Coffee And Laptops Dont Mix

[Crash]

It looks like an insurance claim. I hoped that I could recover the data off it by using a SATA-USB adapter The drive spins up but windows wants to format it and Ubuntu cant see it. Ubuntu can se a usb stick but fails to see the drive. .Any ideas? or am I stuffed

[FoolTrottel]

Could it be the drive was on Sata-native mode in the laptop originally?

If your Sata-USB adapter can't handle that... then this could be the result.

Later driver for the adaoter? Or will windows need a driver for it?

[Whacker]

First question is did you put hardware encryption on the hdd? My Lenovo work laptop has that option for a bios hard drive password that can only be recovered by the factory if you ever lose or forget it. Did you ever use software drive level encryption? For example, PGP Desktop or Truecrypt? I almost forgot that I had Truecrypt on a drive once, went to destroy it before I remembered at the last second.

Second question is what kind of adapter is it? I've used two in my life and one wasn't worth a crap, the one one has worked wonderful but a few misses. If you can't get the adapter to work, you could always go and get one of those full external HDD enclosures. I use Vantec, and have found they work 100% of the time with recoverable drives.

[Jabo]

send me the drive if you like, I'll have a go at pulling the data off it for you...

Jabo

[Crash]

Thanks for the feedback I realised that linux didnt work because its 32 bit so I am downloading a 64 bit iso and will try that. my other laptop sees the drive but as its 32 bit xp it wont work it did see the drive as a 500gig samsung so I am hopefull.

[Crash]

64 bit ubuntu didnt work

The drive is not encrypted on the usb adapter worked on a couple of my old drives. Freakin puters.

[FoolTrottel]

What brand/model is that USB adapter?

What brand/model is the laptop?

What OS was running on it?

[Crash]

Hi FT

1 Dynamode USB 2

2 Samsung S3 2.1 ghz

3 Win7 64 bit

[FoolTrottel]

Can't confirm/prove it by using manuals / documentation on the laptop, but I still suspect Sata Native mode/ACHI vs. Sata-IDE mode as the cause of this.

See here: Sata on Wiki

Not sure whether hooking up the usb adapter to a Win7 system will work, there is a chance...

[Crash]

Thanks for the help guys. I plugged it into my big computer and the drive is fine. I have copied my digicam stuff and some other downloads onto a spare partition. I cant copy the My Documents folder because it points to the C drive on my gaming rig. Might give Ubuntu another go and do it that way. Does FireFox/Thunderbird keep anything in other folders? I have copied Mozilla from program data.

[FoolTrottel]

I cant copy the My Documents folder because it points to the C drive on my gaming rig.

You should be able to browse the disk to [drive:]\Documents and Settings\<username>\ but you probably have to use the security tab to assign yourself access rights to those files.

[B16Enk]

All you need if you want the whole drive backed up:

http://drivesnapshot.de/en/index.htm

Works 100% until 30 days has elapsed, then it will only mount or recover.

You can create an exact image of the drive, and then open the image (mount it) as a folder and copy what you need from it.

When a replacement drive comes you can then restore the image to the new drive (if it comes with one) and all we be as it was.

[Crash]

I used Ubuntu to copy the application Data for Tbird and fireFox as well as my download folder so if the lappy cant be fixed they can send me the old drive in a caddy and I will then have a portable 500 gig backup which I am sure that I will forget to use