Laptop Hard Drive Recovery and FDISK, a Word of Caution.

If you have been dealing with laptops for an adequate time duration there is a distinct chance a person has informed you that files kept on a laptop hard drive isn't actually secure. I am here to tell you that it is quite true.

The real fact that compared to magnetic tapes or compact disc or other forms of computer storage, laptop hard drives are mechanically active gadgets and are thus vulnerable to relatively rapid equipment failure.

No, the big menace to laptop hard drives are the individuals that employ them, by which I imply you and me. Laptop hard drives, as the dynamic memory devices that they're, are very simple to delete in a few fun and easy to accomplish methods... as are USB laptop hard drives and USB sticks

Dealing with a laptop technology during the glory moments of Windows XP, you get kind of accustomed with utilizing FDISK and any hard drive utility programs in fixing customer's laptop hard drives, which leads to cocksureness. That mental attitude can contribute directly to catastrophe, kind of like handing a twelve year old kid the keys to your ATV.

Imagine this if you'll; there I was, 2 or 3 sentences and an LCD screen shot away from completing a 5000 words article on laptop upgrades. All I need to do was run FDISK at the dual-boot Windows PC systems and get a couple of screenshots. I reckoned I would compose a bit endorsement on the way to partition a laptop hard drive, making a point to inform this blog readers not to touch the nasty FDISK if they are not certain what they are doing…

Yes, there is going to be a certain irony here.

So in any case, I needed to get a few more screenshots of the real partitioning interface, but I didn't have a empty laptop hard drive available. I visualized I could employ the NTFS formatted XP laptop hard drive (which FDISK detected as one blank hard drive) to begin the "procedure," get the screenshots and then call off the partitioning process.

It's OK. Except for one tiny little matter…

I had disregarded the fact that FDISK, in the actual procedure of disk checking before it informs me for the amount of the hard drive partition, writes data to specific portions of the laptop hard drive. The data overwrites whatever could already there before. In the meantime, there I was, gazing the '%complete' percentage counter and curious about the reason why the small red warning flags kept on waving in my brain? I restarted Windows XP and nervously waited for the laptop to boot, and waited... 5 minutes....10 minutes... Oops.

I guess this case study can become a lesson for you about danger of FDISK in laptop hard drive recovery.

The difficulties of Laptop Hard Drive Data Recovery

Things become somewhat more complex if the broke hard drive is inside a laptop, the same the case with my hard drive failure. In essence, installing of Windows XP to the external hard drive is achievable, yet you still encounter the serious problem of temporary files put to the corrupted main hard drive throughout the installation process. In a few cases, you are able to prevent this by disactivating the IDE controller, which is the controller employed by the motherboard to allow entry to the hard drive, in your laptop BIOS. In my case, disabling the IDE controller in the BIOS stage also make the CD drive malfunctioning, making it impractical to Copy files off of the installation CD so to install Windows XP on the external hard drive. I am deliberately excluding alternatives like network installation and ghosting, since a lot of home users will not have a simple measures to pull these off and still have Windows XP to boot up without running into different troubles.

There's a workaround for inadequate laptop hard drive installation alternatives. Rather than attempting to boot up from a hard drive, boot up from the CD with the entire the tools you require already installed. As part of the recovery procedure, I made the bootable CD with BartPE, which utilises a certain core Windows components and packages of data recovery softwares. BartPE provides all things from the CD drive, just like a Linux based Knoppix OS. BartPE needs files admitted on both a Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 installation CD, which produces a micro- OS unexpired for 24-hours to perform diagnostic retrieval of lost data. The operating system completely boots at the 24-hour mark, it this is by no means a lasting fix. Even so, 24-hours is a lot of time period to rectify any laptop hard drive failure. If I did not get BartPE, I am not certain what I'd have practiced to recover my files back from the damaged laptop hard disk.

Two types of laptop hard drive failures

You have a couple of big categories of laptop hard drive failures. There is the software system kind, where the important data on the laptop hard drive gets corrupted caused by anything like a corruption partition table, damages in boot record, or failure root directory data. Software disk errors are commonly quick to fix from employing readily existing data recovery software. The second type of hard drive errors is a result of a certain type of physical failure of the hard drive. If the hard drive is physically disabled in some manner, data recovery goes a bit more complex. If the hard drive is physically damaged, any supplemental entry to the hard drive may further damage data, making it more difficult to get important documents and important data back.

A greater stage of forethought is required in order to be sure important data is still retrievable. Cases like mine, any requirement for software system to fix the physical laptop hard drive heightened the chance of more data failures. To forestall more corruption, an critical data first method is to make an image of the hard drive utilizing an imaging tool. When the disabled laptop hard drive has the OS, it is most effective to not even boot up the hard drive, if at all conceivable. For a desktop computer computing system, it is fairly easy. Just unplug the boot hard drive and substitute it with a brand-new hard drive (be certain you've a hard drive large enough to accommodate the image of the present hard drive).

Install an OS on the fresh laptop hard drive. Reconnect the earlier hard drive as a slave or place it in an external sheath and plug in thru USB or FireWire. By making a brand-new primary hard drive, you are able to operate the hard drive imaging software system from the new hard drive, forestalling the requirement for any writing to your ageing laptop hard drive. It's critical to unplug the present boot partition since seeking to set up the operating system on the brand-new hard drive still gives in temporary files being written to the old hard drive since Window XP seeks any existent installation and lays in every the setup CD drivers on the present primary boot up hard drive.

Understanding Laptop Hard Drive Problems

Laptop hard drives are same as desktop hard drives only distinct difference being that components used in laptop hard drives are small in size. The size reduction of components make laptop hard drive really delicate.

The essential step in laptop data recovery technique is to examine hard drive to specify the real problem with the hard drive. Hard drive data loss trouble can be separated into a couple of big categories which are identified as follows


A) LOGICAL trouble
1- Corrupted in file system.
2- Virus and trojan attack .
3- Corrupted in File Allocation Tables (FATS).
4- Corrupted in Master File Tables.
5- Formatted hard drive etc.

B) PHYSICAL PROBLEMS
1- ticking sound caused by mechanical problem.
2- Electrical problem.
3- Misaligned Read/Write Heads.
4- Damaged Heads.
5- Flooded or dropped hard drives.
6- Bad Sectors on hard disk drives
7- hard drive not being accepted by BIOS etc.
8- internal damage to laptop hard drive due to being dropped down or displaced while its operating.

You may quickly discover out if your hard drive is having any trouble. A really frequent indication is an strange noise like grating, clacking, scrape etc. It means either the hard drive is conked out or is about to break down. You need to acquire extra care at this moment. Occasionally, the hard drive will give you a few time period to back up your important data. Please take this earnestly and back up your important data as quickly as conceivable.

In a few cases, the BIOS doesn't picks out the hard drive. It is a different case of physical internal damage to hard drive. Please do not keep attempting booting the computer as this will added internal damage to the hard disk drive.

Hard drive disk data recovery is a really complicated procedure, which needs skilled Disk Data Recovery specialist and specially configured software system equipment to reclaim important data.