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Laptop hard drive recovery
swanny - 19/6/13 at 08:11 PM

Mother in law had a serious accident in the car today. Seemingly heard a noise from the car then last control.

Rolled, hit a tree and ended up on its side.

Amazingly so far she is fine, which is the important bit. However she also had her laptop in the car with lots of pics of family, late husband etc .
Laptop is pretty smashed up, screen etc but it does turn on but doesn't do anything.

Does anyone know what damage is possible to a hard drive ? Or are they petty tough if the case is basically in one piece ?
Also anyone know of a specialist who can retrieve the data in e York area?

Paul

gremlin1234 - 19/6/13 at 08:21 PM

they tend to be quite robust, unless they are on.
if it is a machine without encrypted data, generally it can be copied relatively easily, any local computer shop should be able to help.

the other way is to buy a similar computer and move the drive to that.

mookaloid - 19/6/13 at 08:24 PM

usually if it is ok you take the drive out and put it an a caddy ( just a few quid off ebay) then plug it into a usb port on a pc and get the files copied off it.

chrism - 19/6/13 at 08:25 PM

Depending on what type of HDD it is you can get USB adaptor cables off ebay for about £5 that will let you plug the disk drive into another computer and copy stuff off. Search for 2.5" usb hdd, if its a fairly modern laptop it should have a SATA disc.

As has been mentioned before the data should be ok, as generally they only seem to get damaged when they are powered up and the heads get bounced off the discs.

Ninehigh - 19/6/13 at 08:27 PM

What they both said. If you get a caddy then you've also got the added bonus that you've got an extra drive then too.

Iirc even if the drive casing is smashed up (i.e. laptop got run over by a bus) the data can still (to an extent) be recovered by professionals

swanny - 19/6/13 at 08:40 PM

Thanks guys. That will mean a lot.

chrism - 19/6/13 at 08:43 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Ninehigh
What they both said. If you get a caddy then you've also got the added bonus that you've got an extra drive then too.

Iirc even if the drive casing is smashed up (i.e. laptop got run over by a bus) the data can still (to an extent) be recovered by professionals


I believe thats not a cheap option though.

Ninehigh - 19/6/13 at 08:47 PM

Oh no not if it's that damaged, but for £5 it's worth finding out if the drive works

dhutch - 20/6/13 at 03:46 AM

As said above, if the disk was off, it may well be fine. Remove it and install it into/onto another computer using suitable cables. A good PC should be able to support this, else if you post the specs of the laptop, and or removed hard disk, and what you have by way of a second PC (ie, another laptop, or a desktop) we/I can post links to suitable online suppliers of the correct cable/adapter.
I would trust most local PC shops more than I would a large chain.
Do make it clear to them the disk contains important/sentimental data.

If this doesnt work, there are alternatives, which will be more pricey but my be worth consdering.

If the data is considered priceless, do nothing other than put the damage laptop in a safe location, and research a suitable professional data recovery company.


Daniel

snakebelly - 20/6/13 at 05:09 AM

If you get no joy from slaving it off another machine drop me a line, i am involved with DR as part of my day job,