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Laptop Data Recovery

Dear Exerts,

I have a laptop which has crashed. It had norton antivirus backup. It has crashed and I have lost data on the hard disk.

When i start the laptop i can only see a cursor blinking at the top left hand corner of the screen.

I want to recover the data.

Is there a solution.

Thank you
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Danny Child
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The first step is to see if your data is visible on this hard disk without booting from it.  There are 2 ways to do this - either to boot from a bootable CD, such as Knoppix or Bart's PE disk, or to remove the hard disk, and fit it as a slave to a regular pc.  

There are cheaply available adaptors to convert a 2.5" laptop disk to an EIDE 3.5" disk cable if it is an older model, or these may not be necessary if it is a newer SATA model.

If some of the above is outside your comfort zone, and the data is essential, then you should find someone who can do these tasks for you.  
With many disk problems, the fault that has occurred means that the OS cannot run, but the data behind it is still fine.  However, you need to be prepared for the possibility that the disk may have had a catastrophic failure, and all may be lost from it - in which case the only hope is "clean room" data recovery services such as Ontrack or Vogon, and these are in the thousands of £ or $ to even start....
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Danch99,

Thanks for the prompt response.

The laptop is toshiba PSM35E-007D0-AR. I do have details of other features. I will find out and let you,

I will attach snaps of the laptop so that you or some one can guide me do this myself.

Thank you,
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nobus
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Try the Knoppix as Nobus suggests, he certainly knows what he's talking about.  It's MUCH better to get your data off BEFORE trying any kind of fixes to the non-booting issue...
also, what do you mean with " It had norton antivirus backup" ?  
i know Norton anti virus, norton goback, norton ghost ? ...
Dear experts, thanks for the support/comments.

Sorry could not get back to you.

Nobus,

I have phrased it wrongly, It has norton goback. Many technical people around me said that Norton goback causes trouble and this could be a reason for the crash/shutdown problem.

Also at the time of this problem, the licence had expired about an year ago.

Thank you,
Nobus,

I have downloaded the file and open the file, then it asked to insert a disc.

So i understand that once I insert disk it save the software on the disc.

I then insert this recorded disc in the crashed laptop.

Am i correc.t

Kindly advice.

Thank you
Nobus,

I have inserted the cd in crashed laptop.

I still see only the cursor blinkingon the screen at the top left corner.

I also can hear that the cd is loading, but do not see any action after that.
 
Kindly advice.

Thank you
Use Fdisk to check partitions in system see if there is hidden partition such as recovey partition. If so, it could be a cause.
Punky,

thanks for the comment,

I do not know what is Fdisk. As mentioned the laptop screen is blank/

thank you
Did you burn the ISO file as an image, - or iso to the cd? DO NOT burn it as data to the CD - -  in Nero, find it under backup
this makes the cd  a bootable cd.  --> then boot the laptop from it, navigate to your data, and copy it to the disk you want

***to boot from cd, you may have to change the boot priority in the bios
Nobus,

Thanks for the comment,

I clicked on the fle downloaded, it then requested for inserting a CD,
After that the events are capture as image ot he attached document.

I do have Nero, but i will search free version on the net.

Kindly advice.

Thank you,


Procedure-to-burn-NTI-on-a-cd-as.doc
i don't know NTI software.you save the file to disk - then select to burn it as an image
check your Help on NTI...
Knoppix was good in the day.... but I don't agree that it's the best choice in this matter.  

I suggest creating a boot cd using BartPE or the "Ultimate Bood CD for Windows" (UBCD4WIN).  These tools require an XP CD, but provide a more familiar user interface and can easily read and write to NTFS dirves.  They can also be easier to build the CD for a novice user and MAY be able to build a boot USB recovery drive as well (the process for building a boot USB stick for the purposes of a Windows install is SIMPLE and in theory (at least to me) should be just as simple for building a BartPE/UBCD4WIN disk.

I still use knoppix to demo Linux and encourage it's use, but because it's linux and recovering a system usually involved data writes, I don't recommend it.
Leew:

thanks for the comment.

But what are the url for BartPE or "Ultimate Bood CD for Windows" (UBCD4WIN).

So that i could i could learn about these as well.

thank you,
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Dear experts,

I have installed the iso of knoppix and inserted the cd in the crashed laptop.

But the laptop still shows only a blinking cursor at the top left hand corner.

any suggestion.

Thank you
Leew:

You are correct i guess the below as mentioned in your web is the trouble

Partition Table Doctor - $80 to $300 - www.ptdd.com - This software has proven handy for me when dealing with a PC with a corrupt partition table or one that you're trying to rescue from a Symantec product (most likely, Norton GoBack).

what next.

thank you

Leew;

The url are really very interesting, let me how much i can afford.

thank you
Leew:

I went through the website and very frankly this is too much of information over load for me.

I have two problems for me:

1. Restart the machine with a bootable cd
next
2.. Recover the lost files on the crashed laptop.

Kindly advice what i should for these both problems.

