Need laptop help
 

Hey guys. Sorry for another computer question but I gotta ask. My laptop just fried and its now asking me to insert the windows installation disc when I turn it on. I have some docs I haven't backed up yet, nothing serious but I'd like to get it back. Should I let my friend take the hard drive out and fiddle or should I just call it a wash and throw the disc in and reload windows? Thanks guys

If you need a new one my girlfriend is selling her old dell. I think its like 2yrs old tops.

That's how old mine is. but thanks for the offer. I will be buyin a new one come fall but I'd like to get these docs out and use this one till then

if your friend knows what he / she's doing it's an incredibly easy thing to do. You could even do it. Just look into 2.5" to USB adapters that support your HD interface. It'll connect just like a giant flash drive and you can copy off the data..

This is all assuming what "fried" in your laptop wasn't the actual HD itself.

where are you located? i just bought one of the above mentioned setups.

Thanks guys. She is gonna take out my hard drive but I'd rather just try that usb connection. I am no computer tech, but it seems like the hard drive is fine but windows is somehow corrupt. Maybe I'll let her fiddle with the hard drive and then buy the cord if it doesn't work.

And thanks for the offer but I'm not very close to hamilton. Thanks again guys and I'll keep you updated

windows probably needs to be reloaded to run properly.

The drive has to be taken out to go into the USB setup. I also bought one.

As long as your laptop is not a compaq, it should work. I tried to use it on a compaq and the drive was bigger than the enclosure I got for it, since they don't use standard drives.

i bought the one that doesnt use the enclosure. but listen, the cable is about 20$ from tigerdirect.com you take the drive out plug in a couple things and it will show up as drive in My Computer. open My Computer and figure out the drive letter... then open run...type chkdsk d: /r..... d: being the drive letter...of course this is if you have another computer to do this with... OR you could just try a windows repair without losing your info... just find an OS OEM disc and run the repair

wait.... so nothing actually fried on your computer?.. you are just getting software errors?

It sounds most likely to be a software issue.

And I wouldnt say entirely that he wouldnt be able to get docs off of the HD if it was toast (something that happened to mine recently). I had to get pictures and docs off of it, so I did some part swapping from a donor HD to the burnt HD, and got it running to the point where I was able to safely remove what I needed using a USB connection.

Sorry guys, I shouldn't have used the word fried. I'm quite certain its a software issue. I spoke to the person who is fixing my laptop and she has that enclosure that you put the HD into but her laptop was a old compaq. I have the startup disc at home so I can try that but I'm worried it will just reload windows and I will lose all my docs. I'm gonna let her give it a try.

Sorry I'm not being specific, I'm posting this from my blackberry because, shockingly, I have no computer

no, if you do a "repair" you won't lose your docs or anything even though it looks like you are going through a reinstall, as long as you select the "repair" choice... trust me i do it like 5 times a week at work

guys i really am sorry to bombard you with questions, but I'm stuck again. Here is where I stand:

-Sony didn't give me any CDs with my computer, but they partitioned the hard drive and loaded a rescue file on there. Big help, thanks sony! But i can buy a CD from them which will probably cost a good amount of money and take a year to get here.
-My friends hard drive enclosure didn't work, but mine did! but unfortunately, I don't know how to access the files. If i go into my computer, and click on the drive, it only asks me if i want to format the drive. I know i don't want to do that but it won't let me access my files.

what should i do?

what is it, xp or vista? you can download a torrent of either one's OEM, just make sure that its the same version "home or pro" or "home, home premium, ultimate, business, etc." of windows taht you have and just use the repair feature

Hmmm. The operating system was XP but I downloaded a Vista home upgrade. I just bought a new hard drive from best buy which my friend will be uploading XP onto for me. Now I just need to figure out how to get my contents off the old one :(

I did the chkdsk e: that was posted about but I had to run out of the house while it was still going. There were some errors it was fixing and it was taking forever. What is the next step? Thanks guys

edit: its been doing this chkdsk for about 3 hours now, is this normal?

Yes, it's a very thorough scan of your hard drive, and if there are a lot of errors it's gonna take a while. How large is the drive?

- Justin

120gb. the good news is, I am posting from the said laptop :w00t: I bought a new hard drive for it and used a old XP Professional disc i had laying around

bad news is, i'm on Windows XP with no service packs and barely any drivers work for it. I have no sound for example. I'm content for now though. i'll figure out the other drive later