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Posted: 8/18/2005 3:33:40 PM EDT
on my dell laptop. it's under warranty thank god.
just got back from the campus helpdesk. the tech and i tried using a usb connector to load my hdd onto his laptop. it mounted, but none of the files would show up. system repair off the xp cd won't work. all my files. my bookmarks. my music. countless pictures. my book. all my school projects. everything. gone. i haven't had the time to sit down for a few hours and make backups.  calling dell later. i'll be putting the hd in the fridge overnight, just incase. you ever get so pissed at something, you just laugh? |
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Posted: 8/18/2005 3:36:29 PM EDT
[#1]
Happens to all of us, sooner or later.
The smart ones get an external data storage device, and also burn things to discs. |
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Posted: 8/18/2005 3:37:33 PM EDT
[#2]
Usually right before I throw it across the room. 
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Posted: 8/18/2005 3:38:22 PM EDT
[#3]
I had an external hdd on my list of stuff to buy before school started back up. |
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Posted: 8/18/2005 3:39:37 PM EDT
[#4]
can't throw it |
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Posted: 8/18/2005 5:03:25 PM EDT
[#5]
Ever heard of SPINRITE - www.grc.com it sometimes works. It saved me in the same situation. |
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Posted: 8/18/2005 7:02:01 PM EDT
[#6]
No-Worries, I hadn't heard of that. Thanks for the link.
Any idea if it will work through damaged boot sectors? I've been spending most of the last three hours with dell support.  Transferred three times to the wrong support desk. |
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Posted: 8/19/2005 3:29:28 AM EDT
[#7]
Yes, depending on just how bad the physical damage is, it may be able to bring back the contents, or get you to a point where you have one last hurrah to get everything off the disk. |
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Posted: 8/19/2005 3:31:37 AM EDT
[#8]
I have an external USB drive and use Ghost 8.0 Corporate to backup my hard drive once a month
 I encourage everyone to do the same
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Posted: 8/19/2005 3:41:30 AM EDT
[#9]
Stellar Phoenix (Stellar Phoenix) has an awesome suite that goes bit by bit through the drive and you can get back whatever you want. My external HD crashed and wasn't recognized by Windows, and I was able to get everything back.
It's cheap, considering what it does... rumor has it that you can even find it on the filesharing networks if you're cheap/in a hurry. |
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Posted: 8/19/2005 3:42:53 AM EDT
[#10]
copy everything importand to CDs or DVD or external HD and keep it outside the house (no, not on the lawn dumbass) in case of HD failure, theft or fire.
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Posted: 8/19/2005 7:45:15 AM EDT
[#11]
Happened to me twice! First time I lost everything, tons of musice, pics, etc. So I bought TWO new 80 gig HDD's for my desktop PC. The second is s lave drive that is used for data storage so I keep a copy of everything important on it and back it up weekly. But this doesnt keep stupidity out of the equation.. About 2 weeks ago I got a nasty virus on my laptop. Had to reformat the HDD and reinstall everything fresh. No big deal since I have backups of everything on two seperate drives at home, save for the fact I never backed up my pics from my last Med Det. Wonderful pics of Italy, Greece, the Acropolis, etc. All gone. So be religious about backing your stuff up!
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Posted: 8/19/2005 9:16:47 AM EDT
[#12]
Just tried SpinRite 5 & 6. Neither worked.
I'd say the drive is gone. |
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Posted: 8/19/2005 9:19:15 AM EDT
[#13]
Most of the time the little motor that spins the HD is what is broken. Get an identical HD, take both apart, swap the motors or disks, then reinstall and try it in your laptop. I have seen this work in desktops.
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Posted: 8/19/2005 10:08:09 AM EDT
[#14]
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Posted: 8/19/2005 11:49:08 AM EDT
[#15]
Don't think so. The hard drive spins when the machine turns on, then it starts a repetetive clicking like it's looking for data. This happens right about the time the Windows XP loading screen starts. Which leads me to believe there are bad secors, or whole tracks, in the boot data. |
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Posted: 8/19/2005 11:53:34 AM EDT
[#16]
Or we run a mirrored RAID |
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Posted: 8/19/2005 11:54:14 AM EDT
[#17]
Ha. I guess you aren't so lucky. Welll. The only other broken thing that I can think of that would allow you to save your data is a bad connector, or the little arm that reads the data. As a last resort, I would try swapping disks within the HD case. If nothing else, you can put it back together and put in a blank HD. 
