Recovering data from a laptop hdd that wont boot

indierocker85

Hi guys,

I am wondering what I have to do to recover my data from my laptop hdd. I have a working desktop that can be used to assist in the recovery. I have read somewhere that there is a cable you can buy that can hook the laptop up to a desktop and you can access the laptops hdd to thenr ecover data from it.

The laptop is a NEC I-select M5410 and the HDD is 60gb

Thanks in advance

fwor

There are several ways to recover the data, but there's no simple cable option that I'm aware of.

One way is to buy an adapter that will allow you to remove the HDD from the laptop and connect it to the working PC as a second HDD. The adapters only cost a few quid on Ebay.

Probably the easiest way is to boot the laptop from a Linux LiveCD and use that to copy the data onto a CD or pendrive. The standard Ubuntu distribution will run as a LiveCD, as will most other current ones.

indierocker85

fwor wrote: »

There are several ways to recover the data, but there's no simple cable option that I'm aware of.

One way is to buy an adapter that will allow you to remove the HDD from the laptop and connect it to the working PC as a second HDD. The adapters only cost a few quid on Ebay.

Probably the easiest way is to boot the laptop from a Linux LiveCD and use that to copy the data onto a CD or pendrive. The standard Ubuntu distribution will run as a LiveCD, as will most other current ones.

Yeah OK, I will do this. Can I write to cds when booted into this? I am unfamiliar with Linux. Also where can I get one of these cds from? And whats the cost? Link me if possible

Browntoa

this is one

http://www.ubuntu.com/

20 min download at the most

burn the iso to CD , use imgburn to do this if you do not have CD burning software and burn "image to disk"

fwor

indierocker85 wrote: »

Yeah OK, I will do this. Can I write to cds when booted into this? I am unfamiliar with Linux. Also where can I get one of these cds from? And whats the cost? Link me if possible

Yes. See link below. Cost is nil other than a CD-R blank.

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

If you are bandwidth constrained, consider a smaller/simpler distro like Puppy Linux or similar.

espresso

indierocker85 wrote: »

Hi guys,

I am wondering what I have to do to recover my data from my laptop hdd. I have a working desktop that can be used to assist in the recovery. I have read somewhere that there is a cable you can buy that can hook the laptop up to a desktop and you can access the laptops hdd to thenr ecover data from it.

The laptop is a NEC I-select M5410 and the HDD is 60gb

Thanks in advance

Yes you can get an adaptor cable e.g. here to do this.

indierocker85

Whats puppy linux as ETA for this is 4hrs

indierocker85

espresso wrote: »

Yes you can get an adaptor cable e.g. here to do this.

Need 1 today though and dont even have a clue how to get the hardrive out. Grrrr

fwor

espresso wrote: »

Yes you can get an adaptor cable e.g. here to do this.

I don't ~think~ that will work, as it looks to be only for 3.5 inch drive connectors.

Puppy is a much smaller distro. IIRC it's only around 80Mb, so much less to download. I'll leave it to you to find the download page (hint: it requires a three word search in Google).

espresso

fwor wrote: »

I don't ~think~ that will work, as it looks to be only for 3.5 inch drive connectors.

Puppy is a much smaller distro. IIRC it's only around 80Mb, so much less to download. I'll leave it to you to find the download page (hint: it requires a three word search in Google).

Scroll down to the manufacturers info:

It works with both 3.5" and 2.5" Hard disks and comes complete with external Power Supply to power 3.5" Hard Disks and other Mass Storage devices.

I have one and it definitely works on 2.5", the later ones have a Sata connector as well.

fwor

Apologies - I only looked at the Amazon "Technical Specs" which didn't explicitly say!