Let’s say your laptop failed to start but you have some important files on the hard drive you would like to access. Is it possible to recover data from a failed laptop or notebook computer? Yes, it is and the process is relatively simple.
First of all, I assume that the hard drive in your failed laptop is not damaged.The laptop fails to start but the hard drive is in a good working condition.
In order to recover data you will have to access and remove the hard drive. Fortunately in most laptops the hard drive can be easily accessed through a hatch on the bottom. If the hard drive has mounting brackets installed (like in my example), it might be necessary to remove those brackets.
How to recover data from a laptop IDE hard drive.
Let’s start with an IDE hard drive also known as PATA hard drive.
On the picture below you see a regular IDE hard drive. It has two rows of pins on the front side.
The easiest way to access and recover data from an IDE hard drive would be using an external USB enclosure. Make sure to choose a USB enclusure for 2.5″ IDE hard drives.
You attach your hard drive to a USB/IDE converter and then connect it to another working computer (laptop or desktop) via USB cable.
Advantages of using external USB enclosure:
1. Easy to assemble and setup even for novice users.
2. Can be connected to a laptop or desktop computer.
Disadvantages of using external USB enclosure:
Slow data transfer rate.
If you computer supports USB 2.0, the data transfer rate will not exceed 480Mbps (I assume the enclosure also supports USB 2.0).
If your computer supports only USB 1.1, the data transfer rate will not exceed 12Mbps and it might take hours to transfer large amount of data.
The second method is for more advanced users.
You can access and remove data much faster if you use a laptop to IDE hard drive adapter (on the picture below mentioned as IDE connector).
One side of the adapter connects to the laptop hard drive. The second connects to the available IDE cable inside your PC computer.
Advantages of using Laptop to IDE hard drive adapter:
Fast data transfer rate. If you have a Ultra ATA/100 (UDMA/100) laptop hard drive, the data transfer rate will be 100MBs.
Disadvantages of using Laptop to IDE hard drive adapter:
1. Not for novice users. Requires PC disassembly and hardware configuration.
2. Can be connected only to PC computes.
On the picture below you can see how the adapter is connected to a PC computer.
How to recover data from a laptop SATA hard drive.
A SATA hard drive has a different interface. It has a data connector and power connector.
A laptop SATA hard drive also can be connected to an external USB enclosure. Make sure to choose a USB enclusure for 2.5″ SATA hard drives.
If you are using an external USB enclusure, the data transfer rate will be limited to the speed of the USB port (480Mbps or 12Mbps) even though SATA hard drives has transfer rate 150MBps.
For a faster data recovery I would suggest connecting your SATA hard drive directly to the SATA ports inside a PC computer. Fortunately, you can use same type of cables as you use for regular 3.5″ desktop hard drives.
My next post explains how to recover data from a laptop with crashed OS.
July 16th, 2009 at 3:00 pm
krzys,
I agree, Otrack is good but their clean room recovery service is very expensive. Could be a few thousand dollars.
If you decide to recovery data yourself, try Runtime Software. It does very good job and cheap.
July 16th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Mark,
From Disk Management in windows, find out it the drive has been assigned a drive letter. If it has been assigned a drive letter, right click on the drive, select Properties,, then click on the Tools tab, Click “Check now” in “Error-checking”, select both “Automatically fix file system errors” and “Scan for and attempt recovery of bad sectors”, wait for it to complete. Depending on the size of the Hard drive and condition of the file system, it could take up to a couple of days.. After it complete , test to see if you can access the data on the drive. If not, you will have to pay a hefty amount to data recovery service. I recommend Ontrack , which is 1 of the best and had been around forever. Ontrack is also certified by manufacturer to not void valid warranty .
http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/
I believe the evalution cost is about $200 and the evalution fee could be apply to the recovery service if you decided to go with the recovery.
July 10th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Mark,
You can try accessing data on the hard drive with Knoppix (Live Linux CD). I haven’t created tutorial for this procedure yet but I will in the near future. In some cases when Windows fails to read the hard drive, Linux can do that.
1. Download the latest version or Knoppix (.iso file) and burn it on a CD or DVD (depends which flavour you download).
2. Boot your desktop from that CD.
3. Plug in the external enclosure into the USB port and if the hard drive is still in a good shape it will be detected by Knoppix. The hard drive icon will pop up on the desktop. Click on the HDD icon and see if you can access your data.
