Help needed re: use of SATA to USB to recover data from ruined laptop

[DinahK]

Hello,

I bought a SATA to USB cable and power source to try and recover the data from a Dell Inspiron 6400 I ruined by spilling liquid on the keyboard. The message on the ruined laptop screen is: HARDWARE FAILURE. PLEASE CONTACT HARDWARE VENDOR if I remember correctly. I have a few questions, and from my searching on Tech Forums, I could not find answers. But please forgive me if this is repeat material.

1) Am I going to need a SATA enclosure, or will I be able to (hopefully)
directly transfer data from my old hard disk to my new laptop?

2) Does any one know of relatively easy instructions that can be found
online? I have searched, but not found anything that explains how to do
this.

3) Am I going to need any software to do this? I found some information
here about Free Data Recovery, File and Partition Recovery, Undelete and
Unformat Utilities from Free Country, but I don't know if I need something
like that. Does anyone know?

Yes, I am very much a beginner, but hopefully I can acquire the needed information to recover my data. I lost so many picture and music files. I am determined to try and get them and cannot afford to pay someone to do it.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

DinahK

 

[NosBoost300]

if ur new laptop is a 17 inch.. you can just shove ur old harddrive in it

but if ur hdd was wet from the spill.. i advice not putting it in.. lol

 

[Lexluethar]

Usually a spilled liquid won't hurt the hard drive. The hard drive is enclosed pretty securly into its own enclosure. While submersing the hard drive into a bucket or water would hurt the hard drive, spilling liquid on the keyboard of a laptop probably did NOTHING to the hard drive. Where am i going with this? I don't know...

Okay, first off since you already bought a converter all you need to do is hookup the converter to your laptop hard drive (take it out of the laptop first) and plug it into your desktop via the USB end (or another laptop). At that point the computer should recognize a mass storage device and allow you to navigate it in windows explorer.

No software is really needed in this instance. If the drive what physically damaged software would be necessary to try and recover the partitioning table or data. But in this instance i truely feel all you need to do is hookup the laptop drive to a converter, then connect the converter to a working computer's USB drive.

 

[NosBoost300]

could the usb alone really power the hard drive?

 

[KurrentEweser]

Don't use the ruined laptop to try recover your data. Pull the drive out and either use the SATA to USB cable or an external enclosure to see if the drive is still usable. Hopefully the drive didn't get wet.

could the usb alone really power the hard drive?

Yes

 

[Lexluethar]

Nope, but the converter kit should come with a power cord you plug into a wall socket (mine did).

 

[NosBoost300]

ya most external i've seen usually have external power or 2 usb (1 for power 1 for data)

 

[KurrentEweser]

ya most external i've seen usually have external power or 2 usb (1 for power 1 for data)

Both connectors are to split power between ports while one of the 2 is for data.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

There is a SLIGHT chance that the liquid did get into the drive. Hard drives almost always have a ventilation hole in them, usually with a sponge air filter on the inside. These keep the internal pressure regulated I think. If the liquid were to go through the tiny hole, soak into the filter, and there was still liquid coming in, there's a chance the liquid could have hit the platters. Highly unlikely, but possible.

Having said that, my friend found a beat up, destroyed, obliterated Dell Inspiron out in the woods one time (no clue how this happened, but the screen was busted, rusted metal all over, covered in dirt and dust, looks like it had been through some tough weather). We tore it apart, looking for things we could salvage. I got the hard drive out of it, connected it to my desktop with an IDE adapter, and, much to my surprise, it booted right up, detected the drive, and started booting XP from it (didn't ever finish booting though). I used DSL Live CD to access it and the filesystem was still intact. I was able to salvage the drive as a storage drive for my then-FTP server Pentium 1 machine and the drive lasted a whole year before finally dying completely.

 

[Alvin.C]

Hello,

Some external SATA HDD enclosures, or USB to SATA adapters, work with just the power from the one USB port. I have used three different hard drives in my external SATA HDD enclosure powered by the one USB port and it works fine. Having said that, not all external enclosures or adapters are the same, nor is the current of USB ports on laptops.

As for transferring your files, it's likely that you'll need to take ownership of folders/files in order to be able to access them. If you get an 'Access Denied' error when trying to view folders/files, then you'll know that this is the case. The following guide tells you how to do this in Windows XP:

How to take ownership of a file or a folder in Windows XP

If you have Windows Vista, the procedure is near enough the same. Search google for help if you're unsure.