Windows Won't load

[EnDLeSs]

So, my laptop is running on windows vista and for some reason today it decided not to boot up. So, I decided to head over to dell chat and figure out the problem. They say it is my hardrive and it needs to be replaced. They are sending me a new on in order to replace the faulty hard drive.

My question is do you know of a way I can get into the current hard drive and back up certain files on to a flash drive or a external hard drive? windows wont load at the furthest i get is the black screen with the vista loading bar on the start up.

[jlreich]

You can take out the drive from the laptop and hook it up to another system via USB with an adapter like this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156101) and get you files off of it.

[EnDLeSs]

You can take out the drive from the laptop and hook it up to another system via USB with an adapter like this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156101) and get you files off of it.

Are you sure this will work? Because, according to Dell Technicians, my hardrive is the reason why windows wont boot up correctly.

So if I take out the hard drive and hook it up to another system just like you said I would be able to get the files?

[Paul Komski]

the furthest i get is the black screen with the vista loading bar on the start up

If you get that far then the HDD may have errors (or not) but it is not yet necessarily caput (as you have been told) or you would not be able to access the drive at all.

You may well be able to simply copy/backup your files with Knoppix (link in my sig) directly to another drive although slaving it to another PC using an adapter, as already intimated, is a perfectly good way to progress.

If you can boot to the Vista DVD then it might be possible to repair the boot process or not but it could be worth a shot. If your data is very valuable then try and back it up before running any other utilities on it.

You could also try running the hard drive maker's diagnostic utility on the drive to see if you can differentiate between a drive with bad sectors (failing hardware) or a drive with just a corrupt file system or registry (failing software).

[toyota_scion_tc]

This may sound really stupid but I have had to do it on a faulty hard drive to get my data off, get a zip lock bag put the hdd inside it and stick it in the freezer for several minutes (this will only work if you hdd failure is due to heat). Then take it out and immediately try to copy your files over using external adapter. I had a bad hdd that temperature would cause it lockup and stop transferring data, this was the only way we were able to get around it.

[Paul Komski]

The "freezer trick" does occasionally work for a drive that cannot be accessed at all. That is not the case with the OP since Vista starts to load and it is certainly not indicated as things stand here. The freezer trick for a failed drive works not because a drive was overheating but because the cooling shrinks internal components and improves conductivity.

[jlreich]

So if I take out the hard drive and hook it up to another system just like you said I would be able to get the files?
There is no guarantee that you will be able to recover your files, but most likely you will be able to get most or all of them off of it in this fashion. If it is the drive that is bad, and Dell is usually pretty good with their diagnosis, the more you mess with it the less likely you are to recover files. So I would recommend as Paul said to try and recover your files first if they are important to you, then proceed with trying things like repairing windows.

If it makes you feel any better my wifes laptop is in the same boat, also a Dell. Been having some issues with it for awhile and had told here to backup her files to my computer over the network where I have a folder with Carbonite set to back it up off site. Fortunately most of her files are already backed up, but more recent photos and such are not yet.

Thought she had done this over last weekend so last night I went to make an image of the OS partition before running diagnostics and then was going to go ahead and call Dell, but the image program had problems reading from the hard drive, so I know it is most likely the drive. Went ahead and canceled the image and told her to try and back up here files but the system kept freezing. So I am going to pull the drive out this morning, hook it up with an adapter, and hopefully get the files off of it.

[jlreich]

Just got through with the recovery process. Was able to recover 95% or more of the files that were not already backed up. I believe the ones I couldn't get she can get them again it will just take a little work.

I tell her all the time to copy over important files to the off site folder immediately after she is done with them. If she had done this recovery would not even be on the table. I could have called Dell yesterday and would have a hard drive (and KB as well) tomorrow. But now I will call them tomorrow and will not get the drive until Monday.

[Paul Komski]

I tell her all the time to copy over important files to the off site folder immediately after she is done with them.Probably the main feature of my own backup philosophy is to automate backup as much as possible rather than rely on me remembering. Leaving aside RAID and image backup for their own specific uses, I find SyncbackSE (http://www.2brightsparks.com/syncback/sbse.html) absolutely invaluable. The free version is pretty darn good but the paid for one superb.

Thus I can arrange to automate backup on a schedule (via scheduled tasks) or by simply lurking in the background. Automated backup in response to the insertion of an external drive is another useful feature. Automated backup over a LAN or via FTP to a web server can also be organised.

Note the use of the word automated.

[jlreich]

You read my mind actually. She has been pretty good about doing it herself, but it's always the times that you don't do it that the drive decides to go down. :p

I have Carbonite on my system and it does it's work automatically or as in my case on a schedule that I setup at night from 1-7am so it doesn't suck bandwidth while everyone is active during the day. Only thing you have to keep in mind is it will not mark video files automatically for backup, so you have to make sure in each folder that option is ticked. Once you tick it it will do it auto from then on for anything in that folder.

Carbonite is rather cheap at $50 a year for unlimited storage. I currently have about 50GB stored off site. I may just buy another license to load on her system to keep things simple. But I may also try SyncbackSE to see how it goes loading over the network to the shared offsite backup folder on my system. If that works well it will save me $50. :)

[Paul Komski]

I have installed Syncback for a number of friends and small businesses either to have some hope of backup for those I know will never really do it regularly enough or just to make any daily backup an easy task. I am in the process of setting-up an FTP Linux server so that the same "clients" can automate their backups offsite to my own server. I have got to get the security aspects fully ironed-out and water-tight and then I hope we can start to rumba.

I know there is a lot of free web storage out there but its nice to be in control of ones own destiny. I am also thinking of putting an old box in an outhouse somewhere safe from fire/water/theft and backup other stuff there via wireless and away from the internet altogether.

[Fruss Tray Ted]

I am also thinking of putting an old box in an outhouse somewhere safe from fire/water/theft and backup other stuff

http://www.outhouseinc.com/outhouse_003.gif

I just wouldn't want to be the one responsible for 'digging it back up' ! :eek:

[jlreich]

I know there is a lot of free web storage out there but its nice to be in control of ones own destiny. I am also thinking of putting an old box in an outhouse somewhere safe from fire/water/theft and backup other stuff there via wireless and away from the internet altogether.
I have thought of something like that, but if I even think of adding another system in my house it had better be buried in the ground like FTT suggested or my wife would bury me. :p

The good news is after retrieving data I ran CHKDSK and am so far having success making an image without errors now. I know that the drive is bad and the bad sectors will continue to get worse, but if I can get a good image it will make my life much easier once I get the new drive. After I get the image I will run CHKDSK on the data partition and see if I can get the rest of the data that I was too corrupted the first go round.