Thinkpad T30 HDD data recovery

[thinkxplx]

My thinkpad T30 HDD with XP Pro loaded wont boot and I need to recover data before I reformat the drive.
How do I do that ? Best buy offers data recovery for $100 which I find very expensive. Would appreciate any help. Thanks in advance.

[stts]

Welcome to the forum, now are you capable of taking drives in and out of a laptop? You can get an adapter for under $10 and add the laptop drive as a second drive to your desktop pc. Then boot your desktop and see if the drive shows up as D drive. Then you can copy all the data or even run diagnostics on it to fix it from common coruption problems.

[wiseleo]

If $100 is expensive... *sigh*... the data must be really worthless. Even if I were to help you, the cost of materials will certainly exceed your budget. I'd have you buy a backup drive, buy a new main drive, make a bootable CD, make a sector-level copy of the failed drive, and only after that start telling you how to get that data back.

Tell us the symptoms of "wont boot".

If the drive is not recognized in BIOS, you will have a different challenge. The case where the system simply reboots endlessly while trying to boot Windows is easier unless physical damage is involved.

No one that I would suggest to look at your drive offers data recovery at $100. Best Buy is not a data recovery company. And they will charge you that fee for diagnostic, not the actual recovery. We can only hope their diagnostic does not cause further harm.

While there are relatively easy ways to fix minor problems with corrupt partition tables, we don't use those ways without having a sector-level backup as a matter of policy. There is simply no way to undo the damage if something goes wrong by using one of those utilities. After we have such a backup, we do use those utilities.

Oh, and I'd estimate your material costs at $200. A couple of new hard disks, screwdrivers capable of removing them without stripping heads, other misc items.

[thinkxplx]

Wiseleo : Thank you for your suggestions. My ibm thinkpad reboots endlessly while trying to boot Windows XP pro. When I tried booting in safe mode , xp stops while loading agp440.sys driver and reboots. I dont have recovery CD's. I have been trying to use recovery software like bartpe / Gparted and was able to read the d drive. I will buy an adaptor and try recovering the data using my deskptop. I am not hardware guy. However I know how to remove hard drive from my laptop and would be comfortable tinkering with my laptop. What adaptor should I purchase. the hdd in my laptop is 2.5". Appreciate your help

[thinkxplx]

stts: I think your suggestion is the first one I am going to try out. What adaptor should I buy?

[rchadwick]

Fortunately, this doesn't sound like a real 'Data Recovery' issue, only files locked up in a boot drive that won't boot. There are many possibilities, and range from free to $50 or so, depending on what tools you might already have, your computer situation, etc. If you have access to a second computer, you could make a bootable CD with knoppix or ultimate boot CD for windows, plug in an external drive, boot to the CD, and just copy everything to the external drive. Or, put the drive in another computer as a slave, and just copy your data off. You can also use a USB-IDE adapter, they are cheap on fleabay. Either way, you will need a place to store the files, other than the original drive.

Although your drive is likely good, there is a chance it's bad. Work quickly, as dying drives don't get better over time.

Also, the 'data recovery' best buy offers is pretty much exactly what I described above. Statistically, you are better off with a random name out of the phone book, instead of geek squad. If you need real data recovery, it starts at $500 for an easy problem, and goes way up from there.

[jono-ats]

Often this booting problem can be fixed by hooking up the drive as a slave or in an external enclosure (assuming that it mounts in that configuration).

First make a clone of the drive if you are able.

Select the icon of the bad drive; right click to get Properties, and then select the Tools sub-menu. Click both repair options for the drive.

Jon

[thinkxplx]

If you have access to a second computer, you could make a bootable CD with knoppix or ultimate boot CD for windows, plug in an external drive, boot to the CD, and just copy everything to the external drive. Or, put the drive in another computer as a slave, and just copy your data off. You can also use a USB-IDE adapter, they are cheap on fleabay. Either way, you will need a place to store the files, other than the original drive.

I bought an adaptor, hooked up the crashed hdd as a external drive on another laptop. I am able to see a partition which has Partition- Magic installed. But the C drive of the crashed hdd is not visible. What do I do next? Pls advice.

Last edited by thinkxplx on August 16th, 2008, 19:02, edited 1 time in total.

[bnice]

agp440.sys - nvidia graphics driver.

Suggestion.
Boot into safe mode using F8 at boot. Select load without drivers, to fix it there.

[thinkxplx]

agp440.sys - nvidia graphics driver.

Suggestion.
Boot into safe mode using F8 at boot. Select load without drivers, to fix it there.

