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Computer's down--Damage control efforts!

Shep151

Shep151

Too busy to hang out.
Hey, folks, the nightmare is real.

After bragging about almost 5 years of my laptop operating with NO problems yesterday, I goobered it up today.

While transporting it from one workstation to the other, I dropped it while it was on. Now it doesn't read the hard drive (big surprise). Funny, it survived a couple years' worth of time underway on a submarine, but a 3' fall and *poof*. :shrugs:

So, to get to the point, I use Outlook for many things, to store emails and such, so those may very likely be all gone. I do have a few outstanding deals out there, so please shoot me an email with any pertinent info, if you can, so I can access them via webmail. (which is going to be lame!)

Luckily, the really important stuff got backed up just a couple weeks ago, but I'm already recognizing the fact that some really good stuff fell through the cracks.

If you folks have experience with restoring, like what little things are easily overlooked, any and all advice would be appreciated!
 
Sorry you're having to go through this. Have you tried a system restore etc? Probably wouldn't help at all, but you never know... :shrugs:
 
If it doesn't read/recognize the hard drive I don't think that'll work.

Is the hard drive itself busted? Could you install it into another laptop just to get the info out? I've done this before with a tower, but not a laptop....theya re too tiny for me to even attempt to touch it with a screwdriver!
 
That's correct, you can't restore a system that doesn't even partially load. I'm really thinking it's physical damage to the hard drive.
 
Oops, misunderstood the problem...erm...sorry, all I can do is wish you luck. :shrugs:

I suppose as a last (Very expensive) resort you could take it to a proffesional and see what they say...
 
Have you taken the hard out drive to physically inspect it Zach? It's possible there could be damage to the drive, but it is also possible that you just knocked some of the cables loose too.

If the damage is permanent, but is only to the casing of the hard, there is still a possibility of recovering the data, but that could get expensive. Without seeing the actual drive it's kind of hard to tell what could be wrong. Best thing to do would be to crack the case and check to be sure everything is sitting where it belongs and the connectors are firmly in place.

I've seen laptops fall off the roof of a car and the entire case be smashed to smithereens, but the hard drive turn out fine.

I hope that helps...

Jenn
 
I should be a bit more specific and say, crack the laptop case open not the hard drive case! Give a quick look over, and reseat chips and cables to insure they have snug connections.

Jenn
 
Since the laptop was on when it hit the floor - it could be a head crash : The read write head of the hard disk touches the rotating platter (typically spinning at 7,200 RPM's) - resulting in physical damage to the storage media on the platter surface.

After opening the case & checking the physical connections are seated properly, you might want to find someone who can install it as a second hard drive on a PC. Might be able to access data from it that way - although if it is a head crash... most times the hard drive is toast.

Data is stored on platter surfaces in sectors and tracks. Tracks are concentric circles, and sectors are pie-shaped wedges on the track. Depending on how extensive the damage is (hopefully minor) some of the files might be salvageable. I've seen Linux used to pull data from a bad drive. The chance is low you will actually recover anything though, if you know someone who enjoys doing that sort of stuff.. pay him or her some excellent beer :) otherwise, don't waste $ trying to fix it.
 
Hi Zach,
.
I talked to you on the phone just yesterday to give you my shipping info. Im hoping you are getting everything worked out. If there are any specific questions you have, I may be able to help.
.
Ryan/Lifesong Photos
 
That sucks Zach. I agree. There are a few places that will do a HDD rebuild. Basically what they do is remove the case and take out the platters They look like CD's. and build a new HDD with the old platters. Usually you can get almost all of your data back this way. but it does have a pretty penny cost to it.
 
Thanks for the new pointers, folks!

Recovering the data from a damaged HDD is just too expensive, but I do have a buddy with the correct cable to "enslave" this guy, so after I get the chance to do the physical inspection and find everything in place, just not working... I'll replace the HDD and go from there in a cursory attempt to recover the data.

It'll obviously take some time to get back to a semblance of "efficiency" but that's just the way it goes, I suppose.

I'm just glad I'm back in the right frame of mind now. Yesterday was one of the worst days of this year! (The "laptop drop" happened to be accompanied by other issues, of course.)

So now some issues are fixed, and I'm well-prepared to address the stupid pooter. :) Buuuuuuuut, I think that'll have to wait until after I address that buck this weekend... It's time to smell some black powder! :fullauto:
 
Good advice, Piper. I had forgot something similiar happened to me. I had a hard drive that wouldn't boot up my laptop, but I could get to almost all the information by using it as a secondary drive. At least if I was missing anything, it must have not been important as I never needed it :)

Good luck Zach
 
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