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Retrieving Pics from dropped laptop.

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Conny
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Posted June 3, 2011 at 10:33PM

Hi all, my daughter has dropped her laptop. Sony Viao, O/S Vista and can't access her pictures on Picassa. There are probably other things she can't access but her pictures are of her two children and she doesn't have a back up copy. Someone suggested taking the H/D out and connecting to her new laptop with a cable. Can anyone give me more information so I can help her to retrieve them? Many thanks in advance because I know you always come up trumps.

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Fruit Bat /\0/\

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Posted June 3, 2011 at 10:54PM

  1. will it boot?
    1. if sector is damaged on drive and pics are in that sector then ulikely to retrive
    2. If wo'nt boot then fit in external case and connect to another machine but make sure you get correct case depending on drive connection its probably a SATA sata case but if the machine is more than 3/4 years old maybe a IDE
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Conny

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Posted June 3, 2011 at 10:58PM

Thanks Fruitbat. Not sure if its quite 4 years old. I've only spoken to her on the phone so not sure if it will boot up either, just putting out the feelers for info till I can find out more. Will let you know more when I have it.

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mole44

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Posted June 4, 2011 at 4:56AM

A salutary lesson here about backup,go get a clickfree gadget there cheap easy to use and of course use it,i`ve got the dongle that plugs into an external hard drive.I have no connection with clickfree but a backup is good advice anyway, perhaps to late in this case.

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muddypaws

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Posted June 4, 2011 at 8:42AM

Tip for the future is to upload all photos to Picasa web albums for an easy back up solution.

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onthelimit1

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Posted June 4, 2011 at 8:57AM

I use an adaptor like this It can connect any HDD (SATA/IDE - 2.5/3.5) to the usb port of a PC.

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Conny

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Posted June 5, 2011 at 12:51AM

Hi Guys, thanks for the replies so far. Unfortunately I can't get the PC to Boot Up. Ive tried in safe mode,and repair mode and also with command prompt, (except I didn't get any prompts), I've even tried 'Last Known Good Configuration' but all to no avail. On opening the back I discovered how easy it is to remove the Hard Drive. The writing is very small but I could see ATA in bold lettering on it. Could I plug this into a HP Pavillion desktop using the ribbon cable inside or will the pin configuration be different? I have a feeling it won't boot up because the Internal Optical Drive could be out of alignment,is this easy for a repair shop to correct and if so what price would she be looking at?

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Nontek

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Posted June 5, 2011 at 5:56AM

Perhaps the drive simply got jerked slightly out of position, have you tried giving the drive a bit of a push to make sure it is completely in its connection point?

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Conny

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Posted June 5, 2011 at 10:32PM

Just want to bump this back up in case anyone else can help. Cheers.

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retep888™

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Posted June 5, 2011 at 10:55PM

Could I plug this into a HP Pavillion desktop using the ribbon cable inside or will the pin configuration be different?

No, you can't ,the connection is different.

You can get one of these USB TO SATA IDE CABLE / ADAPTER to connect it & plug it into your HP Pavillion desktop thru' USB.

Good luck.

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Conny

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Posted June 6, 2011 at 1:17AM

Thanks 'onthelimit' and 'retep888' for those links. Does this mean the Desktop would see it as a 'Removable Drive' and I could then open it and transfer what files are on the drive into a folder on the desktop?

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