ANSWERS : Technology

i own a no-brand laptop, but as the recharging port snapped, it was taken apart, replaced and put back together. now it won't turn on
it registers that it is being charged but won't turn on
i have about 100 pages of stuff that is really really really  important to me on it and it'll kill me to lose it, what can i do????
is the battery just dead and needs replacing or is my laptop done for
is there something i can do about it or just send it to data retrieval?????

thanks
bye

Comments

[framistan]

Go to a local television repair shop. See if they can hard-wire your power supply directly to the laptop circuit board where the connector broke off. This will bypass the male and the female plug, but will get the laptop working again most likely. Very likely, whoever repaired the broken charger-port did something slightly wrong... possibly he neglected to re-attach a broken foil-trace on the board... or possibly the board has a small crack in it where the damage occured and this crack must have the traces repaired by bridging solder across the cracks. The tv repair shop should be able to handle this easily if the PC is repairable, and i dont think they will charge you much. If this doesn't fix it, then moving the hard drive to another computer would be the next choice. If you get it working, do an immediate backup of things you cant afford to loose so this doesn't happen again.

[AussieAnglerGal]

ok, thanks a lot framistan

[thegeeke]

Well, there are a couple different things that could have happened. It sounds like there isn't any problems with the hard drive itself, so the safest way to get your data would be to physically transfer the hard drive to another laptop. If you take the hard drive that came with the new laptop out and just use your old hard drive, it should operate just like your old computer. However, if the hard drive is damaged, then you need to hire a data recovery shop. (And I don't mean your local geek squad.) Data recovery is not something you want a DIY approach to if you really value the data.

That being said, learn from this experience. I just made up a saying: "A backup is worth a thousand geeks..." (or something like that...) ;)
Understand that as a consumer, you probably only need one or two backups of your files, but I recommend two. I used to do data recovery for a living, but I still have 5 backups of my data... which is quite a bit considering I have over 7 TB of data not including backups. There is no substitute for a good backup.

[canucksgirl]

+1 "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure". ;)

[thegeeke]

And you can never have too many! (I wonder how many more sayings we can come up with about backups???) ;)

[canucksgirl]

lol... we'll see how many more questions like this are asked. I'd bet we can come up with a new one for each question. ;)

[thegeeke]

Probably! :)

[AussieAnglerGal]

Wow thanks everyone, its all such great help. i will get back to you on how it went

many thanks!!!!

[canucksgirl]

Any solution is going to cost you some money. If you're only worried about the data, and not the laptop itself, then I would get a quote from a few computer repair shops as they can get at the HD and get the data off without any further problems. If you can get someone to do this cheaper than buying an external HD case, it might be your best option.

[nurdee1]

Ok there are several things you can try.

If you have another computer you can try these things.

1: but an external hard drive enclosure. This is basically a case that contains an interface that allows you to connect a hard drive to a computer through a USB port. You just unscrew the case and plug in your hard drive. This will only work if your hard drive is one of the newer serial drives. Serial drives have two small flat connectors.

2: Alterntatively if you have an older parralel hard drive you can do this. Find 3.5 inch to 2 inch adapter this is a little plug that allows you to plug in your laptop drive and then connect it to your computer internally.

If you use either of these choices then you can acces your data from the other computer that you plugged your laptop hard drive into.

If you don't have another computer you caould try using a bootable linux like Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux. I have used Puppy Linux with very good success. However if your computer doesn't turn on at all this isn't going to work.

It would really help if I could get my hands on the laptop or atleast the hard drive. But since you are in the "land down under" I don't think that is going to happen.

If you can give me some more info I can help you more. You can recpond to this or PM me.

Hope this helps

Good Luck

[Vyger]

Like the others have said you can recover information from the hard drive. But there could be a problem depending on the operating system and how it has been set up.
If its Windows XP then there is no problem.
If its Windows Vista or Windows 7, the data in your user file might be encrypted. That could be a big problem. It all depends on how it was set up on the laptop.

How old is the laptop? The age of it would be the determining factor as to whether it is worth fixing. Why it won't turn on could be a lot of different things. That is something that only a hands on examination would be able to pinpoint since it is pretty clear its a hardware issue.

If the data files are encrypted there is still a way to recover them but its a little more complicated. You would need to find a computer that is similar to yours, the closer the better, and put the hard drive in it and then boot from it. It will find different hardware and possible even need to be activated again but if it boots up then the windows system will be able to get into the encrypted files. You have to boot with the OS that did the encryption in order for it to read the files.

[Nostalgic Guy]

I can't help regarding the laptop without actually seeing it but providing you know where your data is on the drive then you should be able to retrieve it.
I have done this many times with both desktop machines & laptops all you need is an external drive enclosure; if you don't know already you will have to check whether you have an IDE or SATA drive & pick up an enclosure to suit, USB drive enclosures can be obtained online for just a few pounds I bought an SATA one recently for about £4.50 & it works perfectly fine.
Take the drive out of your laptop, if you don't know how ask a techy type friend to help out, install the drive in your enclosure & plug it into the USB port of another machine; navigate via My Computer to the relevant folder & copy it & all its content to either the host machine or another external device such as a flash drive.
Most importantly LEARN BY THE EXPERIENCE, if anything on your machine is "Really really really important" then you should back it up to another machine or some other device so in the event of terminal failure or loss you still have a copy.
Hope this helps.
N.G.

[blkhawk]

First of all, don't panic! There is a way that you can retrieve the information of your hard drive but it will require buying some extra hardware. Assuming that your hard drive is functional, you need to buy an external hard drive enclosure. You might have to spend US$ 40.00. Remove the hard drive of your disabled computer and put it inside the enclosure. Connect the external hard drive to a working computer and you will be able to retrieve your files. I hope this helps.

[keydogstony]

Not sure about your power issue, but as long as the hard drive is still good, no worries. You would just need a External USB Drive enclosure to  recover your important stuff.