Laptop won't boot after dropping it!

[Clariman]

I stumbled across this:

http://www.cambridgedatarecovery.co.uk/ ... -recovery/

£30 assessment. About £600 if they go ahead. A quick Google search suggested that it is not just a scam to get £30.

There is a more local firm who does this kind of stuff and also operates across the UK. The guy can't look at it for another 10 days or so. In the meantime, I need to consider how important the data is to me. There are some things which will be a nuisance to lose but nothing devastating. Having said that, as time moves on I might find there is something that I really wanted!

[UncleEbenezer]

I stumbled across this:

http://www.cambridgedatarecovery.co.uk/ ... -recovery/

£30 assessment. About £600 if they go ahead. A quick Google search suggested that it is not just a scam to get £30.

There is a more local firm who does this kind of stuff and also operates across the UK. The guy can't look at it for another 10 days or so. In the meantime, I need to consider how important the data is to me. There are some things which will be a nuisance to lose but nothing devastating. Having said that, as time moves on I might find there is something that I really wanted!

That's where your local informal geek is an advantage. You might, if you're lucky, be in the £30 (or equivalent in non-monetary value) ballpark for getting the job done.

[GeoffF100]

I stumbled across this:

http://www.cambridgedatarecovery.co.uk/ ... -recovery/

£30 assessment. About £600 if they go ahead. A quick Google search suggested that it is not just a scam to get £30.

There is a more local firm who does this kind of stuff and also operates across the UK. The guy can't look at it for another 10 days or so. In the meantime, I need to consider how important the data is to me. There are some things which will be a nuisance to lose but nothing devastating. Having said that, as time moves on I might find there is something that I really wanted!

That's where your local informal geek is an advantage. You might, if you're lucky, be in the £30 (or equivalent in non-monetary value) ballpark for getting the job done.

I think Clariman needs more than a local geek here. A clean room is needed to take the drive apart safely. A data recovery specialist should have one, but a local geek almost certainly will not.

[servodude]

I think Clariman needs more than a local geek here. A clean room is needed to take the drive apart safely. A data recovery specialist should have one, but a local geek almost certainly will not.

Possibly... but it's impossible to know without having a look.

There are a good few ways that a drive can be damaged that don't go down as far as the servo or data channel layers; and it's really only down there that you need "clean room" level stuff

And once you've decided it's lost data anyway it becomes a "nothing ventured nothing gained" exercise, and you can try to remove and reseat each part as you move inwards towards the platters and heads.

-sd

[Clariman]

Just to be clear, a local geek has looked at it and has tried multiple ways of accessing the drive and failed to get access to the data. He recommended a company who are coincidentally based in the city that I live in. They do the disassembling of hard drives.

[UncleEbenezer]

Just to be clear, a local geek has looked at it and has tried multiple ways of accessing the drive and failed to get access to the data. He recommended a company who are coincidentally based in the city that I live in. They do the disassembling of hard drives.

OK, that's clear. So it's serious money or goodbye. Apologies for the red herring suggestion.

[Breelander]

Just to be clear, a local geek has looked at it and has tried multiple ways of accessing the drive and failed to get access to the data. He recommended a company who are coincidentally based in the city that I live in. They do the disassembling of hard drives.

I wish you the best of luck and hope you get back the data you need.

Going forwards the lesson to be learned is to ensure you have a robust backup regime in place, or better still several. I have three:

A monthly system image to an external drive so that a working system can be restored in the event of a drive failure. Keep as many previous month's images as space permits. I use Macrium Reflect Free but other imaging software is available.

A weekly copy of my important documents to an external or network drive. I have written a batch file for this, but there is software available too (eg. Karen's Replicator).

As a third line of defence, I have File History turned on in Windows 10 and pointing to a History folder on a network drive.

[Clariman]

The final nail in the coffin for my hard drive...

I had someone disassemble my hard drive to try to get new heads to read it, but the old read heads were bent and there was debris and damage to disk. So can't be done.

Oh well. Luckily I had up to date backups of MS Money and some study research data and writing that I had done. My emails are on the IMAP servers, but for the rest I have to turn the clock back to 2017.

However I have lost some stuff forever.

C

[Mike4]

The final nail in the coffin for my hard drive...

I had someone disassemble my hard drive to try to get new heads to read it, but the old read heads were bent and there was debris and damage to disk. So can't be done.

Oh well. Luckily I had up to date backups of MS Money and some study research data and writing that I had done. My emails are on the IMAP servers, but for the rest I have to turn the clock back to 2017.

However I have lost some stuff forever.

