How to recover hard drive a lap top

[the jester]

Hi everyone

I thought I'd turn to Sysopt first as the assistance I got last time was top.

This time it's not directly for me but for a friend who has a Fujitsu FMV/33E laptop (that's the Japanese model no. - still working on the US/Euro release).

He called me up to say that his laptop will post bios and details but the O/S won't load.

He's running win 2k (I installed) but is not connected to the internet. The local PC shop told him the hard drive was dead and he needed a new one but he went to a Fujitsu dealer (we're in Japan by the way) so I take it with a pinch of salt.

He hasn't been able to tell me what hard drive is in there but is coming over tomorrow for help.

Is there any utility out there which would verify that it is in fact dead? He's doing a Phd and all is work is on there so he is of course desperate to recover as much data as possible.

As I said he is not connected, doesn't game and doesn't install new stuff.

I'm out of time - I apologize for the lack of details and appreciate all responses.

[the jester]

hear something?

that was the muffler hitting the <bump>

[the jester]

sorry to do this but that's my friend's Phd work on that hard-drive.

If anyone knows a surefire way to guarantee that his drive is dead then I'll be buying him a big old bottle of scotch tomorrow

If it still lives, I'll be drinking champagne...

High stakes, need for drive..

Please help

[threlkis]

you could try this. Have him get a windows 98 or ME boot disk. Have him start the PC with it. I am assuming that the File system is NTFS so it will warn him that C: does not have a file system (that should not matter.) after it comes to A: have him run FDISK. If fdisk runs (if it says error reading fixed disk.. well he is in trouble and time to find a data recovery company) if it does run have him view partition information (usually the last option in FDISK) if it comes up showing drives regardless of the file system, or if it asks him to treat NTFS partitions as large, the drive should be secure, perhaps the boot sector has become dameaged. He could try using the Win2k disk (if he has it) and booting off it running setup and trying to repair the windows install.

Hope it helps

[Sterling_Aug]

Go to the fuji website. Most hard drive manufacturers have utilities posted on their web sites that thoroughly test a drive and if it is bad, then they issue an RMA number online.

[korgul]

One way to try to recover the drive if indeed it is dead, don't laugh, put it in the freezer for a couple of hours. Take the drive out of the freezer and put back in laptop. remove as much of the info as possible and repeat as many times as you can. When that fails to work try gently rapping on it with a rubber hammer to " unstick the heads".

Only try this if you are sure that the drive is dead. I mean what harm is it going to do if the drive is dead. It might let you recover the data.

I have a list of 200 ways to revive a dead HD at work that I could E-mail on Monday. Just PM me.

korgul

[the jester]

thanks for the ideas threlkis, Sterling A and korgul

it's 9:00 in the morning now and I have to run some errands

he's coming round this afternoon with everything except the box

I think we'll go with the win2k option first then win98 and fdisk

I'm going to have a hard time convincing him about the freezer option...

what worries me is that he has already had a friend who is a professional programmer look at it too - I know hardware and software are different fields of expertise but I would usually put myself in second place next to someone who works with PCs everyday - I think he just wants to hear the bad news in English from another native speaker

korgul - the 200 ways to revive the hd - was that on the tech republic site some months back?

thanks again people - anyone else wants to throw in their advice /ideas you're going to make a couple of ex-pats real grateful

thanks all

[korgul]

Yep that is the one.

[cadetstimpy]

Also, try runnign FDISK from a Win98SE boot disk. If fdisk will not show any partitions and if an attempt to make one fails then the hard drive could be 'locked'. Was the hard drive setup in the laptop it is in now? If not then the laptop the hard was setup in could have had the drive locked via the BIOS. Once placed into the destination laptop - the contents could not be read because of the firmware encryption difference between laptops. The drive would have to be placed back into the origonal laptop, unlocked and then redelivered to the destination laptop.

I know this is far fetched, but I wanted to mention it just in case. It's hard to think of unless it has happened to you before.

[the jester]

in a word - ram

I don't know how or why but we tinkered w/ram only - the hd is fine and I hate the innards of laptops

thanks again everyone

jester