I dont think I saw an option to load w/o drivers. There is a Safe mode / Safe mode with Networking / Last known good configuration and Normal mode

[thinkxplx]

All boot options end up rebooting the laptop when the os reaches a point where its loading agp440sys.

[stts]

Hey Thinkxplx

The adapter. The easiest one is this from Radio Shack.

http://www.radioshack.com/product/index ... age=search

The way I deal with drive corruptions is this. I stop what I am doing and put drive in a seperate pc with plenty of free drive space. If the drive is recognized in the BIOS at startup, I then boot windows and run a piece of software called GETDATABACK. This software does not fix the drive, it takes a long look at the drive and makes a list of all the files trapped on it. After several hours, when it is finally done looking, it then lets you copy all the files it found to another drive. Thus you have rescued your data. I do this before any attempt at fixing drives because fixes can often times make things worse.

Here is their website

http://www.runtime.org

and you can download a copy to use free for 30days. If you want then you can buy it. But this is the software most "PROS" use for most file corruption problems they charge big for. Its safe, easy to use, and very effective. When you save your files, then you can try to fix the corruptions or just start over if that is your choice.

This will get you started so post back if you need more help.

[pepe]

Hi,

with the trial of GDB u cannot save files, just do the scan and check the folder structure...

pepe

[stts]

Hah, well thats unfortunate. But at least with the trial, you can determine for sure which version you need and then they want $79.

It is also available free on Emule, as is everything else, if you want to go that route. That way you can try it out completely and if it saves all your files, you can then send them their price knowing you spent your money wisely.

But you know, this is a very good program for not much money so I would have to say its well worth it. My emule temp file frequantly trashes the drive as it runs 24/7 year after year DLing movies, and I get it all back with that one piece of software.

[rchadwick]

You could also do an in-place install of Windows, or use VGA mode if that works. An in-place install of windows (Don't format, just install windows over the old, broken copy) frequently fixes things enough to boot up.

[hddguy]

What is wrong with booting from Win XP CD and loading 'Recovery Console' and repairing from there? Worst case is that you need to restore all registry files from 'Repair' folder into 'Windows\System32\Config' folder and drivers and software may need reinstallation. But data will be accessible

[wiseleo]

I wrote up a process for this.

Hopefully others won't be too upset for giving people a way to solve about 90% of HD-related problems.

http://techsupportforum.com/hardware-su ... ost1604447

You will also want this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6812104062 (optional if you use an external drive plugged into the other card, but it's very useful thing) and this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6839328001 (optional, but a nifty thing to have to get USB 2.0 speed on a 1.1 laptop)

I have not tested the PCMCIA USB card with that CD, but it should work. Otherwise, things will be simply much slower with your built-in USB ports.

If you follow it, the problem will probably be resolved like it never happened. Do not attempt any shortcuts. You will need 2 new drives for this to complete.

You will spend some money, but the laptop will run like new, or actually faster. The only thing better would be to use a hardware disk imager, but this should do the trick in your case.

Any PATA drive up to 120GB should work.

And yes, I'd charge you a few hundred dollars for running through this.

[thinkxplx]

I wrote up a process for this.

Hopefully others won't be too upset for giving people a way to solve about 90% of HD-related problems.

http://techsupportforum.com/hardware-su ... ost1604447

Wiseleo: Thanks very much for sharing this info. My attempts to access the data using a hdd encloser kit has not been successful. So onto the next step. I read the article and it seems to be pretty straight forward. One thing that concerns me is how hot my laptop gets when I try booting from CD ( I tried using gparted/BartPC/Ubunutu etc.) The laptop used to be very cool earlier. If I have to leave the laptop on overnight to create and image, I am sure it will get roasted. [ I can use a table fan to keep it cool... But I thought it was unusual for the laptop to get *so* hot.]

[thinkxplx]

What is wrong with booting from Win XP CD and loading 'Recovery Console' and repairing from there? Worst case is that you need to restore all registry files from 'Repair' folder into 'Windows\System32\Config' folder and drivers and software may need reinstallation. But data will be accessible

hddguy : I dont have an xp oem or a recovery cd. After I recover the data, I will switch to ubuntu.

[rchadwick]

Something doesn't sound right that it gets that hot. Perhaps there was a utility in Windows that forced the fan to turn on more frequently, or perhaps the bootable CD's use more CPU cycles for some reason. You can try going into the BIOS. I don't remember specifically on the T30, but there may be a fan option. Obviously adjust for max cooling. It might also be helpful to tip the laptop on it's side, allowing the heat to rise out the side vent. You should try to either find the problem, or make sure it's kept cool. If there's a problem, it's easy to fry the CPU. The heat isn't exactly good for the drive either.