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Posted: 8/19/2005 11:58:55 AM EDT
[#18]
I almost lost some digitial pictures by upgrading from Win98 whick sucked to Windows 2000 (before 2003 came out). I was using EZ CD creator 3.5? that came preinstalled with my Win98 and had a partial data disk. EZ CD Creator was neat in that you could put files on a CD in onesies and two'sies until the disk was full then you'd finalize it to make it compatible with any CD ROM reader. Well, the 3.5 version didn't work with Windows 2000 so I had a CD no program could read. Finally got a copy of EZ CD creator 5.X or somethng and converted the CD disk and regained my pictures. The cheap bastards at Adpatec didn't offer a free upgrade from 3.5 to 5.x. |
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Posted: 8/19/2005 12:01:44 PM EDT
[#19]
This is a widespread problem with laptops. I am on my third hard drive in my Compaq Presario 1505US, and this one might be going too.her
I found that you should NEVER move a laptop while it is running, don't even pick it up. And when you transport it, place some padding on the underside to protect the hard drive. |
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Posted: 8/19/2005 12:09:43 PM EDT
[#20]
DriveImage + DVD burner = never having to say "Oh fuck".
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Posted: 8/19/2005 12:10:57 PM EDT
[#21]
But you DO have time to lose everything, spend days farting around trying to recover it, and end up having to rebuild it from scratch? 
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Posted: 8/19/2005 12:11:57 PM EDT
[#22]
I'm going through the same crap right now...Dell Inspiron 1100
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Posted: 8/19/2005 12:19:49 PM EDT
[#23]
I'm going to try and pick up an external 80gb maxtor this weekend. After that, I'll start backing up on CD's. Don't have a DVD burner  |
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Posted: 8/19/2005 12:20:49 PM EDT
[#24]
one word
GHOST |
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Posted: 8/19/2005 12:23:52 PM EDT
[#25]
Dell Inspiron 1150 here. I hope you were smarter than me and backed up your stuff. And I hope your customer service experience is/was better than mine. I spent a half hour on the phone with "Dennis" while he walked me through the Windows XP repair process. I even told him before we began that I needed a new hard drive because there were bad sectors. His synopsis: my hard drive went bad. 
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Posted: 8/19/2005 12:26:33 PM EDT
[#26]
Nope didn't back up s&!t,  I currently have my younger brother trying to get me back up to speed. If not, I'm getting me an Apple!
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Posted: 8/19/2005 5:13:28 PM EDT
[#27]
Depends on how much you need that stuff, but you can get a second (identical) HDD and replace the broken components. Of course it's much more complicated than I make it sound, but if you're lucky and it's just the circuit board that's fried, it really is that easy. Of course, you can just send it away to a company that does HDD recovery and save yourself the hassle. All Dell will do is replace the HDD and scrap yours - and everything on it. The techs are lazy shits and don't give a shit, if your windows installation is corrupt, they'll still format your HDD even if you tell them and they know damn well that that can easily be avoided (that's my personal experience). Yes, that's from before I got 'into' computers, and learned everything for myself. |
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Posted: 8/23/2005 4:25:48 PM EDT
[#28]
Got the new HDD yesterday, and transferred a bunch of music and stuff from a friend's computer. I got a 120gb external HDD at best-buy, so I'm going to use that to back up my non-essential data.
When I got the laptop initially, Norton Antivirus and Internet Security came installed on the machine. The new HDD wasn't formatted, nor did it come with the Norton programs on a disc. I talked to a support person today online, and he says that since I didn't purchase a subscription to Norton through them (I already had a subscription) they won't give me the software. So tomorrow, I'm going to the campus software store and plunk down $60 for a piece of software I shouldn't have to buy again.l Bunch of assholes. |
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Posted: 8/23/2005 4:44:06 PM EDT
[#29]
+1 after our computer crashed the first time im not taking any chances. everything is backed up in one form or another. 
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Posted: 8/23/2005 5:10:12 PM EDT
[#30]
I have three computers networked now, and back important files on all three. If one goes down, the other two will have the critical stuff. And I will be ordering an external hard drive.
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Posted: 8/23/2005 5:12:55 PM EDT
[#31]
Last ditch effort. OK, Spinrite failed... sorry to hear. Whaddya got to lose now... Take drive out and GENTLY drop flat side w/o electronics onto thick rubber mousepad on desk from a height of about 8 inches. Repeat once more and then seat in laptop. Any luck? Also, any luck running "low level" hardware check of drive through the laptop's BIOS? |
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Posted: 8/23/2005 5:15:05 PM EDT
[#32]
Yep, harddrives are fallible media storage. Most will fail, or become obsolete.
If you have anything you couldn't easily replace, BACK IT UP. |
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