Laptop Died?

[leonardmp92]

Hello,

Have a Toshiba Satellite L305D-S5874.

Turned it on and could hear the HD spinning very hard w/ a high pitch, then a lot of clicking. Now, when I turn it on, I get the Toshiba splash screen, then just goes black.

Assume HD is dead, but is there a way I could pull all the data off it and just get a new drive?

Thanks.

 

[up-smash]

There isn't a way to recover data from a dead HD.

 

[leonardmp92]

Well, not completely sure the HD is dead, I got into the bios and switched the boot to CD, have the recovery disk now and will see what happens. Any other options?

 

[MundoDragon]

You could download the boot utility from the hard drive manufacturer's website, run that and see if it recognizes the drive. If not, then chances are the drive is bad, unless you have fiddled with cables or such, then it could be a connection issue. If all else fails, you could try restoring the MBR in a last ditch attempt to try and get some data back, but if it is completely failed, there is nothing much you can do. Usually, a hard drive doesn't just all of a sudden quit or go 'bad'. Unless of course it is dropped on the floor or suffers some kind of physical jolt, there are usually tell-tell signs of a failing hard drive. If you ignore these signs and fail to act by backing up data, then you face irrecoverable data-loss. Sad, but computers aren't perfect, by any means. Hope in your case you can find a way to recover. Good luck.

 

[leonardmp92]

Thanks, I backed up the data previously, but would still like to make sure I have most of it. How would I restore the MBR? When this happened, I had just moved the laptop to clear a cable, but didnt drop it or anything like that. I put the restore disk in there now and it is just clicking.

 

[MundoDragon]

There are numerous ways to attempt to restore the Master Boot Record. If you have downloaded the boot utility from the drive manufacturer, there may be a way to do it from that utility. If not, most versions of Windows, if not all, have a handy little executable called FIXMBR, which does exactly as you would expect, attempts to restore a corrupted Master Boot Record. I'm sure there are other utilties to restore a bad MBR that I either have no knowledge of or elude me at this moment. I'd suggest doing a search on your favorite engine about restoring your Master Boot Record and see what it comes up with. Probably tons of links, I'd imagine. Just be careful when downloading and running anything on your computer by making sure you are getting it from a reputable site, as it could be malicious software in disguise, but I'm sure I don't need to tell you that. However, this will be of no help if the MBR is not corrupted and/or the drive is bad. Just a suggestion as a last ditch effort. Good luck.