Dead laptop drive recovery

I had my DV8 laptop for many years. Suddenly, it would just plain not power up. 3 flashes of the lightning bolt light then nothing...
Fast forward 45 days.
Not being able to boot up my laptop, I have ordered a new ENVY and want to transfer all of my Music, Docs and Photos over to my new machine (naturally). I bought 2 laptop hard drive enclosures and started poking around looking for my files. I have absolutely nothing on the one HD, and several partitioned sections on the second HD.
Trouble is, I have not been able to find anything I'm looking for on the "L" drive (partition) and the other partitions have either nothing at all, or a single, unaccessable file called "Recovery". I suspect that my files are in the recovery Partition, with no visible means of getting ito it.
How can I successfully recover my Files from these loose hard drives?
Thank You.

Not sure how to enable finding your files if the hard drive is corrupt-but they are not in Recovery partition. That partition holds the files to do a recovery/reinstall of the original OS with software/drivers.
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T43 - Recovery from dead hard drive

I have a T43 (2686-DJU) with hard drive failure (noticed for the first time with an error message on start-up saying "media test failure, check cable ... operating system not found". After discussion with the Lenovo support folks they confirmed the hard drive needed replacement, and I have ordered a new one (part 13N6917) - I am wondering how I go about getting the new one up and running as well as rescue and recovery since I was not smart enough to make a rescue CD. Should I order one? Is there some way to pull recovery info off of my mostly dead hard drive?
I apoligize for what I presume are pretty basic questions - maybe someone can just point me to a resource that I have simply not found yet.
Many thanks.
mjeastman

My hard drive failed completely and the Apple Store offered to "try" to recover it for $2000+. I went to a company called ProSoft http://www.prosofteng.com/ and they were very helpful. They sold me some software for around $100 to recover all of the data. It took over a week for the software to run correctly, but I got EVERYTHING back and ProSoft was so helpful with all of my questions.
Good Luck

Transfer data from hard drive on a dead laptop

I have a dead laptop that contains a hdd2183 y hard drive that appears to be a non-standard connector. It is not IDE nor is it SATA. The drive has a FEMALE receptacle instead of male pins or blades. The CONNECTOR that attaches to the drive has a male blade that inserts into the hard drive receptacle. I can't find anything on the internet about any such configuration, and I need to get the data off this drive, but no way that I can find to turn it into an external drive. I COULD take the connector out of the laptop and MAKE a cable or convert it to either SATA or IDE, IF I knew which contact was supposed to go to which pin on the corresponding connector.
Anybody know anything about this? None of the standard enclosures or conversion devices fit this drive.
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Hi,
I think the non-standard connector you describe can be removed.
Remove the HDD from its metal casing as shown in the image below.
Once done, you should find the connector can be removed from the HDD by sliding it off as shown in the lower diagram ( it may take some gentle persuasion ).
Regards,
DP-K
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Dead Hard Drive on Black MacBook

Can any one give any pointers as to how to replace a dead hard drive in a (approximately) two year old Black MacBook? Service guy trying to charge me £250+ to do it.
Any help would be most appreciated.

It's super easy.
Go here and buy this HHD (I have bought 3 of them for my Mac laptops)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136314
Go here for simple instruction on installing it.
http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbook13_memhd/
One thing to remember is to re-format the HHD once installed using your install Disk #1. Reformat using GUID. Very simple to do. Can be installed in less than 10 minutes with the right tools (highly recommend buying the from OWC), and another few hours to reinstall everything.
Right tools from here.
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Newer%20Technology/TOOLKIT11/
Message was edited by: D/FW

How do I recover data from my dead hard drive?

How do I recover data from my dead hard drive?

