A couple hard drive problems

[whr2206]

Hello all,

I'm working on a few issues on two different machines concerning hard drive problems.

Problem 1
My friend was on her laptop, and she dropped it.(about a foot and a half to the ground) Then, when she picked it back up, the computer had froze, so she rebooted it. When she rebooted it, BIOS no longer detected her hard drive. Her laptop is a Toshiba Satellite A105, and the hard drive is a Hitachi 160gb 5400rpm (it appears to be a SATA, however I'm not too familiar with laptop hard drives)

I need to find out if:
- The hard drive is completely dead
- If there is a relatively inexpensive way to recover the data (She has this years school work on it, so that would be very helpful)

I searched through the Toshiba software she had, but I didn't see anything that could diagnose a hard drive. I went to the Hitachi website, but I couldn't find their dianostic tools either. Could anyone point me in the right direction here? Also, would data recovery cost an arm and a leg? I researched it a bit, and the prices look outrageous. I tried taking the hard drive out, and reconnecting it to make sure that it wasnt just jared lose or anything.

If the hard drive is dead, and data recovery is way too expensive, I guess the next best option would be to get a simliar drive off of newegg? I saw one almost identical to hers for around 70 bucks. (BTW, we checked on the warranty and it had expired. So I guess thats not an option)


Problem 2
I gave my sister one of my old builds, since her computer was so old. The computer posts and recognizes the hard drive. The problem is, after Bios, the computer just stays at the next screen.(lack of better terminology!) (I put her hard drive back into her old HP, and it went into windows as normal) Does HP have some sort of thing that prevents the hard drive from being swapped to another computer? (her first hard drive failed, so we replaced it with an IDE 80gb 7200rpm drive a good while ago)

Specs:
Asus _______ (it was a while ago, and Im helping my dad with it over the phone)
AMD 2500+ barton core
1gb crucial ram (ddr 400 but not DC i believe)
80gb WD IDE HD (old HP installation w/ Windows XP)
ATI 9800AIW pro

Would we have to buy another retail copy of Windows XP? I'm confused.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! I'll provide more details if need be. Thanks a lot!

[shadowpr]

1) Try to connect the hard drive to another computer and see if it recognizes it and you can get some data off it.

I think you could use the hard drive diagnostics off of the ultimate boot cd to check it.

As for data recovery: http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...=data+recovery
http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...=data+recovery
http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...=data+recovery

2) If the hard drive that isn't being recognized a hd with a dell oem xp on it? If so, did you delete the drivers first, and then when you install it on th new build, do a repair install.

[whr2206]

Originally Posted by shadowpr 1) Try to connect the hard drive to another computer and see if it recognizes it and you can get some data off it. I think you could use the hard drive diagnostics off of the ultimate boot cd to check it. As for data recovery: http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...=data+recovery http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...=data+recovery http://forum.pcmech.com/showthread.p...=data+recovery 2) If the hard drive that isn't being recognized a hd with a dell oem xp on it? If so, did you delete the drivers first, and then when you install it on th new build, do a repair install.

Thanks. I'm going to take the laptop HD and hook it up to my pc to see if its detected, and if I can get anything off of it.


For the second pc, yeah I think it has HP oem XP. My dads actually working on it(hes at home, Im at college) I think he deleted all of the drivers off of it, but I'll double check.