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Laptop recovery

957 views 6 replies 2 participants last post by  oliverb 
#1 ·
My (Vista) Dell laptop expired recently (BSOD). I have tried repairing Windows, but this did not succeed. Dell format a single HDD into a recovery partition and a main partition. The recovery option sounds promising if I knew what to do with it. I don't.
I would most like to get my user data off the HDD. My User is password protected, which is not a problem when Windows works on the laptop.
I have tried installing the HDD from another Dell laptop as the boot drive - this resulted in a new BSOD.The laptop allows for 2 HDDs.
As the HDD I am trying to access is in SATA format, I next tried installing it in a desktop as an additional drive. The desktop picks it up fine as Drive D: and Drive E: (Dell's Recovery drive). E: is fully accessible. D: reports it is not accessible.

Well that is quite a good security feature as it stops unauthorised folk taking the HDD out of a laptop and reading the contents. Unfortunately, that is what I (validly) want to do. There is no option to make the drive readable by entering my user password. What options do I have?

Regards
 
#3 ·
This looked initially very promising. I went through the recommended steps and checked the box for "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects". I was not prompted at any stage for a password. Windows flashed through every file on the drive changing the permissions to me (I have full administrator privileges on my own desktop). I suppose the process took about 5 minutes. When it completed I got a message saying that if I had just taken ownership... I would need to close the object's (D drive) properties and then re-open it. I did that, but when I tried to access D:, again I got the message Drive D: is not accessible. Access is denied.
When I look at the map of the Drive's properties, it shows the drive as solid blue (i.e. fully used) but reports the used space as 0 bytes, the unused space as 0 bytes and the capacity as 0 bytes, so I'd guess it does not want to tell me anything about the drive at all.
 
#4 ·
Well if we are going to move to troubleshoot the hard drive itself then I need to know what I am working with Make Model Capacity. Run hddscan click the smart button and SAVE an IMAGE as a .jpg and post the IMAGE NOT TEXT of the SMART stats back here to check the "health" of the drive.
 
#5 ·
Thanks again. I downloaded and ran HDDSCAN as Administrator from within the zipfile (there appears to be no "installation" option). I have attached a screendump of the result. This identifies the drive as a WD Scorpio 250GB - you can see the full detail on the attachment. I have included the SMART record in the result.
Regards
 

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#6 ·
The hddscan download is a zip archive you have to right click it to unzip it. However the yellow SMART warnings are indicating the drive is failing. The bad sectors "may" be right in the folder area your attempting to access.

Lets try this approach

Try this tool FTK Imager Light download it add the drive as evidence then drill down and get to the folder you want and EXPORT to another drive the files you want.
AccessData Product Support Downloads
 
#7 ·
I had a breakthrough just now. Opening my desktop in Safe Mode seems to allow me to access the laptop drive, which regular mode would not. So I am in process of copying as much stuff as I can get off the laptop drive onto an external HDD as I write this. I do not know why Safe Mode should work in this respect but regular not, but it does seem to be working. Fingers crossed.

I shall have a closer look at your suggestion later (and in any event if this falls over.
Regards
 
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