My hard drive is corrupt - how can I save my pictures?

purplegirluk1

Hi,

My laptop started playing up months ago. I called the manufacturer, Toshiba, and they said they would do a system re-set over the telephone but that I would lose any data I had on the laptop. Now most of my files are ok to lose but I have pictures of my sons first year and I have not backed them up. Since then I have been trying to work out how to get them off. We manage to get maybe ten or twenty off before the laptop freezes. I took it to pc world and they said that they would charge upwards of £100 (and they weren't even dressed as bandits!!!) but seriously I can't afford that. Can anyone suggest a place to take it and a reasonable price I can expect to pay? I am so clueless about this stuff.

petermatheson1

PC world charge rip off prices - Don't go near them for anything unless you know exactly what you're after !

Your best bet would be to find a friend that's OK with computers and ask them nicely?

or you could try rebooting to Safe Mode and copying the files then?
This can be done by pressing F8 While your computer boots, then it should prompt to Boot Normally, or Boot in Safe Mode

or you can try using msconfig to stop your laptop freezing.
Click Start --> Run --> type msconfig --> press enter/or click OK --> Click the Startup Tab -->Uncheck everything in the Startup-Tab, Reboot. And try to copy your pictures again !

purplegirluk1

Thanks for your reply, yes I have been using safe mode and it still freezes! I did ask my ex partners dad to look at it but he wasn't too helpful. I think I would rather take it to someone now and just get it sorted. Perhaps I need to try some independent companies.

fwor

Depending on the exact specification of the laptop, you may be able to do the job yourself at no cost.

If it has a CD-ROM drive and the BIOS (the program that gets the laptop started before Windows can load) can be configured to boot from the CD drive then it should be easy.

If you download one of the free versions of Linux such as Ubuntu, you can boot the laptop from the CD and it won't care that the HDD is corrupt - it can run fine without one.

You should then be able to browse the hard disk and copy anything you want off onto a USB pendrive - though you may need to use GPARTED (which comes on the LiveCD) to fix the corrupted areas.

It is also possible to do something similar with a bootable version of Windows, though I think the legality of that is questionable, as I don't think the MS licence terms allow it.

totalsolutions

The drive needs to be removed and placed into a recovery desktop unit as a slave device and the desktop can retrive the data no problem and the the laptop drive can be restored to new. Easy to do infact.

mluton

Good call by fwor, done this myself on a few occasions.

Do you know anyone who has a pc, on piggybacking the drive they can backup all your files. Then you can restore your laptop.

Or if you have a windows xp disc you can do a windows repair on booting from the cd. If you do, let me know and I'll post more info. If using vista press F5 on startup and you get a repair startup option.
These will only replace windows files, not personal data.

purplegirluk1

Hi, I am a bit confused by the advice but I am sure it is great! I will show this thread to my ex tomorrow and see if he understands it a bit more than me. I have left this for so long and really want my laptop back!

Insomnica

I will try and explain it in 'people' terms, I know it's a pain to understand tech-speak.

Your Hard drive is not broken, that's highly unlikely. It's just a problem with the Operating System (Windows, XP I assume)

What I would do is to attempt to salvage anything of importance from the hard drive first.

So you need to download another Operating System called Ubuntu Linux.
It runs off a CD, so there is no need for a hard drive!
fwor posted a link where you can get it, and to be honest it is easily one of the best around. (Slight bias there, I write programs for Debian Linux...)

Anywho, load that up, and you should be able to see your hard drive on the desktop of Ubuntu Linux. Open 'er up and copy what you need, you don't need to delete them from the original hard drive. I haz a plan.

Now hopefully you have the Windows Installation CD.

Pop that in the PC, and load it up. Now depending on the OS on the disk you can reinstall all system files (and leave your files alone).

On XP, you attempt to install over the original XP Install on the Hard Drive, and it prompts you to repair it instead. Agree to that, and your problem *should* be fixed.

Good Luck with it, every problem can be fixed!
Matt.

Chelmet

I'm often fixing friends' computers, so I'll suggest what is a less technical, more DIY solution.

If its an old laptop, all the better.

If you buy a cheap external caddy from ebay (such as this on ebay: Blue-USB-2-5-IDE-EXTERNAL-HARD-DRIVE-DISK-HDD-Case-UK ) then you can take the hard drive out of the laptop, pop it into this external caddy, and it is effectively now an external USB drive, and should have all of your documents, pictures, everything, easily accessible. Plug this in to another computer, copy across everything you want to keep, and then wipe (format) the drive.

You then have the option of putting the hard drive back in the computer and doing the recommended reinstall over the phone, or however you prefer, then you just need to get the documents from the other computer.

It may sound like a lot of work, but the only difficult part is getting the hard drive out of the laptop - a little screwdriver and some poking about can be a lot of fun! If in doubt, just google "remove [laptop model] hard drive", you might even find a youtube tutorial.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents, and how I would do it - far less computery, a little more DIYy.

kwikbreaks

IMO either method is fine and I'd probably take the drive out myself but non-tech folks are more likely to throw a wobbler at getting a HDD out of some laptops than taking the software route.

Plus you may need to buy the caddy and an Ubuntu download just costs a CD-R or nothing if you have a spare CD-RW.