C

Like you I had a haphazard backup strategy until about 2017. Haphazard mainly because I would think about it from time to time, aware of the importance, then take a manual backup. Then I'd worry about and research exactly how to get a more resilient system but real life would intervene and like you, I'd mostly fail to settle on any the many gold plated solutions freely available and actually implement one. At other times I'd be vaguely aware I HAD implemented something yonks ago, but now it was obsolete or I couldn't remember exactly what it was.

Now I know peeps here bristle when I mention my switch to Apple, but the way ALL my files are shared across all my Apple devices automatically without me ever having to do ANYTHING, seems to provide good protection against the sort of misfortune you have suffered. It is one of the many less obvious advantages of living inside the Apple ecosystem which suit me very well as a serious business end-user of computers who just needs them 'to work', rather than someone who likes or wants to spend any more time than absolutely necessary poking about under the bonnet of my computer and Dealing With Stuff.

I'm hoping and expecting that if I drop this lappy and bust the hard drive like yours got busted, all my files up to about five minutes ago would be present and available to continue using on my other lappy, and would magically re-appear on any new lappy I might buy to replace the busted one.

I'm not saying this to gloat, more to point out to visitors to this thread that this mirroring of my files was more or less foist upon me when I sold my soul to Apple, and I'm grateful to no longer have to worry about file back-up or even think about it.

[swill453]

I'm hoping and expecting that if I drop this lappy and bust the hard drive like yours got busted, all my files up to about five minutes ago would be present and available to continue using on my other lappy, and would magically re-appear on any new lappy I might buy to replace the busted one.

I'm fairly sure that you and/or Apple have this covered, but are you confident that if you accidentally delete a folder it won't immediately be deleted from all your other devices, never to be seen again?

Scott.

[Clariman]

The final nail in the coffin for my hard drive...

I had someone disassemble my hard drive to try to get new heads to read it, but the old read heads were bent and there was debris and damage to disk. So can't be done.

Oh well. Luckily I had up to date backups of MS Money and some study research data and writing that I had done. My emails are on the IMAP servers, but for the rest I have to turn the clock back to 2017.

However I have lost some stuff forever.

C

Like you I had a haphazard backup strategy until about 2017. Haphazard mainly because I would think about it from time to time, aware of the importance, then take a manual backup. Then I'd worry about and research exactly how to get a more resilient system but real life would intervene and like you, I'd mostly fail to settle on any the many gold plated solutions freely available and actually implement one. At other times I'd be vaguely aware I HAD implemented something yonks ago, but now it was obsolete or I couldn't remember exactly what it was.

Now I know peeps here bristle when I mention my switch to Apple, but the way ALL my files are shared across all my Apple devices automatically without me ever having to do ANYTHING, seems to provide good protection against the sort of misfortune you have suffered. It is one of the many less obvious advantages of living inside the Apple ecosystem which suit me very well as a serious business end-user of computers who just needs them 'to work', rather than someone who likes or wants to spend any more time than absolutely necessary poking about under the bonnet of my computer and Dealing With Stuff.

I'm hoping and expecting that if I drop this lappy and bust the hard drive like yours got busted, all my files up to about five minutes ago would be present and available to continue using on my other lappy, and would magically re-appear on any new lappy I might buy to replace the busted one.

I'm not saying this to gloat, more to point out to visitors to this thread that this mirroring of my files was more or less foist upon me when I sold my soul to Apple, and I'm grateful to no longer have to worry about file back-up or even think about it.

Mike

Yes that is almost exactly my experience. When I had a tower PC system, I had 2 hard drives in it and used Norton Ghost to do incremental backups during the day. After some deliberation about 18 months ago I decided to subscribe to MS Office for reasons of convenience and I wanted a cheap way of having MS Access database. However, one plus side of it is that I have access to OneDrive where I can store up to 1TB of data and Windows 10 can keep it automatically up to date and accessible from other devices. I didn't implement it, of course, because I didn't like the idea of my data being out there and didn't to be tied into MS ... but ... if I had ...

Clariman

[Mike4]

I'm hoping and expecting that if I drop this lappy and bust the hard drive like yours got busted, all my files up to about five minutes ago would be present and available to continue using on my other lappy, and would magically re-appear on any new lappy I might buy to replace the busted one.

I'm fairly sure that you and/or Apple have this covered, but are you confident that if you accidentally delete a folder it won't immediately be deleted from all your other devices, never to be seen again?

Scott.

Yes, it will be in the recycle bin for easy recovery.

Not that I am ever likely to delete a folder 'accidentally'. You should see the Apple file system interface! Broadly it conceals directories from the user, being more like a search function with files being sorted by type, name, date, or anything except where it actually resides, so deleting whole folders is near impossible.

But you do reveal two shortcoming in the Apple file system. If I fail to notice I've deleted a file, then yes it stays deleted. And the Apple file interface to someone accustomed to having files in directories, is a confusing mess.