Is it dead or corrupt? There are recovery programs out there, however if your HD is head, paying pros to do data recovery is VERY costly. Some have removed the platters and installed them in likewise drives that dont have head crashes, but torque tolerances are tight, and doing it right is a bit advanced and tricky for most. Ive done HD disk swaps 4 times and had success 3 of the 4 times. It requires cannibalizing another working HD. In the future remember the golden rule, 2 copies is 1, and one is NONE.
Its likely you could find a local computer repair station that can do it for you cheaply. HD dont really "die", they have fried SATA bus, or crashed HEADS........the platters DO demagnatize over long time due to heat and degauss of the data (poor storage, etc).........but in specific, a HARD DRIVE DOESNT DIE ,.........only the flying head mechanisms that read and write the data, and SATA / bus that feeds the data DIES,.......but the data (unless corrupt or magnetically corrupted) is THERE

Driver Recovery

Compaq Presario F700 laptop
PN# KC489VA
Reinstalled the o/s from the recovery cd. No problem.
Reinstalled the Application and Driver Recovery DVD. No Problem - Except ----
none of the drivers are installed. Device Manager shows that the driver is not installed.
I went to the App and Driver DVD and manually selected only the wired and wireless NICs. This went through the motions but the devices are still unavailable.
I went to compaq/hp web site to download the drivers. It only shows 3 driver updates.
How do I get the drivers? From the DVD? From the web site?
Thanks...
This question was solved.
View Solution.

Hi, Darryl:
Those device details reveal it to be either:
Conexant High Definition Audio-Venice 5051
or
Conexant HD-Audio SmartAudio 221
Did you try the modified version posted on Cheryl's link?
Conexant High-Definition SmartAudio 221 Driver (C700 series, Vx5xx and dvx5xx and ABOVE models)
Driver modded by silver here
Unzip to a folder..use Device Manager,right click "Audio Device on HD",choose Update driver,
No to connect, Install from a list or specific location,
Select Don't Search, I will choose the driver to install,
For the Hardware Type select 'Show All Devices'
Remove the check from "Show Compatible Hardware" and click on "Have Disk".
Next...browse to the unzipped folder and choose the "WiSVHe5.inf".
Ignore XP when it complains, Reboot.
Paul

Advice about external hard drive recovery

Does anyone have experience or advice about external hard drive recovery?
I have a USB external drive that crashed during a power brownout, I couldn't mount the image at first but used Diskwarrior to rebuild it. Now I can see and navigate the drive but I am unable to pull many files off without the finder crashing. It would transfer about 130mb of 10gb then stay at that number and not progress past that amount.
Should I try a different recovery program or would removing the drive and placing it in another external drive enclosure solve something like this?
any help appreciated

When in DW there is a Preview to see the old and new volume.
http://www.macintouch.com/readerreports/harddrives/topic4557.html#d10aug2010
Data Rescue 3 demo will show you what it's scan finds, costs $99
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/data_rescue.php
you need to have another drive to recover your files to.
Yes I would try another case, maybe the power brick was all that is now half-dead also
And you really need a UPS - never be w/o
http://pondini.org/OSX/UPS.html
MacBook Pro:
https://discussions.apple.com/community/notebooks/macbook_pro

Hard Drive Recovery Process has been selected

One day, while playing a game online, the computer screen went black and a blue box appeared that said "Hard Drive Recovery Process has been selected Press Yes if you wish to continue " Also, there was NO which only shut the computer down. YES took me to a blue screen with recovery and troubleshooting options. At first, none of these worked, or stayed. Because the next time I used my computer I would get the same Hard Drive Recovery Process message and had to try various things to make it work. I did purchase a Windows 8.1 recovery flashdrive from Toshiba and attempted to install it. It took about 6 tries for it to completely install. However, after installing, I was unable to use the RESTART option to power off the computer as it would trigger the Hard Drive Recovery Process again ! Ugh ! Last night, I powered the laptop off using SHUT DOWN and in the morning, I got the Hard Drive Recovery Process screen again, much to my horror. I have Norton Internet Security and Anti Virus as well as I used Toshiba maintenance tasks and no problems were found. I would appreciate any information on troubleshooting and repairing this problem, if there is a solution. Thanks !!!!!

I did purchase a Windows 8.1 recovery flashdrive from Toshiba ... after installing .. it would trigger the Hard Drive Recovery Process again
The fact that the problem remains after restoring the hard disk to its original out-of-the-box contents using Toshiba recovery media means the software doesn't cause it.
The computer needs servicing.

