Thread: Need Computer Help

Well lately my laptop has been giving me a bit of a fit. Adding/Removing programs would cause a blue screen of death for instance. Its an Averatec laptop, 17" screen, AMD 1.8 ghz processor, 1.5 gb DDR, 80 gig HDD, etc, etc.

Well I use it a lot for my business and do all my invoicing and inventory and stuff like that on it. I have to external drives that I use to back up stuff to. A maxtor 120gb portable USB drive and a Seagate 250 gb USB portable desktop drive.

Over the weekend I had a few more issues with the blue screens so I decided to back up everything and reformat the drive and start clean. So I backed up all my invoicing and inventory stuff to the Seagate drive. Also included in the back up wall all of my Grand Prix how to's information, documents, electrical stuff, you name it. About 5 - 6 gigs of stuff in that alone. As well was all my stuff for the GPF screensaver, my email, etc. You name it, it was backed up on that drive.

Well, I didnt realize it or either didnt give it much thought but the Seagate drive was left connected to my USB port.

So I formated the drive and because I had a partition on my laptop drive, one NTFS and one FAT32 I had to break out my Linux stuff and use Parted Magic to clear the partition and unify the drive.

Well in none of this work did ever the Seagate drive show up so I know for FACT I never touched that drive in any of the formatting or the removing of the partition on the laptop drive.

So I get windows loaded back up and probably two hours or better later all of the windows update done (on high speed no less). So I hook the Seagate drive back up, I hear the computer recognize the connection and I see the little balloon messages pop up saying its a mass storage device and so on. But nothing shows up in Windows Explorer.

Well I go to computer properties and then manage, where you can set drive letters and stuff like that. Well the drive is there, its given the letter E but its not showing up in explorer. Well one thing leads to another and I finally get it to show up in explorer. I click on the drive and its telling me the drive needs to be formatted, it doesnt recognize the file structure. Which of course I dont do.

I try the wifes laptop, same thing. I hook it up to my desktop PC, same thing. So somehow, I have no clue how, but it seems the drive has either been corrupted or something. I did finally get a glimpse at what file structure it has and its showing as RAW, as opposed to FAT32, NTFS, etc.

Well, that hard drive has TONS of critical stuff I need, not the least of which is all my invoicing stuff. Fortunately I printed out all the reports and stuff I need for the 2007 year so I can get the taxes done, but I still need all that data back along with everything else.

So, are there any computer experts out there that can suggest something I can use? I prefer open source software or at least free, but if I must, I'll buy a commercial solution, though not my preference.

I have really got to get the data off that drive, so any help would be much appreciated.

Have you tried pulling the drive and attaching one of the laptop connectors to USB or an IDE cable to your desktop to see if you are able to get the data off? That is one suggestion. And IF you are able to do that? Then see if you can use your Desktop system to format the drive once ALL your data has been backed up and accounted for.

They sell those laptop to IDE adapters at Best Buy and most other computer stores. The USB ones are kinda neat in their own right, I used them many a time on the laptops at my old job. Makes life a lot easier. Sounds like maybe either your USB ports on the laptop are failing or one of your external drives might be going out.

I would pull the laptop's HD and connect it via the laptop to IDE or UBS connection device and then copy your data to your desktop system. Just to make sure its one of your externals.

Just a thought or two on that one If you want? Call me up to discuss it? I will PM ya my cell number.

Got your message, thank you for the help.

However, the USB drive (the Seagate 250gb) is an external drive and the one that has the data on it I need to recover. The drive in the laptop is fine and I have windows loaded on it and a few other things. I even have a spare laptop drive if it were needed, though considerably smaller than the one in there.

I just need to get the data off the external USB drive and it shows the same thing no matter what computer I hook it up to.

If that is the case? I would simply take the HD out of the external casing and using different IDE cables or SATA cables (if the HD is SATA equipped) and then plug power in from your PS off your desktop system and see if it will reach that? There might be an issue with the external's cabling or dataport within.