[kyu66]

But you do reveal two shortcoming in the Apple file system. If I fail to notice I've deleted a file, then yes it stays deleted. And the Apple file interface to someone accustomed to having files in directories, is a confusing mess.

Hope you don't mind me butting in and apologies if teaching granny to suck eggs but wrt Mac Finder usage, i.e. searching etc then yes the 'helpful' gui can obscure where files are actually stored but it is simple to configure Finder to show you the folder structure etc just like Windows Explorer, Linux file manager etc.

https://www.macrumors.com/guide/top-tips-macos-finder/

kyu66

[GeoffF100]

The final nail in the coffin for my hard drive...

I had someone disassemble my hard drive to try to get new heads to read it, but the old read heads were bent and there was debris and damage to disk. So can't be done.

Oh well. Luckily I had up to date backups of MS Money and some study research data and writing that I had done. My emails are on the IMAP servers, but for the rest I have to turn the clock back to 2017.

However I have lost some stuff forever.

C

Like you I had a haphazard backup strategy until about 2017. Haphazard mainly because I would think about it from time to time, aware of the importance, then take a manual backup. Then I'd worry about and research exactly how to get a more resilient system but real life would intervene and like you, I'd mostly fail to settle on any the many gold plated solutions freely available and actually implement one. At other times I'd be vaguely aware I HAD implemented something yonks ago, but now it was obsolete or I couldn't remember exactly what it was.

Now I know peeps here bristle when I mention my switch to Apple, but the way ALL my files are shared across all my Apple devices automatically without me ever having to do ANYTHING, seems to provide good protection against the sort of misfortune you have suffered. It is one of the many less obvious advantages of living inside the Apple ecosystem which suit me very well as a serious business end-user of computers who just needs them 'to work', rather than someone who likes or wants to spend any more time than absolutely necessary poking about under the bonnet of my computer and Dealing With Stuff.

I'm hoping and expecting that if I drop this lappy and bust the hard drive like yours got busted, all my files up to about five minutes ago would be present and available to continue using on my other lappy, and would magically re-appear on any new lappy I might buy to replace the busted one.

I'm not saying this to gloat, more to point out to visitors to this thread that this mirroring of my files was more or less foist upon me when I sold my soul to Apple, and I'm grateful to no longer have to worry about file back-up or even think about it.

That service is not specific to Apple devices. You can easily mirror your data on the cloud across many machines running different operating systems. Here are some of the services that support Linux:

https://itsfoss.com/cloud-services-linux/

The only special feature of Apple is that it costs lots of money. Linux is free. Some of the cloud services are free up to a data limit (15 GB for Google). Dropbox only gives 2 GB, but has the best write up.

[Mike4]

That service is not specific to Apple devices. You can easily mirror your data on the cloud across many machines running different operating systems. Here are some of the services that support Linux:

https://itsfoss.com/cloud-services-linux/

The only special feature of Apple is that it costs lots of money. Linux is free. Some of the cloud services are free up to a data limit (15 GB for Google). Dropbox only gives 2 GB, but has the best write up.

Yes I appreciate that, but I think I'm not communicating the point I am making very well, which is that with Apple it all happens by default. I don't remember having to DO ANYTHING to set it up, it just happened. And Bingo, I could get on with running my business instead of having to mess about choosing a mirroring service, or installing and configuring it on the new computers. I know to you as an experienced Linux user it all seems easy but to me, who wants computers that work out-of-the box and who knows nothing about Linux or has any interest in learning, that sounds like a total and utter ball-ache to learn from the ground up.

Or are you saying if I install Linux on several machines, they all notice each other and sync the user files without having to be asked to, like happens with apple? Thereby a default file backup system exists right from the get-go with no user intervention required?

[mc2fool]

Yes I appreciate that, but I think I'm not communicating the point I am making very well, which is that with Apple it all happens by default. I don't remember having to DO ANYTHING to set it up, it just happened.

Really? You don't even have to enable it? So if you get a second Apple device it immediately and automatically, and without you knowing, starts using up its disk space with stuff you've got on your other device? I'd have pretty mixed feelings about that!

Don't misunderstand me, I think the capability is great; indeed, I have all of my personal folders and files mirrored and synced between my laptop and desktop (both running Windows), and selected folders and files up to my Android phone, but I set it up that way; I wouldn't want it to just do it, and to everything. What's the Apple service called?

BTW, you do not need Linux to use such services, and the likes of Google Drive, MS OneDrive, Sync.com, etc are very easy to set up and use and far from a total and utter ball-ache to learn from the ground up.

