The laptop no longer boots up.

The Windows 7 auto-fix operation does not work.

What can I do to access the User data?  If I can, I want to recover the User data.

I can access the Hewlett-Packard recovery utilities on the drive but I have never used them and don't want to do anything irreversible and lose my data.

Some, but not all, of the user data is on an external HDD as a Norton backup.

I currently have the drive plugged into this PC.  Device Manager recognizes the drive.  Windows Explorer sees the drive and lists it as 4 separate drives (D, E, F, G).

I can access 3 of the 4 partitions.  If I try to access the 4th partition (with the User data), it seems to go into a never-ending loop trying to read what's there.

Any thoughts on how to proceed?

Just swap in your recently cloned drive and you're good to go.

?

I am wanting to access the folders in what pops up as the "G:" drive.  I can access the D:, E: and F: drives (the partitions).  The G: partition is where all my User data is located.

When I open Windows Explorer, the G: drive appears but there are no Properties (total drive size, free space).  When I try to access it, it does not respond.

Am I too impatient?  I will try again and just walk away for a few hours and see if it just takes a long time.

Thanks for that tip.

There is no indicator light because the drive is out of the laptop, patched into my desktop via SATA cables.

Still, I got the idea - be patient!  Which, by the way, seems to have worked!

I am now using a program called "GetDataBack Pro" to recover as much as I can.  Even this program took quite a while to resurrect the data files.

Luckily, all my professional credentialing files are intact.  My email files seem okay,... all the important stuff.

Yes, I am going to back it all up as soon as I am done copying from the dying/dead disk.

Patience surely is needed.

It has been ~3 hours and the files are still being copied.

He is telling you that you should have planned for this eventuality.

I keep all my files on a USB drive because I know my laptop will take a shit at any point.  I also have another backup of that drive.

Ah, okay, everything else is on an automatic backup.  Even this drive used to get regular back ups, it's just that I skipped the last one and, well, ... Murphy's Law strikes again.

I am very happy I was able to recover this material, VERY!