Laptop HD Problem

[leonardmp92]

Hello,

Laptop wont boot into OS, not really my problem though. I'm trying to pull all the info off the laptop HD via a SATA to USB connection to another computer. When I insert into another computer, the laptop HD comes up as an external USB HD on "My Computer", but when I double click it, it never responds and stick w/ the hour glass until it finally gives me an error.

I just want to pull the data off this laptop HD. Is there a way for me to check the health of this HD? Any ideas how to pull the data off this?

Thank you.

 

[Lexluethar]

What is the error? Does it say the drive is in use or has been marked by windows as being used?

 

[leonardmp92]

Good question, I'm running it again. Could it be that the OS on the laptop drive is Win7 and the OS on the computer I'm trying to read from it is Vista?

 

[Lexluethar]

That won't be an issue - i just did the same thing last month to recover files from a Vista drive. The reason i ask is if the PC was never shut down properly the drive will be set as 'active' meaning that any OS looking at that drive will think it is in use and won't be able to access it.

If his is the case the only work around i found to work was to use windows backup to backup the drive. Then restore that backup and you can recover your files. It's a bit tedious because when you recover that drive it puts all of the contents into different folders that aren't organized in any real fashion. So you have to go through and organize them yourself.

 

[leonardmp92]

Should I try to start the laptop back up w/ the drive in it and try anything different to properly shut it down?

 

[Lexluethar]

If you are getting the error about the drive being used or being active then yes, try to properly shut down the PC. If that isn't an option because the PC won't boot the only other option i'm aware of is using windows backup to extract the files from the drive. I don't know why but it doesn't look at the drive being in use or not so you can backup the entire drive, then restore it to another location on your local drive.

By far the easiest solution is to properly shut down the drive IF that is an option.

 

[leonardmp92]

OK, I will try to start up the laptop w/ the suspect drive now. Never used Windows backup...easy to find on Vista?