[Mike4]

Yes I appreciate that, but I think I'm not communicating the point I am making very well, which is that with Apple it all happens by default. I don't remember having to DO ANYTHING to set it up, it just happened.

Really? You don't even have to enable it? So if you get a second Apple device it immediately and automatically, and without you knowing, starts using up its disk space with stuff you've got on your other device? I'd have pretty mixed feelings about that!

Don't misunderstand me, I think the capability is great; indeed, I have all of my personal folders and files mirrored and synced between my laptop and desktop (both running Windows), and selected folders and files up to my Android phone, but I set it up that way; I wouldn't want it to just do it, and to everything. What's the Apple service called?

BTW, you do not need Linux to use such services, and the likes of Google Drive, MS OneDrive, Sync.com, etc are very easy to set up and use and far from a total and utter ball-ache to learn from the ground up.

As I said, I don't remember enabling it. I just noticed immediately all my files and photos from my phone were just 'there' on the new Apple laptop and desktop from new. Totally cool, I thought, and something I'd often wondered about doing on the Windows machine but like the OP, never got around to it. Which is the point I'm trying to make. With the Apple stuff I didn't need to get around to it. No matter how hard (or easy) it was going to be.

[mc2fool]

As I said, I don't remember enabling it. I just noticed immediately all my files and photos from my phone were just 'there' on the new Apple laptop and desktop from new. Totally cool, I thought, and something I'd often wondered about doing on the Windows machine but like the OP, never got around to it. Which is the point I'm trying to make. With the Apple stuff I didn't need to get around to it. No matter how hard (or easy) it was going to be.

No, with the Apple stuff it just inflicted it on you without getting your permission first, which is the point I'm trying to make! I do understand that in your case you were OK with it being "foist upon" you.

BTW, you say you "noticed immediately all my files and photos from my phone were just 'there'", but it's not clear from your description what's actually happening; you talked before about your files being shared across your devices (and you said ALL your files, not just those from your phone) but also talked about the mirroring of your files.

These two are different. Do you mean that the files and photos from your phone are copied down to your laptop and your desktop (mirroring), or do you mean they are held in cloud storage to which all your devices automatically have access and so can see them (shared)?

[scotia]

The final nail in the coffin for my hard drive...

I had someone disassemble my hard drive to try to get new heads to read it, but the old read heads were bent and there was debris and damage to disk. So can't be done.

Oh well. Luckily I had up to date backups of MS Money and some study research data and writing that I had done. My emails are on the IMAP servers, but for the rest I have to turn the clock back to 2017.

However I have lost some stuff forever.

C

I had a similar experience with a Lenovo Ideapad 305 - only it wasn't a fall that caused the problem, it was just the hard disk started to go faulty, and the Lenovo diagnostics reported the problem. Foolishly I used chkdsk with the fix attribute, and I no longer could access the disk. I had most of my important data backed up -but still lost some. I replaced the hard disk with a 1Tb SSD, and rebuilt Windows 10 from scratch. I then had to add all of the other system software, and personal data. This involved a fair amount of work. I'm glad I went for an SSD - it has improved the performance. But as other have suggested I now use Macrium Reflect (on both of my PCs) to keep image backups, so replacing a Hard Disk (or SSD) should be a much simpler task.

[Clariman]

The final nail in the coffin for my hard drive...

I had someone disassemble my hard drive to try to get new heads to read it, but the old read heads were bent and there was debris and damage to disk. So can't be done.

Oh well. Luckily I had up to date backups of MS Money and some study research data and writing that I had done. My emails are on the IMAP servers, but for the rest I have to turn the clock back to 2017.

However I have lost some stuff forever.

C

I had a similar experience with a Lenovo Ideapad 305 - only it wasn't a fall that caused the problem, it was just the hard disk started to go faulty, and the Lenovo diagnostics reported the problem. Foolishly I used chkdsk with the fix attribute, and I no longer could access the disk. I had most of my important data backed up -but still lost some. I replaced the hard disk with a 1Tb SSD, and rebuilt Windows 10 from scratch. I then had to add all of the other system software, and personal data. This involved a fair amount of work. I'm glad I went for an SSD - it has improved the performance. But as other have suggested I now use Macrium Reflect (on both of my PCs) to keep image backups, so replacing a Hard Disk (or SSD) should be a much simpler task.

I rebuilt Windows 10 a few days after the event happened, but had to wait for the PC guy to check out my old hard disk. In the meantime, I got MS Money up and running off a July backup - and consolidated all the backed up data I had from various memory sticks and the full 2017 backup. Having discovered yesterday that I won't get my 2020 data back, today I've worked through the consolidated backup data and rebuilt my C-drive from it. About half an hour ago I downloaded and installed Macrium Reflect. I'll get that going tomorrow to my external hard drive.

Clariman