help - laptop power died, trying to transfer data to pc

[rockymtnhigh]

Ok, tonight I am using my Thinkpad, and go to pull out the second battery from the multi-bay so I could put in a dvd drive; the second I pull the battery all power to the laptop dies. Completely. It had been plugged in, there was the main battery in it.

Something blew, and its deader than a door-nail. So... I will send it in to Lenovo who will fix it on my warranty.

BUT I have a lot of critical data on the hard drive; I unscrew the hard drive cover, and find that it is a SATA hard drive. So I unplug it, and bring it to my desktop. I take off the cover and connect the laptop hard drive to an SATA port. I have never used SATA, and indeed, its bio settings had been disabled. I enable them and enable the promise controller, which I set for IDE, instead of RAID.

The computer boots, the laptop hard drive gets recognized by the motherboard during the power on sequence, but it is not seen by WinXP.

What do I have to do to get Windows to see this drive? I really need to get data off it before I send it in.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Got the laptop to come back to life, with no batteries connected. BUT not having luck getting it to recognize the external usb drive to do a backup. Worked fine the other day, but I think the mb is on the way to dying. Going to connect via network and salvage stuff that way....

 

[Ramy]

You could always go out and get a kit so you can put the drive in a desktop to transfer data that way.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

You could always go out and get a kit so you can put the drive in a desktop to transfer data that way.

I was going to go get a USB to sata connector, but since I got the laptop running again, and was eventually able to get the external usb hdd to be recognized, I got everything critical copied.

Still sending the laptop back. This is just weird stuff; sounds like the motherboard is on its way out...

 

[pdxsam]

It does sound the like electrical circuit on the mobo got fried when you pulled that battery.

I've never been comfortable pulling drives or batteries with laptops powered. Not saying you can't, but my comfort level is to power down pull and start up again.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

It does sound the like electrical circuit on the mobo got fried when you pulled that battery.

I've never been comfortable pulling drives or batteries with laptops powered. Not saying you can't, but my comfort level is to power down pull and start up again.

Yup, I am forced to learn the hard way.

 

[TheForce]

I have two 300G hard drives full of project data that got hosed when I unplugged them from the computer (IDE to USB 2.0) The drives have been tested in another computer to salvage the data ( File scavenger) and port to another drive but it can't see anything. I was thinking of trying spinrite next. The data is of old TV show edit files and only one folder is for work of a show still on the air. I worry the client will want to make changes and it will be a major project to rebuild that show from scratch. About 4 days work! I'm thinking it is a hardware problem as well.


Today, I never disconnect a USB hard drive without using the disconnect icon.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

I have two 300G hard drives full of project data that got hosed when I unplugged them from the computer (IDE to USB 2.0) The drives have been tested in another computer to salvage the data ( File scavenger) and port to another drive but it can't see anything. I was thinking of trying spinrite next. The data is of old TV show edit files and only one folder is for work of a show still on the air. I worry the client will want to make changes and it will be a major project to rebuild that show from scratch. About 4 days work! I'm thinking it is a hardware problem as well.


Today, I never disconnect a USB hard drive without using the disconnect icon.

This whole problem started when I disconnected the second battery from the multi-bay (where the DVD goes). The strange thing is that the laptop seems to be working perfectly again today. I am hesitant to send it in until I know that it is hosed; I am going to buy a sata-to-USB connector, so I can dump the whole hard drive, but I think I got 99% of what I need archived already. I also need to burn CDs of some of the itunes music I have bought, since you can't redownload it.

It probably was a good scare to kick me out of my complacency about backing up data.

 

[TheForce]

It probably was a good scare to kick me out of my complacency about backing up data.


ditto! But I can't afford to back up multi terrabytes of video data. There are ways around that but they all increase the recovery time. If you can burn media to optical like DVD-R. I don't even take the time to do that. My typical TV show project these days is 125 Gb.

 

[pdxsam]

Spinrite is an amazing piece of software. As long as you've got the drive hooked to one of the IDE channels off the motherboard, you've got a good chance of getting the drive to the point where you can get the data off. I've had spinrite get a couple of drives back to working condition and they're still in use. However, I generally destroy a drive if it gets to the point of needing Spinrite.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Spinrite is an amazing piece of software. As long as you've got the drive hooked to one of the IDE channels off the motherboard, you've got a good chance of getting the drive to the point where you can get the data off. I've had spinrite get a couple of drives back to working condition and they're still in use. However, I generally destroy a drive if it gets to the point of needing Spinrite.

Lucky for me the problem isn't with the hard drive. But glad to know about that software.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Interestingly enough, ever since I got the laptop running again after the time it died, the thing has been completely normal.

I decided to hold off on sending it back, as I want to be sure that when it goes in, they actually fix whatever is wrong.

BUT I am backing everything up as I work on it, just to be safe.

 

[Anole]

USB adapter

In the middle of this thread, I commented on several USB to hard drive adapters for cheap.
One even does SATA.
All come with power supplies
Did I mention "cheap" ?


. . . and if you'll read through to the next page, I made some comments about making 'em work.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

In the middle of this thread, I commented on several USB to hard drive adapters for cheap.
One even does SATA.
All come with power supplies
Did I mention "cheap" ?

Yeah, I ended up getting one from Amazon for about $20. Haven't used it yet though. Just haven't had the time...

 

[Foxbat]

I picked up the Newertech USB 2.0 Universal drive adapter for $25 (also includes SATA as well as 3.5" & 2.5" IDE connectivity) and liked it so much, I recommended it to our PC support group at work as we're starting to see more and more SATA drives in our systems. It's already saved our PC Tech time and aggravation.