Dead Compaq Advice Please

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minimoke

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#42096 29-Sep-2009 11:21

Hopefully someone can help. My one year old HP Compaq has had a melt down - dead motherboard, CPU and RAM. This means the laptop gets as far as a power on light but after that nothing else works - no Safe Boot, no System restore - nothing!. It is currently being repaired but its going to take a while to get parts.

However the hard drive is apparently OK.

I'm wondering is there any way I can access the hard drive from another laptop and copy my files like letters and photos so I can transfer them to a laptop that works. I can get the laptop back if need be as its going to take at least three weeks for parts to arrive.

Any ideas?

lurker

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#259335 29-Sep-2009 12:22

An external 2.5" drive enclosure might help. They're not too expensive or maybe you can borrow one from somewhere...

xpd

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#259337 29-Sep-2009 12:27

Or something like this - damn useful :)

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wazzageek

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#259342 29-Sep-2009 12:46

xpd: Or something like this - damn useful :)

+1 - damn useful just doesn't do them justice. It's worked on everything I've thrown at it (expect a dead hard drive and trying to boot a CDROM drive on a machine that didn't support USB booting.)

minimoke

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#259349 29-Sep-2009 13:14

Thnaks very much wazzageek and xpd - thats looking liek what I am after. Except this bits a bit new to me and I can't find a user manual online. Am I right in assuming I can just buy one of these things ($59 from Global PC) get my dead lap top back from the repair shop - plug one end into a usb on the dead laptop - the other end into a USB on my other laptop - and then get to see every thing on the dead laptops hardrive?

Or do I take teh hard drive out and plug one of the connector to it and the other to my working laptop?

And I don't need my password to access teh old harddrive?

minimoke

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#259354 29-Sep-2009 13:25

Thanks lurker. IS that one of these things: http://www.dse.co.nz/dse.shop/en/product/XH5177 in which case can I just get the drive out of the old lap top put it in this enclosure and the connect it to my other laptop - via USB I presume?

vinnieg

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#259357 29-Sep-2009 13:31

Being one year old it'll be a SATA drive :) do you have a spare connector in your current PC?
It'll plug straight in, if you are on Vista or Windows 7, it'll ask Permission to access your docs, just click yes two times and it'll let you in without a password :)

If on XP and it's saying permission denied. Look for R-Studio, it'll read the drive, then select the documents you want recovered and tick the box "remove hidden attributes/remote security attributes" and you'll have your files back

If you are on a laptop though do what the guys above said and use an external USB case or cable :)

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wazzageek

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#259361 29-Sep-2009 13:39

minimoke: Thanks lurker. IS that one of these things: http://www.dse.co.nz/dse.shop/--session key removed--/Product/View/XH5177 in which case can I just get the drive out of the old lap top put it in this enclosure and the connect it to my other laptop - via USB I presume?

Just a note when copying links from DSE's site - there is a link in the top right hand of your screen titled "link to this". The link it gives you will look like:

http://www.dse.co.nz/dse.shop/en/product/XH5177

Note that this will provide protection for your drive as you transport it around, but does have the inconvenience of pulling apart something else to put the drive in.

wazzageek

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#259362 29-Sep-2009 13:48

vinnieg: Being one year old it'll be a SATA drive :) do you have a spare connector in your current PC?

Definitely go for the item linked by xpd - it's annoying having to open up machines if you don't have too ... particularly if you don't do it often.

It'll plug straight in, if you are on Vista or Windows 7, it'll ask Permission to access your docs, just click yes two times and it'll let you in without a password :)

If on XP and it's saying permission denied. Look for R-Studio, it'll read the drive, then select the documents you want recovered and tick the box "remove hidden attributes/remote security attributes" and you'll have your files back

This all all assuming you haven't encrypted your harddrive as well - that can cause a number of headaches.

Another option is to use a live boot CD - these will quite often ignore the permissions that windows has presented and let you read the files - this is not guaranteed though (and really only good if you are only taking information off the disks).

The other thing to mention is that now is the time to go buy a USB hard drive (or two) to start using as backups ;-)

minimoke

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#259428 29-Sep-2009 16:48

Firstly a thanks to posters here who have saved me a lot of heart ache; PROBLEM SOLVED!!

Heres what I did. I got a Digitus 2.5" HDD External Enclosure for $49 from PCU.

I unscrewed the four wee screws from the dead laptops hard drive enclosure - it had already been taken out of the PC for me.

Then slid the hard drive into the Digitor slots and screwed that in place. Assembled the PCB shielding and screwed the case all together.

The Mini USB plug went into one slot and the power supply into the other slot on the Enclosure - and then plugged both ends into USB slots on my other laptop.

My laptop self installed the drivers and after a whole four minutes from woe - to go I was up and running.

Thankfully my old hard drive is fully visible and I'm transferrring files at around 480MBS onto my laptop. These files are going into a folder which gets backed up each day on an external USB 500gb drive. My laptop is even merrily searching the old hard drive for files that might have got buried in the wrong folders so I can copy them over.

This was a very easy job!

wazzageek

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#259434 29-Sep-2009 17:00

Great to hear that all was a success and that you're getting your data back!

leonlmf

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#260906 4-Oct-2009 01:37

Same as mine, hope you know how to access my doc. My hp2133 also only the power light on then nothing else not even the cpu fan. I think the damage cause by the usb

Netbook: HP 2133 <- Faulty Motherboard

Mobile: Nokia 5800 <- Faulty LCD Screen