2.5 HDD issue

Hi

Ive had my acer travelmate 290 for 3 years now, it crashed a while ago, now just get the blank screen on start up, or if i hold it on the left front corner it will start and windows will load, then I place it back on the table and it turns off. It’s a common motherboard, cpu, power supply issue

Im over it but I need the data from my hard drive. Ive tried everything

Place it in a 2.5 usb case, couldn’t find it
brought a 2.5 to 3.5 adpter connect to desktop didn’t work

Im thinking why it not finding the 2.5 HDD is because it has the xp operating system on it still. Also I dont have a small enough jumper to make it a slave drive

How else can I make it a slave drive?

I tried connecting it as a primary hdd for my desktop with the adapter but couldn’t find it

Running out of ideas. Any ideas on how to transfer the data off the HDD,

Only thing I haven’t done yet it put the hdd in another notebook

 

First try booting of a dvd/cd. For example with Acronis Disk Director CD and see if it can see your partitions. Or use Bart's bootable dvd ( http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ )

If that does not work try the usb enclosure. If you put it in a usb enclosure there is no need to jumper it. Try running a data recovery application that can see the partitions and recover your data.

I was in a situation like that myself and had to try 3 different applications before I got lucky. I think the name was Becker Data Recovery, but I'm not sure of this.

 

I helped my friend repairing and upgrading his TM290 so I'm quite familiar with this laptop. As far as I remenber the only thing in the front left side of the palmrest is the optical drive and I can't see how this is causing the starting problem

With USB enclosures the 2.5" HDD is always used as Master so you don't need the small jumper.
I don't think that XP is the one causing all this troubles as I moved files from and to HDDs with XP en them using an enclosures and never had any problem.

Now there is onething that Windows can do if the laptop/computer you're using to transfer the files (Host PC) has been set with a different name for the user account. If the names are different windows will protect the files in the TM290 HDD and will not allow you to move them to the Host PC. I can't remember if you can see their containt though. To fix this do the following:

1- Go to Windows Explorer in the Host PC
2- Go to Tools and Folder Options
3- Go to the View tab
4- Scroll down and uncheck "Use simple file sharing"
5- Click OK
6- Connect the TM290 harddrive to the Host PC via 2.5" USB enclosure
7- Right Click The TM290 HDD and select Properties
8- Select Security tab
9- Click Adanced
10- Select the Owner tab
11- Select the name of the acount your using and check "Replace owner on subcontainer and objects"
12- Click OK and OK again... this should transfer the ownership and allow you to transfer or modify the files in the TM290 HDD.

Now if you can't see the TM290 HDD in the Explorer of the Host PC try to look for it in the "Disk Management" utility (accessible through right clicking 'My Computer' and selecting 'manage'), this is a sign that your HDD may be damaged. By damaged I mean it's boot sector is damaged. It could be repaired. When the HDD appears in the Explorer and Windows assign a drive letter to it, for instance H:, to repair it go to DOS consol and run 'CHKDSK /F H:'
If the HDD doesn't appear in the Explorer I usually use 'DISKPART' to force windows to assign a drive letter to it. It a bit difficult to use but well documented in Wndows help file.

You could do the following, install the TM290 HDD in another notebook, that use Windows XP CD to repair th OS installed in TM290 HDD. Do not reinstall Windows just repair it otherwise you'll lose your files.
The repair is needed because you can't use the windows installed in the TM290 HDD in another laptop unless the other laptop is a TM290 too. This is because of drivers incompatibility between the TM290 and the other laptop.
To repair Windows installed in the TM290 HDD so it runs in another laptop do the following:
1- make sure that your laptop boots from the optical drive (CD-Rom DD-rom)
2- Start windows installation
3- Click I don't remember Enter or ESC to start a new installation of Windows.
That is a repair option (R) but it's not the one that you need. There is another one a bit latter.
4- Select F8 to accept the EULA aggrement
5- Select (R) to start the repair. This will delete Windows Files and reinstall them, but will keep all your files and the software installed in the TM290 HDD intact.

 

thanks for you posts

i will defiantly give all options ago, and see what happens

i will post any success and failures

Much appreciated

 

You're welcome, and let me know if/when you problem is fixed