My laptop hard disk crashed along with optical drive. I have got the new parts in place now. I am connecting my old hard disk in an USB enclosure to the laptop. I cannot see the drive in My computer though it shows up in disk management as healthy. It is FAT 32.
Please help me to recover the data. Do I need any recovery software?
If the old drive appears in the disk management but not in My Computer, apparently the file structure on the hard drive is corrupted. In this case you’ll have to use data recovery software. It’s still possible to get personal files with the data recovery software even though the hard drive will not appear in My Computer.
My laptop OS crashed suddenly. I have some documents that i need to transfer real urgently, so i connected the laptop hard drive to an external case and tried copying it to my desktop. But it says access denied cause my documents ere password protected on my laptop …
Is there any any to go around this?
You should be work around this problem if you take ownership over files as it described in this article on the Microsoft site.
Let’s say you want to take ownership over “My Documents” folder located on your laptop hard drive.
You can do it in the following order:
1. Connect the laptop hard drive to another working PC using external USB enclosure. You have to be logged in to your PC as a user with admin privileges.
2. Access the laptop hard drive through “My Computer” and navigate to the folder you want to copy to the desktop PC, probably it’s “My Documents” folder.
3. Take ownership over “My Documents” folder and all files and folder inside.
Right click on the folder >> Click on Properties >> Click on Security Tab >> Click on Advanced Button >> Clock on Owner Tab >> Highlight Administrator >> Check Replace owner on subcontainers and objects box >> Clock OK and wait until it’s done.
Now you should be able to access and transfer your files.
Recently dropped my Dell inspiron 1150 laptop and now when i turn it on all i can see is 10% of the screen on top left h.side….good news is i didn’t damage my files but how do i go about retrieving files if i cannot see what i am doing and what steps do i need to take to attach to another computer monitor? knowing i don’t know much about tech stuff.
Connect an external monitor (LCD or CRT) to the laptop using the VGA port (D-shaped connector with 15 holes) and restart the laptop. Most likely the laptop will detect the external monitor automatically and you’ll get external video. Now you can retrieve/backup files.
If the external monitor has no video, hold down the Fn key and at the same time press F8 (CRT/LCD). It should switch video from the internal LCD to the external screen.
Alternatively, you can remove the hard drive from the laptop and install it into an external USB enclosure. Then connect this enclosure to any other working computer via a USB port. If there is nothing wrong with the hard drive, it should be detected automatically and it will pop up in My Computer. Access the hard drive and retrieve files.
Yesterday my laptop failed to boot. Everything appears to be normal but each time I turn it on it hangs on Windows screen with a running bar. I cannot boot my laptop to the desktop. I tested the hard drive and it passed the test. I think that my hard drive is fine and the operating system is corrupted. I have very important files in my documents and I need to recover, transfer them to the desktop computer as soon as possible. How can I connect the laptop hard drive to a desktop computer?
It is nice that your hard drive passed the test. I think you have very good chances that your data is still good and you would be able to transfer it to the desktop computer. Here are some tips for connecting a laptop hard drive to a desktop computer:
1. You can use 2.5” hard drive adapter and connect the laptop hard drive directly to a desktop computer through the IDE connector on the system board. The desktop hard drive would be connected to IDE1 so you can connect the laptop hard drive to IDE2. After you boot the desktop computer the second hard drive would be detected and you can access it as a regular HDD. Now you can recover, transfer all needed files from the laptop hard drive to the desktop hard drive. Here are detailed instructions with pictures.
2. You can use an external USB enclosure for laptop hard drives. I think that would be the easiest and fastest way to access your data. You can find an external USB enclosure in any computer shop and it would cost you about $20-$30 or buy it here for $10. After you remove the laptop hard drive, place it inside the enclosure and connect to the desktop or another laptop computer via the USB cable. It is not necessary to install any drivers for the enclosure if the desktop PC runs Winodws 2000 or Windows XP. If the desktop PC runs Windows 98, then most likely you’ll have to install a driver for the enclosure before you can access the hard drive. The USB cable and the driver usually supplies with the external enclosure. Now you can access the laptop hard drive as a regular drive on your desktop/laptop computer.