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Laptop HDD not readingFollow

#1 Aug 17 2008 at 11:34 AM Rating: Decent
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Recently my laptop has stopped reading my harddrive. I closed it to put it into hybernation like I always do for the night and the next morning it wouldn't wake up. It told me that no bootable devices could be found, meaning that the hard drive doesn't exist according to the bios. I confirmed this by checking the bios and it reads as recognizing no harddrive.

I hae about 56 unique gigs of music on it as well as about 10 gigs of various games and videos and I really don't want to lose it.

I tried slaving the laptop HD to my desktop HD by means of using a different port in the harddrive bays, but the connectors were not compatible (I believe my desktop uses IDE conectors and a 4 pin power supply) the laptop harddrive normally just plugs into the side and it wouldn't fit into the IDE connector. I'd rather not lose all my data.

Is there a diagnostic someone can recommend? Can someone diagnose the problem perhaps with more information? If it's hosed is there a way I can recover the data by finding out what connector the laptop uses.

Laptop is a 4 year old del inspiron by the way, 4000 series iirc.

Thanks
#2 Aug 17 2008 at 4:10 PM Rating: Excellent
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Greetings Pensive,

If it's an Inspiron 4000 series from about four years ago, then the hard drive "should" be IDE. Taking it out and plugging into your regular computer was a decent enough idea. Can you tell me what the hard drive model is, and the exact model of the laptop? Your hard drive may be hosed, but if we can get it hooked up to another computer, it may be part of the connection to the laptop that is causing a problem.

Regards,
Berek
#3 Aug 17 2008 at 4:58 PM Rating: Decent
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Hi, and thanks.

I was off by 2000. It's actually an inspiron 6000.

I'm leaning towards it just being some connector screwup or something. I don't really need the laptop but it would be great to transfer it to a portable or something.

Lets see, looking at the harddrive now.

Hitachi "Travelstar tm"

Model: HTS54160G9AT00

The connector looks like a single row of pins, but they are melded together, meaning they insert inso a single slot rather than a row of pin holders. The power supply looks like a 4 pin connector, very small. I'm not super great with computers but I don't believe that the connector is sata either. Maybe it's just some form of ide that I don't know of or... something.
#4 Aug 17 2008 at 7:01 PM Rating: Good
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Download a Knoppix ISO file. Boot your laptop with it. Unless the drive itself is toast, you should be able to copy your data off of it. Your HD sounds like it's a SATA drive.

Edited, Aug 17th 2008 11:42pm by Kastigir
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#5 Aug 17 2008 at 7:19 PM Rating: Decent
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That is a SATA drive, hard to think it went bad so soon but I have seen stranger things happen.

Knoppix is a great idea to test your hardware.

You can also boot into your BIOS (Usually F1 or DEL) and check to see if you BIOS will see that drive.

If all else fails you can pick a cheap SATA drive usually to test it (or know someone who has one).
#6 Aug 17 2008 at 9:28 PM Rating: Decent
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see my destop is an ide I guess the inspiron 6000 had a sata drive after all. Whoo boy what are my options here...

Find a computer with sata

@#%^ing it my destop HD finally filled up its oh so large 60 GB drive maybe i should just buyld a cheap new computer with SATA and slave the desktop IDE slave boot with linux and make sure eerything works then boot to drive with winxp

CVould sort of merge all of the best things from both systems into a sweet new one.

Or I could just buy a SATA drive,,, damn I have to think about this

Quote:
Download a Knoppix ISO file. Boot your laptop with it. Unless the drive itself is toast, you should be able to copy your data off of it. Your HD sounds like it's a SATA drive.


Will do how do i boot from the iso filed? Do i burn to disc? Will that run a diagnostic?
Quote:


Personal flaw. I was playing ninja ******* gaiden II (hard ************* *****) and might have closed the panel a might touch harder than normal. I just want to see if I can salvage some stuff

That is a SATA drive, hard to think it went bad so soon but I have seen stranger things happen.


Edited, Aug 18th 2008 1:27am by Pensive
#7 Aug 18 2008 at 8:02 AM Rating: Decent
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Kids:


I confirmed this by checking the bios and it reads as recognizing no harddrive.


Knoppix isn't a new bios. If the bios can't see the HD, the OS won't matter.

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#8 Oct 26 2010 at 12:44 AM Rating: Default
you better consult it with
a computer technicians..
Necro Warning: This post occurred more than thirty days after the prior, and may be a necropost.
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