Really messed up my comp!

Hi guys, I dropped my laptop today... I know, im a complete idiot. Anyways, about half hour later, it randomly froze, so i had to force shutdown and reboot. However, all that happens now is that i get the whole "Windows failed to start - a change in hardware" etc etc. It doesnt give me a file thats corrupt or anything, and just says an error has occured. It did once however say the file was BCD. Nothing works.

I've tried creating a vista boot disc on a blank cdrw i had, but it wont boot (i changed boot to dvd drive in bios). Has anyone got any ideas, preferably that dont involve losing my data? I have an asus F3 if thats of any help.

P.S out of interest i went to the easy flash option in bios, and i can still see files in my C: drive, so i guess that means all is not lost right?

Thanks alot in advance.

 

I don't know what laptop you have but if it took a hard knock my first advice is to reseat the drive and memory modules. Let's hope the motherboard wasn't physically damaged.

 

dont know how to help if its a hardware problem, but to backup data you should get an external drive, boot up a linux liveCD, and copy anything you want to keep to the external. if a liveCD can't read your harddrive, then thats your problem and no matter what you do youll lose your data.

 

I've taken the drive out put it in again, but its still the same.

How would i go about getting a linux live cd, and is it possible to transfer data to another computer over a network with it (as i dont have a external hdd).

Thanks!

Edit - ok im downloading the ubuntu live cd

 

It sounds like the drive's been physically damaged internally, so you may not be able to get everything off of it.

Unfortunately, your best bet right now is to put it into an external enclosure, and try to read off of it the data you need - to do that, I would triage first (from memory, not from disk reads - each read is likely to cause a little more damage, so reads should be minimized), prioritize what you need to recover, and then see how far down the list you can get before the drive permanently dies.

Another variant of that - which just occurred to me, so hopefully if I'm wrong someone'll correct me quickly - is to put the drive into an external enclosure, hook it up to another computer, and then just try to clone the entire thing onto another drive (either an external hdd, or the new replacement drive you're going to need in any event); doing that may minimize the total number of reads the drive has to make because the cloning isn't trying to follow each individual file and read a chain of fragments.

 

Whatever you do, limit the amount of times you try to boot this system. If the data is at all recoverable (and the drive is damaged), the more times you boot into it, the more you lessen the chances of recovery! That is to say, if the head(s) aren't/weren't completely knocked out of whack.

I've had really good luck with the one tool I keep in my toolbox... SystemRescueCD. It is in essence a GNU/Linux "LiveCD" that contains all sorts of nifty (often rarely heard of, until it's to late) programs. One of those programs is called "testdisk." It isn't really hard to manipulate and if your data is recoverable, this is "one" of the many tools that can do so.

You could also use things like Acronis (and others that are for some reason escaping my memory ATM) to do as Shyster1 suggest and try to clone the drive from your laptop. You'll need a spare box and an enclosure as well as patience, diligence and lots of coffee! Just don't be hasty, if you have important files you need to salvage.

Memory a bit slow but, one of the other tools you could use to "clone" your drive is called PartImage. This tool is similar (if not exactly like) to dd, which is a command line tool in GNU/Linux and will copy byte for byte what is stored on a disk/partition... providing it's readable.

Best of luck!

 

Cheers for the help guys. I've decided to just send it for RMA to asus, as ive got a 2 year warranty on it. Does anyone know if they will be able to salvage my data in their service centre, because if not, ill just take the hdd to a store which deals with data recovery first.

 

I would not count on ASUS doing anything beneficial with the data on your hdd. In fact, I think that if you read the really, really fine print on the warranty and/or the coverage terms of service, I think you'll find an explicit disclaimer regarding the contents of the drive.

If there's anything on there you want to keep, you'll have to do data recovery yourself, first. Also, if you're going to go to the trouble of doing data-recovery first, you might as well make sure the drive is wiped afterward (as much as that's possible given its condition), because, if ASUS replaces the hard drive, you have no way of knowing what they'll actually do with the old drive, and whether or not they'll take any precautions to make sure that any sensitive information is wiped from it before they dispose of it.