Help: CF-50 + wife + coffee = fried screen and motherboard

I pulled the hard drive out of the 50 and put in my CF-29. I get the standard "windows has detected a recent hardware change and was shut down to protect your computer"....blablahblah. I think that means that the windows XP os and my files are all still intact - right? any thoughts on the best way to get them out other than buying another CF-50 to stick the hd into? I remember trying Ubuntu once on that same CF-50 with a different hd and before completing the format I had the opportunity to recover files - am I remembering that correctly? Thanks in advance - John.

 

I would put the hdd in a external hdd case and get the files that way....its worked for me many times that way...$5.00 on ebay

 

Another way is to boot to live cd (I use Ubuntu 10.10) and use it to drag the files you desperately need to a SD card (MK4 /5)or USB stick or USB drive. I'm speaking of personal files (letters,pictures etc.) not the XP os itself at this point.
Another way I (personally) would try is to dual-boot that drive with Ubuntu. I would not consider it risky if there is room on the drive. Otherwise step one is safer.
Good luck.

 

Toughasnails is right, an external harddrive enclosure is the best way. You won't be booting from it and can see the files easily. If you need another CF-50 they have been cheap right now on ebay. I have picked up 8 of them so far for me and a few friends for about 20 to 30 dollars a pop. If you already have all the parts you need. Battery, caddy, etc that would get you back going in no time.

 

Just a small sidestep: can you see the files that are on a SSD as well? They are in someway protected IIRC.

 

You should be able to see the files on a SSD just like a hard drive unless you are using some kind of encryption.

 

Hmm, looking at it again, I have enabled the Intel's SSD build in encryption. Not handy when you don't make any backups... :tongue:

 

Also your toughbook has a built in encryption TPM 1.2 if you have it active. With a external program you could have 3 levels of encryption on the same harddrive.

 

didnt that requier some plan with a firm for securing and retreiving your laptop? I have briefly looked into this, but not really good.

 

TPM 1.2 isn't lo-jack or something like that it's just good encryption.

Trusted Platform Module - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I wanted to just read up on that, but I'll take some quiet time to do that. Good reading though! Thanks.

 

TPM is banned in China and a few other parts of the world so it's got to be good, lol.

 

Thanks for helping - I've ordered an enclosure and if it doesn't want to cooperate I'll use the Ubuntu method.