Just another thought

Nope its not that. I downloaded a program called File Recovery for Windows and it sees the External drive and Ive got it running a recovery routine on it. However I bet its gonna take the better part of a day if not longer to complete. Its been running now for almost two hours and it bet it hasnt finished scanning 1% of the drive.

yeah, sorry to hear about this, but I deffinetly With above, remover the external from its case(its just a regular 3.5 in drive in there 99% of the time) and hook it into your desktop PC, also there may be data restoration programs available, I've even seen windows try to repair a corrupt drive..... If you put the drive in your pc, make sure the jumper is correct.....

It would work 100x faster in the pc than via usb

If all else fails? Freeze it

Thank you both for the ideas. Geddy, Im completely comfortable cryo treating car stuff, but Ive never done computer stuff, but an interesting idea though.

My recovery program is still running. Its been running now for the better part of 12 hours it might be a stretch to say its 25% complete at this point. Right now Im in hiatus on my laptop until I can get that data off because it has my email and my business back up data.

Also on that drive is a list of all the software I had installed. A lot of it open source, but I dont remember it all. Ive installed all that I can recall having but I need that list as well so that I can get all the software back I had. That list had information, links, names, etc.

Anyway, we'll see how the file recovery goes first and go from there.

Oh, let me ask this. Does anyone out there use any type of open source invoicing/inventory software? I dont even mind it being web based as I can set up a test server on my laptop to run everything. I just need a really good, free if possible, open source set up. Im tired of paying for commercial solutions.

if that doesnt work. I can only add....a sledge hammer

Originally Posted by UR LOSN

if that doesnt work. I can only add....a sledge hammer

Screw that. I'll wedge that sucker in my differential and I'll have a new limited slip diff. You aint seen pan shavings before like will happen if I cant recover this drive.

Archemedes, I will surely post up anything I find. You would think that there would be more solutions out there with as wide slung as the open source world is.

A full 48 hours later and File Recovery for Windows is STILL scanning my drive, its about 75% done and Im hoping it will be done sometime tomorrow so I can finally see what it has found.

Though late on Sunday I started the process then and it ran through the night, but I stopped it Monday morning because of the storms. I didnt want the thing to take a hit and ruin it for good. But even then it had scanned maybe 10% of the drive and when I stopped it, it had found some of my files and stuff. So hopefully once its completely done I'll be able to reclaim everything.

72 hours and it looks like the process is nearly done. Should, in fact be done any minute. I never knew scanning the drive would take this long, good GRIEF!!

Originally Posted by SyntheticShield

72 hours and it looks like the process is nearly done. Should, in fact be done any minute. I never knew scanning the drive would take this long, good GRIEF!!

On a properly working HD? You are CORRECT it SHOULD NOT take that long. It is obvious that poor HD has some serious issues to take that long for a scan. Are you leaving it sit in the extrenal drive? I personally would at least take the case off to let it cool down. Its probably roasting in there after all that scanning

That is why I shy away from extrenal HD's. Most of the casings offer inadequate cooling and severly limit the life of the HD cause of it.

I think it is more of the fact it is a USB 2.0 device hooked up to a 8 year old desktop USB 1.0 port. But the process is finally complete and it looks like found everything I had on there and I have been able to pull it off the drive and move it to one of my internal drives on the desktop.

I should have ran the scan from my laptop since it is equipped with USB 2.0 and it probably would have went much quicker. Nonetheless, Im glad it is done and it appears I have all my files back. So now Im in the process of formatting the drive so that I can move all the files back to it and pick up where I left off several days ago.

And backup to a dedicated internal drive as well so this doesn't happen again. External drives are touchy, in my experience. A dedicated internal drive is what you want, and you can move it between PCs if its ever needed. Don't put all your eggs in one basic. Make plenty of copies of those eggs.

I have one drive in the top of the closet that I put in once every few weeks. Back up all important data, and then return it to its electrostatic wrapping in bubble wrap in a shoe box.

Glad you got it all, though.

I'm planning on a RAID 5 in a dedicated machine, but that may be a little while.

I have a portable USB drive that I carry with me just about everywhere since its USB powered as well and Im going to back up my stuff to that. The internal drives on my laptop are between (3 IDE hard drives) 6 - 8 years old and Im not too sure I want to rely on them for back ups at this point. But the plan is to replace that desktop here soon and go to a Storage Area Network set up.