I have decided to first test the 'Data Recovery Wizard Professional' software and buy then .buy it.

Kindly advice in steps how exactly i can od it.

thank you
you have to change the boot priority in the bios, as i posted :
http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ss/bootorderchange.htm

did you burn the iso file as an image to the cd ?  as posted, you find it in the backup section of Nero

the reason i recommend knoppix is that it supports usb
nobus,

thanks i could start the laptop by pressing f2 repeativivley and the knoppix has detected the computer but i am stuck at the stage show in the attched picture.

Kindly advice.

Thank you


DSC-0001.JPG
it tells you it can't read the knoppix cd (only partial) - so you do have hardware problems
for determining what is the exact cause (you'll learn a lot - Excellearner) i would start by testing the basiscs : ram and disk. For that i suggest memtest86+ and the disk test you need; the easiest is to download the ubcd, and run the tests from the cd :  http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
you can download the iso file , and burn it just like the knoppix cd; then boot from it
here the download link :http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html
Nobus,

thanks for the comment, there are two options on the page as shown below which one should i choose

download 1
If you live on the cutting edge, a beta version of UBCD V5.0 is now available for testing.

download 2
*as702 has contributed an updated version of dosubcd.img for UBCD V4.1.1, including instructions. This is the same version of dosubcd.img that is included in the beta version of UBCD V5.0.

Kindly advice.
Nobus,

I have found memtest86+ on the below url

http://www.memtest.org/#downiso

there are three versions

Here is some pre-compiled distributions of memtest86+. Memtest86+ comes in three different way, first is a pre-build bootable ISO, second is a bootable binary and third an installable package for creating a bootable floppy. Third version are compressed in .zip and .tar.gz.

Which one should i burn.

thank you,
Nobus,

I went and bought DVD RW so that i could use any number of times.

I am now writing memtest 'Download - Pre-Compiled Bootable ISO (.zip)' from url 'http://www.memtest.org/#downiso'.

How do i now remove the knoppix cd fromt he crashed laptop, do i jsut eject it or is there another proper way to do it.

thank you
Nobus,

Memtest86+ v2.11 is checking the hard disk iguess.

Once it is completed i will give you the result.

Thank you
DSC-0001.JPG
Nobus,

Attached is the sceen shot of result from Memtest86+.

Kindly advice next step.

Thank you
DSC-0001.JPG
ok - some answers :
-memtest tests the RAm = Memory, not the disk.
-it runs continously - you normally let it run for 3 full passes (note that it lists your hard as well : Pentium M 1.5 GHz and 767 Mb ram
-it will display errors in the lower half blue screen, so if you don't see any  - that's ok.

for ubcd , download version 4.1.1 ISO file from any mirror (if it's too slow, select another one) and burn the iso to cd, as you did with the Knoppix iso
then boot from cd, select disk diagnostics, and the disk brand diag you need
Nobus,

Thanks for the comment,

I think i let it run thrice and then i shut it down and until then there were no errors reports.

I then put the laptop in refridgerator it is now almost one hour.

And i am not able to decide the url for ubcd 41.1, can you help. I am finding it confusing.

Thank you

Nobus,

I have found the url i will down load run and let u know th results.

http://findfiles.com/list.php?string=ubcd411.iso&size=120672256&db=Mirrors

Thank you
Nobus,

As soon as the laptop boots, i could see the options

Mainboard
Harddisk
filesystem
other tools
userdefined
dos/linus
*booy first hd
*boot second hd

From the above i chose Hard disk

and then 'Diagnostic tools'

and under the above lot of options are mentioned, which one do i choose.

Is the above approach correct.

Thank you



Select Mainboard, then Memory Test > run the test and please post result here.
punky - je just RAN the memtest (read above) - now he needs the disk test
for Harddisk you select the brand of disk that you have; if you don't know, run Hitachi Drive fitness test, it will tell you
Punky,

I have ran the test, all three gave no error. I will attaach the screen shots today evening.

Nobus,

I will following your instruction today evening and let you know the results.

Thank you,
Nobus,

I have sued the ubcd cd to boot my laptop and i have done the following:

Hard disk tools
then Diagnostic tools
then Dirve tiness tes V4.09 (IBM/Hitachi)
then under Dos 7.0 I chose - SCSI and ATPAT and so on.

Under all options the system asked to reboot the machine so i switch it off and restart it to try many f the options.

Kindly advice if the proedure is correct.

Thank you


above is correct - always use the default settings
after "Dos 7.0 I chose - SCSI and ATPAT and so on." you get a licence screen to ACCEPT
then it detects your installed drives and list them which you accept (if correct)
then you select your disk drive to test
Nobus,

sorry, I was away and could not follow up on this.

On all option the CD runs for a few seconds and says only result for all options which is 'Exit now and reboot your system'

Kindly suggest way forward.

Thank you
does it say which disk it is?  then select the proper diag and run it