W510 problems with Nvidia driver recovery under Windows 7 (64 bit)?

Lenovo W510, Nvidia Qudardo FX 880M video, FHD:
What I'm seeing on occasion is a Windows 7 (64-bit) recovery, screen blanks out, goes 2-3 seconds, then recovers, things go back to normal, but a message displays saying that an error was detected in the video driver, and it has recovered. The new Firefox (4.0.1) seems to be one of the things that may be a contribution, hard to tell. Per System Update at least, I'm current on the Lenovo downloads. SIW shows the driver level as 8.17.12.5738 (2010-06-27). Nvidia web-site shows their current driver level on the wen-site as 270.61 (2011-04-18), which is a considerably newer date at least. So two questions:
Has anyone else seen Driver/Recovery issues on Win 7 (64)
Has anyone directly run the Nvidia video drivers and had them run OK?
Seems like it would be nice for Lenovo to update their drivers, if indeed this is a driver issue, they appear back-level.

I used to have this problem with my W510 running Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit, especially Firefox 4 crashing the Nvidia display driver almost constantly. I googled and found that this is a known problem between older Nvidia driver and Firefox 4. Later on I downloaded the latest version of Nvidia driver from Lenovo website (it was not posted on the System Update server yet but was available on the regular download site). I clean-installed it (i.e., removing all files and settings created by the old driver) and I haven't experienced the problem since then.
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Data rescue 3 external drive recovery .Invisible external hard disk 1 tb., I want a refund.

data rescue 3 external drive recovery .Invisible external hard disk 1 tb., I want a refund.

I personally would use Disk Warrior before attempting to recover any data for that exact reason.

MBAM System Administrators - Missing Manage TPM and Drive Recovery option - MBAM 2.5

I have installed MBAM 2.5 in a 3 server environment. Every thing is working fine and validated the installation.
But what I have found that the drive recovery tab and Manage TPM is missing for the users member of MBAM System administrators. As there are many changes that comes with MBAM 2.5 and one is exclusion of MBAM local groups.
Everything is perfect for the Advanced Helpdesk and Helpdesk users.
Gaurav Ranjan

Hi Gaurav,
As you mentioned, there are no local groups anymore. During configuration of the Admin portal, you specify AD groups for administration. We removed the System administrators group because it was kind of redundant. You could get the same
effect by adding the user to the Advanced Helpdesk and Reporting Users AD groups you specify. So, if you add whatever user you wanted to be the "system administrator" for MBAM to both of those AD groups, that should solve your problem. Note you
may have to log out of your machine and back in after adding them to the group so that they get the token, as with any AD group addition.

Dead hard drive after one 1/2 years

My ibook G4 stopped reading discs about 4 months ago, when the computer was about 9 months old. I was unable to bring in for help until recently, thinking it was not a huge deal. Now the computer at 1 1/2 years old, has a dead hard drive. Because I couldn't back up, I have to get data retrieval and a new hard drive. Because the lame warranty is up, I have to pay $600 dollars to essentially fix a brand new computer. Upset is not the word. It seems quite neglible that a company can make a $2000 item that starts dying essentially after 6 months of use.
The computer was used to write papers and do bookkeeping, this was not an abusive over use.
Any opinions out there? Is this "normal?"
I couldn't bring the computer in, due to a loss in my family, and school, etc...had I known it was much more than a virus, surely I would have! The lesson of a back up is also lost...because I was unable to back up, that is why I brought the computer in.....the day before I went for maintanence, ironically the computer wouldn't start.....

I am sorry to hear that you've had such a bad experience. We all have life situations that make it difficult for us to make things happen sometimes. It's all about your priorities. Obviously the problems on your computer were not important enough at the time to pay attention to. AppleCare was available to you within your first year which would have extended your warranty.
All electronic products generally come with a one year warranty. If your TV goes buggy within it's first year you would probably bring it in for repair. Afterwards it's your responsibility to repair or replace.
Again sorry to hear you've had such a bad experience but I don't know that their's much you can do aside from making sure you let Apple know. It seems to be a common occurance on these boards and if there is a growing trend to failing HD maybe Apple will do something.

