Laptop Won't Boot

[aeven]

Hi everybody!

I am trying to fix one of my laptops. It won't boot, but I don't think the issue is the operating system. When you start it up normally, it gives a giant cursor (reduced screen resolution) over a black screen. It does not load the desktop, taskbar, or anything else, just a black screen.

I thought the operating system was borked so I loaded a rescuedvd v8, followed by loading a linux boot disk (ubuntu).

Ubuntu loaded fine, but I could not mount the hard drive. When I tried to load a version of boot windows, off of rescuedvd v8, I got the blue screen of death.

I think it is very clear that the hard drive is borked.

What should I do next to recover the data?

 

[daship]

Indeed it does sound like a borked hard drive. Theres nothing you can do besides pay a pro service $1000s to get your data maybe with no gaurantee. When you get going again learn to make backups of important things.

I use dropbox as a backup in conjunction with sync toy. When ever I change something in my must haves folder I run synctoy and it automatically syncs to my dropbox and my seperate hard drive. I always have 3 copys of what is important to me. I could loose 2 in a fire but the dropbox will always be safe.

 

[djscribbles]

I would try loading it up in a SATA->USB converter on a regular PC to see if the data is accessible, but if it killed your rescueDvd, it's likely that it's a dead drive.

Was it dropped or anything?

 

[aeven]

Hi daship,

Thanks for the tip. I have never used sync toy but I will definitely try that. When I said "my laptop", it was a bit of a fibb. It's actually my girlfriends laptop. Of course, it only has one partition on the hard drive.

On my desktop I use raid and dropbox... and on my laptop... well its more for showing client stuff so I don't put anything on there that isn't in my dropbox anyway. I agree, pre-emptive striking when it comes to data protection is the best way to go (as I have had many hard drives fail on me in the past).

So you don't think that there are any boot tools that might have the off chance of recovering anything?

 

[aeven]

I would try loading it up in a SATA->USB converter on a regular PC to see if the data is accessible, but if it killed your rescueDvd, it's likely that it's a dead drive.

Was it dropped or anything?

Like I was mentioning to daship, it was actually my girlfriends laptop. Who knows, she takes it everywhere with her in a backpack so its likely it experienced some trauma, lol.

Do laptop hard drives experience head crashes when they are on and you are moving them like desktop computers do?

 

[daship]

If you cant mount it in Linux it is toast.

 

[aeven]

If you cant mount it in Linux it is toast.

Thanks daship, you're a gentleman and a scholar. I don't like the answer to my question, but hey... what can you do >_<