Laptop died

[pinhead_54 0]

Well, my laptop died friday evening. Dead to the world the "Black Screen of Death". I'm hoping to find a computer place in town that can revocer all my files soe I can load then on the desktp which is slower but uses the com port. Will have to save money to get a new computer.The toss up is another laptop or a desktop? Laptops usally don't have com ports. So, I leaning towards a desktop model.

L8TRS

[rrc1962 0]

When you get recovered, check out Carbonite.  It's an online backup service for $50/year.  It has saved me twice so far.

[MZ SKEETER 4,709]

I just purchase used Xp Toshiba laptops on EBAY.  You can get very good deals.  You can get a Keyspan adapter that works great,  I know it is too late,,  it has been said over and over on this forum to have a backup of your files,,  and for all of the people reading this post,  get an external hard drive.  Get a flash drive.  put them off site of your computer,  Isn't this your business.?  then insure those files by putting them else where ALSO......  then you can  just keep on working and put them on another computer if the present computer crashes.  I have my files 3 other places.  This is how I make my living!!!....

[mabscotthandyman 1,410]

#1 on eBay bought my computer that i use on my cutter Compaq evo 2.4 gig processor , 1 gig ram , exp pro and parallel and serial ports  35.00 shipping cost me about the same it did not have a monitor so i picked one up for 20.00 from a trader magazine.

[BannerJohn 1,324]

#1 on eBay bought my computer that i use on my cutter Compaq evo 2.4 gig processor , 1 gig ram , exp pro and parallel and serial ports  35.00 shipping cost me about the same it did not have a monitor so i picked one up for 20.00 from a trader magazine.

I got about 3 of those...and a bunch of dells with the same specs...never paid more than $70 shipped.

[kraut724 1]

make sure you go to computer repair place and not a best buy type place, they just want to sell you new, ive saved many laptops for my friends that suffered from the black death. get second opinions.

i just started using a newer laptop without a serial port. i use a usb to serial and it works flawlessly.

[Guest manwayvan]

Why not recover yourself? Easy to do and won't cost a thing unless you need an adapter depending upon your current setup

[lueman 19]

Your laptop should have a removable hard drive just remove it from the laptop then unscrew it from the caddy. the hd should be a 2 1/2" or 3" drive you can buy an external enclosure for about $40.00 at tiger direct (Comp USA) I would buy an external with a USB connector. just plug it into your new pc/laptop and your good to go.

[wasatchcars 0]

Could I do the same thing with my sons desk top?

The drive has the operating system on it.

could I still get all his old files off of it?

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

Could I do the same thing with my sons desk top?

The drive has the operating system on it.

could I still get all his old files off of it?

Yup and newegg sells them also

[BannerJohn 1,324]

I bought an adapter on ebay for about $15. It has a usb connector, with both HD sizes....laptop and desktop...and also a power source for the larger drives. The smaller ones will run off of USB power alone. I'll look tomorrow and see if I can find a link,and maybe take a pic.

Enclosures are nice but some of them aren't made too well and the drive gets hot.

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812119152

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-IDE-SATA-Adapter-2-5-3-5-HDD-CDROM-NEW-/120588493690?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c13a2637a#ht_1823wt_1142

[BannerJohn 1,324]

http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-IDE-SATA-Adapter-2-5-3-5-HDD-CDROM-NEW-/120588493690?cmd=ViewItem&pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c13a2637a#ht_1823wt_1142

that's pretty much what I have. Works great.

[bamafan2277 50]

I have one of those cables and it has saved me many times over. I paid $20 for mine and love it!! I have 4 old hard drives sitting on the shelf with different stuff on them. If I need something I just grab that one and plug it up.

[ramy 3]

If the hard drive is bad but still spins, I do have some utilities that I have had good success recovering the much needed files. If it comes to that feel free to contact me, otherwise as the others have said, getting the external drive adapters are the best way to go for working drives.

I'm an IT guy for my day job. And to help repay the information I have received from this forum, I'm glad to make that offer.

[lueman 19]

boy, you guys have been busy! 

I use disk-investigator it's shareware but very good at recovering deleted files.

and I use partition magic - to recover lost partitions

if all else fails - and in my business that happens often! I use fdisk to set up a dummy partition in the bad sector then use partition magic to recover  what ever good data I can.

One warning:DO NOT FORMAT THE DRIVES! - If  I  have 100pt font I would use it to emphasize this! formatting is the one thing  that will really gunk-up a flaky drive.

[Guest manwayvan]

Also do not write any info to the drive until you have recovered everything..Writing to the disk may cause loss of data

[Guest HowardI]

Using one of those usb adapters to recover data is the way to go.  Make sure you get the right kind.  Most newer laptops have sata drives but older ones have IDE drives.  I have an old desktop in my office with a blank secondary drive in it and I use that for recovery as it's faster to copy data directly than it is thru usb.

I have a desktop to laptop ide adapter (about 5-10 bucks+) and a desktop IDE to sata adapter (about 15 bucks) which works for sata drives for both desktop and laptop.

HOPEFULLY the reason the laptop died isn't a bad hard drive!  In that case you'll be needing to do a recovery as the smart folks before me have said.

the best thing is BACKING UP!  I know, everyone says to do it but nobody does. 

Get yourself an external drive, a dvd burner, another computer (network them together), but do get something to keep your files in more than one place.

If it's a desktop, you can get it set up with RAID.  then you'll be safe but laptops are usually not capable of this.

Good luck with the recovery, let us know how it works out.

Howard Irwin

Support Specialist

US Cutter

425-481-3555

888-298-8143

  - Option 2

[tinaski 11]

Another thing you can go is go to ubuntu and download the Operating system -  and burn it to a cd and from there you can insert the cd into your laptop - you have choices install or run it from the cd - choose run it from the cd and you can then get to your hard drive and transfer your files to another computer on your network- windows system will show up as a folder just open it and move everything - no problems

Then from there you can reinstall windows and move everything back

[BannerJohn 1,324]

when you turn the laptop on,and get NOTHING at all...no post..no beeps... it's probably NOT  the hard drive. If it was JUST the hard drive, your post screen should come up and give you the error. NOTHING at all could be something as simple as the power supply..the inverter, or even the video card.

Power supplies do go bad...have you taken it to a shop and had them test it with another power supply?

[Guest manwayvan]

when you turn the laptop on,and get NOTHING at all...no post..no beeps... it's probably NOT  the hard drive. If it was JUST the hard drive, your post screen should come up and give you the error. NOTHING at all could be something as simple as the power supply..the inverter, or even the video card.

Power supplies do go bad...have you taken it to a shop and had them test it with another power supply?

Def doesnt sound like a hard drive. Check the voltage coming out of the power supply(You can get the schematics on the net)and the majority of them have 5v,+12,-12..They are inexpensive now as well..Check out mcmone I bought a shit load for like 8 bucks a piece and use to sell them for 20 locally.lol Also you can check to see if the power light on the mother board lights up while plugged into ac..This would be one indication that the power supply is partially working but you def need to check all voltages on it to tell if its bad or not

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

when you turn the laptop on,and get NOTHING at all...no post..no beeps... it's probably NOT  the hard drive. If it was JUST the hard drive, your post screen should come up and give you the error. NOTHING at all could be something as simple as the power supply..the inverter, or even the video card.

Power supplies do go bad...have you taken it to a shop and had them test it with another power supply?

sound advice John

[BannerJohn 1,324]

some laptops were notorious for having the power supply jack on the laptop itself go bad.

[Dakotagrafx 7,297]

some laptops were notorious for having the power supply jack on the laptop itself go bad.

Toshiba's