4. If you can access your data plug in a USB flash drive (has to be formatted with FAT32). The flash drive will be detected by the Knoppix same way as the hard drive. Right click on the flash drive and make it writable.
5. Transfer files from the hard drive to the flash drive.
July 10th, 2009 at 8:10 am
Hello,
I got a failed Dell Inspirion E1707 SATA hard disk drive, which means I got the Blue Screen of Death (BSD) every time I tried to boot. I bought a SATA to USB2.0 adpater kit and hooked to one of my vista desktop machines. But I got the error message, “The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.” and could not access the files I want to recover. Well, I am at a loss at this point. Please let me know if there is other ways to recover the data from my failed drive.
Thanks for the help in advance,
Mark
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:25 pm
[...] you are trying to get access to a portable 2.5″ (laptop) hard drive, here’s how you can coonect it to another laptop or desktop computer. July 2nd, 2009 [...]
June 27th, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Migdy,
It’s not the drive you need. You have to see another hard drive, similar to your C drive.
As I suggested in the previous comment, connect both USB heads.
June 27th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
Migdy,
If your cable came with two USB heads on one side you have to plug both heads. If you use only one of them, the hard drive will not get enough power. Plug in both ends and see if it fixes the problem.
June 27th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
How the brackets can interfere with the hard drive content?
June 27th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
As I stated previously I am a NOVICE. Later for 30 minutes the laptop indicates that the device is ready to use. I check on MY COMPUTER as you suggested and it indicated DVD ram Drive; and when I check the properties read: use space 0 bytes free space 0 bytes. Does that means that the hard drive is damaged?
June 27th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
I do not answer your first question. Yes I have data in the hard drive.
June 27th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
No. Only when I plugged it, indicated that there is a new hard drive. I am not sure how can I determine if the laptop is read all the information of the external hard drive. The only that I can see is a light that change from green to red constantly.Due that I should remove the converter connection manually, I am afraid to remove it because I can think that can damage the USB of the laptop. In addition, I am not sure if I am supposed to plug both “heads”of USB . Let me explain: the USB cable that I received with the converter has two “heads” in one the sides.
Thank You for your help
June 27th, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Midny,
It depends. Do you have any data on the laptop hard drive or it’s empty?
Go to My Computer. Can you see the external hard drive in there?
June 27th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
First of all,sorry for my english. I will try to explain my problem as well as possible. I use the first method that you explain . I am NOVICE woman in this subject. When I connect the usb to the laptop, what I am supposed to see in the laptop screen? I do not see anything. The only that I see is a green light in the iDE converter.
June 25th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Pete,
You can do that. Just use same type of cables you used for the desktop hard drive. You’ll have to find a way to mount the laptop hard drive inside the desktop case, but other than that there shouldn’t be any problem.
June 25th, 2009 at 4:08 am
Hi
I’ve got a 2.5 sata drive but wondered if I could use the same cables as shown to connect it up internally on a desktop to make it a secondary storage area?
June 24th, 2009 at 11:08 am
David,
If you are connecting the laptop hard drive to the same IDE channel with the desktop hard drive and the desktop hard drive is set to master, you’ll have to set the laptop hard drive to slave. If your desktop uses cable select technology (master and slave are recognized by the position on the cable), most likely you will not have to change any settings.
In order to set the laptop hard drive to slave you’ll have to use a jumper (it’s smaller than regular desktop jumper) and short pins as it shown on the hard drive label.
Yes, it might attempt booting from the laptop hard drive. Check the BIOS settings and make sure the desktop hard drive is still the main boot drive.
I would recommend connecting the laptop hard drive to a separate IDE channel. If you have a CD/DVD drive connected to the second IDE channel, unplug it temporarily and connect the laptop hard drive instead. In this case you don’t have to change any settings on the laptop hard drive.
June 24th, 2009 at 10:24 am
Is it necessary to set the laptop harddrive to slave when using a desktop? Will the computer try to boot to the new harddrive?
June 4th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
Is there any particular enclosure brand you can recommend or they all kinda similar?
I’ll try data recovery for my friend. His laptop stopped booting at all.
June 4th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
Andrew, thanks for the tip. I’ll mention that in the tutorial later.
June 4th, 2009 at 10:17 pm
I tried connecting my hard drive via the enclosure as you did and it worked but I got a problem. When I tried accessing my files it said “Access denied”.
I didn’t know what to do but after searching on Google found the soluting.
You have to take ownership over files on the hard drive as it explained on Microsoft site: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421
Good luck!