Laptop Question

[unforth]

So I accidentally sent my laptop to sleep while it was shutting down, and now it won't boot. According to the Vista support page, this is a known problem with Vista and the solution is to wipe the hard drive and reinstall. I'm more than willing to do this, but first I really, really want to get the data off. Some of it is backed up, a lot of it has been sent back and forth in e-mails and could be reconstructed, but I have files for work, pictures, music, and - to me most important - my current novel work in progress unbacked up. I know a few of you have had similar issues - what companies did you find that could get the data off? Have any of you used these recovery things? How did it go? Was it expensive?

Any help is vastly appreciated. The thought of losing almost 15k of work in progress brings tears to my eyes, not to mention all the other data - at least most of the rest is backed up...

Comments

[milbrcrsan.livejournal.com]

I know exactly how you are feeling. :( *hugs for it* I'm not exactly sure because for one it's a laptop, that might be cheaper than an actual desktop computer (the one the broke on us) and two, it's a Vista. Some computer places don't take Vista, so that might be a little harder on you. Three, our computer was still able to start up so I could pull off important documents on a flash drive.

I suggest find a computer store near you, see if they look at Vista or not, and have them fix the problem. From what my boyfriend said before, they can pull off important files and documents if you ask, so I would do that.

As for getting the company to fix it? Well all they had to do was successfully install a wireless PCI network card onto the computer (that's what screwed up the computer for us) and add in more ram because it was so slow. The amount afterward surprised me. It took about an hour to work on so about $49 for that. And the two pieces of ram cost about $139. We were expecting it to be over three hundred.

[unforth.livejournal.com]

I ended up taking it to a place near where I am - there are a bunch of complications I didn't mention in my post (I'm on vacation right now, my computer's OS is in Japanese, that sort of thing). It looks like it's gonna end up being a bit expensive - probably about $150 - but I didn't see ultimabaka's suggestion that he could handle it until too late.

Thanks for the advice! It's good to know that things like this do work out.

Not helpful, but ...

[sapphohestia.livejournal.com]

OMG, Vista is the DEVIL!

What a stupid error! I think you should bill Microsoft for letting such a stupid bug persist.

Re: Not helpful, but ...

[unforth.livejournal.com]

Yeah. you shoulda seen the guys at the store reaction to Vista. It was pretty funny. Fucking useless OS...

[ultimabaka.livejournal.com]

When you come back home, let me take a look at it. I'll bring my laptop over and I'll see if I can create a network connection against it. Worst case, you or I can remove the laptop hard drive and get an external enclosure to back the important data up before putting the thing back in.

What exactly happens when you turn the machine on anyway?

I wouldn't recommend those companies, mainly because
(a) they're disproportionately expensive for what you case. Companies I've seen charge 100 bucks or more just to try, and offer no guarantee of success
(b) if they find any data on your hard drive, there's little stopping them from keeping it. I wouldn't want that.

[galiyah.livejournal.com]

Egads. That's awful. And Gates wonders why so many XP users are protesting?

I agree with ultimabaka. Mostly, those places are a rip off. A network cable might work, or you could try pulling the HD and connecting it to another computer to pull off the data. That's likely all a pc repair place would do anyway. I'm so sorry. I do hope you can get everything back.

When you do get it put back together, I'd recommend disabling the sleep function. It is a PIA in the best of times and with that bug...well, I'd say it is useless.

[unforth.livejournal.com]

I've actually tried to disable the sleep function but I haven't been able to. I end up having issues doing basic changes because I don't know Vista all that well and my OS is in Japanese (which is why I don't know Vista very well, damn circles!). I'm not too worried about anyone taking the stuff from my hard drive. They are charging a bunch - and offering no guarantee of succes, but it's not the end of the world.

Anyway, I think they're about to kick me off this terminal. Thanks for the help, guys!

[ex-arekin.livejournal.com]

Im not aware of the error so I cant really help you there, but if you do have to pull the data and do a reinstall I would place a second partition on the drive. This will look like a second drive, and if you ever have to reinstall you dont have to touch the second partition (IE whipe the data) ensuring the items on it are safe.

[unforth.livejournal.com]

What's extra sad is that it already had a second partition, but I didn't use it. :( Thanks for the suggestion, though - I didn't know that was another way to keep things safe, I'll definitely use it in the future.

[schenker28.livejournal.com]

That's such a bummer -- any luck yet? I had one more suggestion -- it's not so hard to recover the dad, usually, if you're willing to take out the hard drive from the laptop. I had to do this once and I bought a little $20 adapter so I could plug my extracted laptop drive into my other computer and suck the data across. Even if the OS doesn't boot, the data on the drive should still be easy to get to in this case.
Of course, you really want to get the computer working again, although if you can extract the data first, it's easy to do a fresh reinstall of Windows.
Also: yes, Vista sucks. It's really disappointing, since I'm actually a MSFT fan. At least they're moving up the schedule for the new version, which hopefully will be better.
And finally, I highly recommend you do more frequent backups! I didn't actually start doing that until last year, but now I'm much less stressed out about getting my laptop broken/stolen/etc. I don't back up everything, but if I have a work in progress I back it up after every work session -- I have it set up so it's only a mouse click or two and it's not a big deal. I back up to an external server where I host web pages, but you could also back up to your external drive and be fairly safe.

[bakanekotoo.livejournal.com]

That sucks :-( I hope you manage to get your stuff off of it..