[Arithmomaniac]

I have a bad habit of overheating laptops. It happened to my current laptop about three weeks ago. Coincidentally, my backup HD broke four weeks ago. I only got it back today, but they had to wipe it clean.

My laptop will turn on (although it runs and boots very slowly), but when I try to do anything disk-intensive, the drive goes thinka-thinka-(pause)-beep, and then the only thing that will move on my monitro is my cursor - at which point I have to force reboot.

I have a hunch that the hard drive failure (if it is an HD problem at all) is electrical (melting of some kind) and I want to send my laptop to get repaired. However, they will wipe my hard drive, which currently has no backup. So I want to extract the data first.

What should I do?

My idea: To do that, I'd have to isolate the problem.

• first, see if it works on a different computer, and if it does, back it up. (Should I just buy a $10-20 converter? USB or IDE?)
• If that doesn't work, I can replace the logic/PCB board. (Is this newbie-proof? Are they even the same thing? Where can I get it done for me? Where can I find components?)
• Then, there's always freezing it, I guess.

Am I on the right track?

Thanks,
Arithmomaniac

[Bill60d]

HDD usually have to types of mechanical problems: 1. bearings give out which leaves an electrical type smell and metal sounds (which you described) or 2. the head scratches the top of one of the platters where the information is stored.

As you described I would vote on number 1. If this is the case you would probably only have limited time and resources to recover your information. If you could you put in in a working system (as you described) and burn the heck out of some CD's or DVD's (depending on the software/hardware combo you have.)

If you are hunting for parts on the cheap, I do EBAY and have gotten legacy items en mas (lots of them). Just watch the ratings of who you are dealing with. The higher the rating the better the results. (IE. I just replaced a laptop LCD screen for a customer for almost half the cost. I got the screen off EBAY)

[Arithmomaniac]

If I can't get everything off, can a mom-and-pop repair shop replace the bearings?

Arithmomaniac

[Bill60d]

No, you would have to send it off to a company that specializes in retrieving info from failed HDD. I have listed one company but you may want to shop around.

http://www.diskdoctors.com/hard-drive-recovery.asp

[Arithmomaniac]

I noticed that the drive only failed completely with high disk activity. Is there a program to "throttle" the drive so it spins at a reduced rate, even when copying? Is it worth it?

Thanks,
Arithmomaniac

[Rich-M]

Originally Posted by Arithmomaniac

I noticed that the drive only failed completely with high disk activity. Is there a program to "throttle" the drive so it spins at a reduced rate, even when copying? Is it worth it?

Thanks,
Arithmomaniac

As a secondary drive attached to another system, the same pressures as booting and running will not be in play, so you have nothing to worry about for copying filoes off.