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Question

HDD crashed on laptop. Need Help

Apr 6, 2016 7:03AM PDT

So my hp laptop just blew up on me and it kept trying to repair and restart itself but I was getting a HDD error.

I have my other laptop and I plugged the HDD into an enclosure and plugged it into the working laptop. It reads the new drive D:/ but there are only 15 files on the drive. I ran tests and it says there should be a lot more than that on it.

I attached some screenn shots... am I looking in the wrong area for my files? Just really need some excel documents and other work related files.

I attached a few screens...

http://i64.tinypic.com/315fpc6.jpg

http://i65.tinypic.com/dqm8h3.jpg

Discussion is locked

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Answer
It looks like a blown file system.
Apr 6, 2016 8:19AM PDT

The clues are in your screens with the D drive capacity at 400 MB and the partition size is 668 GB.

If you need to get the laptop working I suggest a new HDD (500GB drives run under 50 bucks) then restore the OS then your files from backups.

Windows PCs have not proven to be reliable enough to run without backups so that should bring the machine back.

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No chance to recover then?
Apr 6, 2016 9:19AM PDT

So I cant take it to a computer shop and get them to pull the files off for me then?

I dont want to go to best buy and have them charge me $100 for nothing lol

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not what he said
Apr 6, 2016 9:35AM PDT

You can try recovery software, but will need to boot to it from a CD, DVD or USB.

PhotoRec
Easus
Testdisk
Recuva
GParted's Data Recovery (you can get this on ISO and "burn image" to CD, then boot to it, no need to install.
Also can get a Linux distro like Mint or Ubuntu with GParted included in the ISO which you burn image to DVD to boot from it. No need to install.

http://gparted.org/livecd.php
http://gparted.org/download.php

https://www.piriform.com/recuva

http://www.wondershare.net/ad/data-recovery/?gclid=CN_Azde4-ssCFcNehgodyaoIjw

https://www.cgsecurity.org/

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boot what from software?
Apr 6, 2016 11:55AM PDT

The program or the HDD on the usb enclosure?

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You boot from the CD or DVD
Apr 6, 2016 12:55PM PDT

You can set it to that in the BIOS or some will allow you during the startup to choose a function button which allows you to choose the device you want to boot from. It's just like booting from a floppy back in early windows days, except using the CD or DVD to boot from instead.

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Gotcha but...
Apr 6, 2016 12:58PM PDT

Are you talking about booting the program (recuva, etc) or my external hard drive?

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choose whichever you want to use
Apr 6, 2016 1:01PM PDT

You then use that to search the affected drive, reset the partitions, find the files, copy them off to backup media.

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Re: booting
Apr 6, 2016 1:05PM PDT

You can't boot a program. You only can boot (from) a device (into an OS).

You can't boot into Windows from an external drive, and you certainly can't boot it from a drive that is as damaged as yours.

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No need to boot ...
Apr 6, 2016 1:02PM PDT