[Mollicious]

Hello there...I dropped my Acer Laptop really hard...very stupid, I know. Anyway, when I turn it on the Acer screen pops up but then it proceeds to go to a completely black screen with a rapidly blinking cursor. I tried putting in the Windows XP recovery disk, went through the whole thing, pressed R, typed in chkdsk /r and it told me there are "unrecoverable damages." I have read a few other posts on here from people who seem to be experiencing similar symptoms, although I don't think theirs resulted from physical damage to the computer.

I've physically examined a few parts of the computer. The motherboard appears to NOT be cracked, the fan over the processor still spins, one stick of RAM was loose but it snapped back into place fine.

So here is my question, at this point would it be wise to run software such as GetDataBack as someone suggested in a previous post, or is this situation better left up to a professional data recovery service? I don't expect to be able to use this hard drive again, but I would like to get my pictures and school work off of there. Also, is there any way to tell if the laptop would still be operable if I just buy a new hard drive from Acer? Any help is greatly appreciated!

Molly

[Advertisements]

You can buy an adapter that will allow you to slave the 2 1/2 (laptop HD) to a desktop computer.
You can also buy a USB/ firewire enclosure that you can mount the laptop HD in. Then you can use another laptop or a desktop and attempt recovery.

You might also be able to use "puppy linux" that boots and runs from CD to also attempt recovery.

I wouldn't try putting yours into some one elses because there could be too many differences of boards with chipset drivers that would create issues.

[123Runner]

You can buy an adapter that will allow you to slave the 2 1/2 (laptop HD) to a desktop computer.
You can also buy a USB/ firewire enclosure that you can mount the laptop HD in. Then you can use another laptop or a desktop and attempt recovery.

You might also be able to use "puppy linux" that boots and runs from CD to also attempt recovery.

I wouldn't try putting yours into some one elses because there could be too many differences of boards with chipset drivers that would create issues.

[Mollicious]

My brother has the same exact model...we bought them at the same time. Would it harm his computer if I took his HD out and put it in my computer to check for potential problems with other hardware? I was reading a little about the Puppy Linux thing. Do you guys suggest using GetDataBack and Puppy Linux or do you think I would have better luck taking it to someone (or would that person likely be using that software lol). Sorry..I'm not really that familiar with data recovery and it's been a few years since I took any sort of electronics/computer course.

Also, I was messing around in GetDataBack last night and saw that you either have to connect to the damaged computer using a serial or LAN connection. Would the two connection types that you (123Runner) described be recognized as a serial connection? Or should I actually connect two computers by their serial ports?

Sorry if these questions are dumb...thanks for your help.

[123Runner]

You put Puppy linux as a iso on a CD and boot from it. It will run in ram. You can then copy your data to a flash drive or CD, etc.

Use the 2.17 version found HERE.

It is a OS in itself and you do not have to remove the drive.