger down just make sure it cant short. Shut down the machine and plug in the sata cable and the power cord and start the machine and away you go. The bios should do the rest.

[Nell79]

Faeriegodess612, how did you decided what desktop to get? Do you like it so far? I am in need of a new computer and just don't know what to get.

[faeriegodess612]

Originally Posted by Nell79

Faeriegodess612, how did you decided what desktop to get? Do you like it so far? I am in need of a new computer and just don't know what to get.

Well,.. I mainly told the guy what I was looking for and he showed me what they have. I like HP, and went HP because my laptop, my husbands desktop and laptop, and the printer are all HP. I went with this one because of the price per specs ratio too. I spent around $850 total. The tower was $480, the monitor $130, I had to buy a webcam because my husband is overseas and we talk via Skype daily, that was about $40, I got a 2 yr Geek Squad package for $90, and the speakers I spent the extra $20 on to get some decent ones. They were $40 as well. So,.. for just the tower, monitor, and speakers, it wouldve been about $650. I also applied for and got a Best Buy MasterCard, so not all of that came out of pocket.

The new thing now is the All-in-one computers. Theyre basically laptops in a desktop fashion. Except theyre touchscreen. If I'd wanted something with laptop specs, I wouldve gotten another laptop. I wanted the storage capacity and better hardware that the desktop offered.

YES!! I'm loving this so far!! Long story short- Price per specs, storage and hardware, and brand is what sold me on this one.

[Nell79]

Thank you so much for the info. I do have a HP printer and love it so I think I'll check out their computers as well:-)

[kcoppock]

Originally Posted by Nell79

Thank you so much for the info. I do have a HP printer and love it so I think I'll check out their computers as well:-)

Just as a tip for computer buying. If you're not in a rush to purchase, keep an eye often on slickdeals.net. They post some REALLY good desktop computers for good prices. $4-500 usually for some great specs. I've been tempted to bite the bullet on one, haha.

[rbickel]

Were you able to get your files off?
If it is the hard drive, and the disk will actualloy spin but not read, there is a utility called Spin-Rite from Gibson research company, that I've used. It can often recover lost data by doing a surface analysis of the drive and moveing data from bad sectors to good. It may also be able to make you disk bootable again, saving your laptop.

If you were able to access the data by connectiong it to the new machine, then the problem is most likely with the laptop and not the disk.

www.grc.com

(I have no connection to this company, just used their product and passing along the info.)