Can't install OS X after replacing dead hard drive

Hello-
Today I replaced the dead hard drive (Genius bar-confirmed) on my MacBook.
The replacement itself was uneventful.
When I tried to load OS X, I reached the page that asks me which language I want, but that was as far as I could go. I received a warning: "ALERT--this software can't be installed on this computer". I backed out and went into Disk Utility, and YES--it recognized the new hard drive (although there was a line somewhere about "unformatted"). The new drive is a SATA 2.5" Fujitsu 7200 rpm drive. The Genius Bar guy said to definitely get a SATA 2.5".
Any suggestions, please?
Much appreciated.
THANK YOU.

Well. I've checked out all the Fujitsu drive reports here and see no problems...
http://forums.xlr8yourmac.com/drivedb/action.lasso?-search
On the off chance, have you tried a PRAM Reset or whatever passes for a PMU Reset these days?

Make Bootcamp partition on former laptop drive bootable again

I have my former laptop drive with its OS X partition and its Bootcamp partition. Only the OS X partition comes up on the list when the option key is held down at startup. The Bootcamp partition seems absolutely fine and I can access the files but I can't boot into it because it doesn't come up on the startup options list. I am now running Lion on my new laptop and I'm assuming that to be the problem? Hoping someone can help. I would have liked to have migrated the Bootcamp partition to the new laptop but that seems much more difficult than anticipated because it would appear you can no longer create a blank Windows partition as the install disk has to be inserted when you create the partition. I'd settle for just being able to boot into it on the, now external, drive. I can move the stuff I really want off my old OS X setup to my new laptop and then I could even dedicate the whole external drive to Windows if I wanted - as long as it's bootable!
Any help will be much appreciated. I have searched around and no-one else seems to be describing quite the scenario I have. I tried using refit it sort out the problem but it just didn't seem to do anything - I installed it on the OS X partition on the external drive and perhaps ought to have installed it on the laptop's internal drive instead - not sure - either way it didn't ask for a startup disk to be chosen and has had no effect when I try to startup again.

you have to have the Windows partition on an internally connected drive.
Using Windows on different hardware / motherboard may not work or be stable even.
Re-activation on new hardware
Lots of people want to run Windows off external drive, and answer is no.
Boot Camp Assistant in Lion would be happy to set aside 60GB.
If you don't have the Windows DVD then how do you intend to? do you own one? there are other options includinig buying Windows 7 system builder for Home Premium 64-bit or windows 8.
Parallels may allow you to access and run as a VM using the old Windows.
External Windows may not show in Startup Disk for a number of reasons. - mounting and seeing the drive and NTFS, the use of some NTFS 3rd party drivers for OS X.
Try WinClone latest or something else to image and restore.

Laptop drive as an external?

While I'm waiting for my MBP to arrive I began thinking about what I can salvage from my pismo (MB fried).
I spoke with the local Apple store, and their tech guys use a FW case that takes a hd from a laptop. They use it to transfer data from an old laptop drive to a new one (when someone upgrades).
Unfortunately, they don't know where it came from, or who made it. None of the tech guys have been around since the store opened, but the case has. Everything is worn off (mfg label, case name), so I can't tell who made the darn thing. I searched a couple online stores, did a google, but can't seem to locate it.
Can anyone here offer any help? I'd really like to use the old drive as additional storage.
thanks,
mike
PB G4 Aluminum Mac OS X (10.4) Currenly have 2 PBs, 1 iMac, 2 desktops

A lot of companies make FireWire hard drive enclosures, and you can get them sized for 3.5" or 2.5" hard drives. (You want an enclosure for 2.5" drive to fit your PowerBook's hard drive.) There are also USB enclosures, and many have both USB and FireWire ports.
For example, OWC sells "FireWire 2.5" Drive Enclosure Kits" (scroll down the page).
I usually watch dealmac for sales on items like this.

Dead laptop drive recovery

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