Tech help - hard drive DOA

[CrazyOne]

I've got a friend's laptop, the harddrive is dead, and I've tried all the tech tricks I know to get one particular file out of it. Anyone here have the equipment to read the dead drive or know where I can take it that won't charge $2000 for it? I've done the freezer bit, and I've hooked it up to my PC with a USB to IDE cable, and can't read a thing. It even crashes my PC when I hook it up. I've got til Tuesday to try and help her out here.

[ChumpDumper]

If it was clicking and stuff before it died, you're probably boned. If not, there is a tiny chance it's just the controller card. In that case a place like Mr. Notebook might have a matching one they could try out.

[Nbadan]

I'm thinking that if it's making your computer crash, it's not even being detected by the motherboard bios, but if it is spinning (you should feel a slight vibration) then your only real option is to use something like Hirons Boot CD to try and extract your info with one of it's recovery programs. If it is not spinning at all the HD is not getting any power and you would need someone to open the HD and scrub the disk.

[ChumpDumper]

If you have an internal IDE cable available I'd try 3.5" to 2.5" cable adapter as a last gasp to hook it up to your computer. Altex should have one down there.

[Nbadan]

Is it spinning?
Does the MB bios detect it?
How long did you leave it in the freezer? I would stick it in a plastic bag and leave it in all night.

[ducks]

take hard drive out put in plastic bag
put in freezer for atleast 4 hours


had success that way

[phyzik]

take hard drive out put in plastic bag
put in freezer for atleast 4 hours


had success that way


exactly what I was thinking when I saw this thread.

If that doesnt work try burning a copy of Knoppix on a CD and use that to boot up and try and access it (after you freeze it).

[Steve Perry]

http://www.boomspeed.com/woaimouse/mouse-laptop-fix.gif

[CrazyOne]

Dan, it spins for a while. When I hook it up to my PC with the USB to IDE cable, it will show up as a drive in My Computer, when I mouse over it, it gives me the 40 gig used, 10 gig free info, but when I try to click to open it, I get the hourglass endlessly, until I get a timed out error. In the mean time, it effectively freezes most everything else until I disconnect it.


Another question... got a suspicion about a former employee submitting the boss's email address to every click through in Yahoo.. just happened to catch one that gave me the IP address it was signed from. I tried plugging it in a few different ways, but I can't find any info. I'm trying to find out whether this is a personal IP or a company one. Here it is, anybody able to find out something about it for me?

24.231.60.77

[CubanMustGo]

Search results for: 24.231.60.77

Cable Bahamas CABLEBAHAMAS-NET (NET-24-231-32-0-1)
24.231.32.0 - 24.231.63.255
Cable Bahamas CBL-NET-24-231-56-0-21-CM-RESIDENTIAL (NET-24-231-56-0-1)
24.231.56.0 - 24.231.63.255

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2006-08-20 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

[mouse]

http://www.boomspeed.com/woaimouse/Ip-address.png

[ducks]

do you have ghost
ghost the hard drive to a another harddrive

[Nbadan]

Dan, it spins for a while. When I hook it up to my PC with the USB to IDE cable, it will show up as a drive in My Computer, when I mouse over it, it gives me the 40 gig used, 10 gig free info, but when I try to click to open it, I get the hourglass endlessly, until I get a timed out error. In the mean time, it effectively freezes most everything else until I disconnect it.

Hiran's Boot CD should work then. It's a bootable CD that has all kinds of nifty stuff to rebuild your HD cylinder configuration, fix or restore your Windows registry, ghost your drive to another drive, Etc...etc...

I'm sure mouse can find a copy, if not, I have one.

[Steve Perry]

He's a Bush lover so I will let you help him.