Topic: I think my laptop finally went caput...

[Stratos]

So this has been my computer for over 4 years now. A Dell Inspiron 600m laptop. Nothing fancy, as it was a birthday gift meant to be a college tool, but it got the job done. Since then I have had to wipe it only once due to a crazy virus infection but it has also had a power cable start smoking, tea spilt all over the keyboard while it was on, the USB ports and LAN plug stopped working, the mouse pad is wonky at best and a few banging/dropping incidents. But it still ran and did it's job. Last night may have done it in. I was doing some last minute posting here before I went to sleep and one of two things may have killed it.

I think it didn't finish shutting down before I closed it and sometimes it likes to go into sleep mode and drain the battery at night on the shutdown screen. This gives it an inapropriate shutdown error sometimes but it has always started fine aside from that before.

Also, I was going to place it in the nook below my night stand and it slipped from my hand and dropped to the floor about a foot or two. Ironically today I was telling a friend about how dropping iPods can ruin their HDD and how flash memory and solid state drives don't have the same issues. I think the HDD got scrambled when I dropped it because when I turn it on tonight it now says it cannot detect a bootable HDD. I pulled the HDD out and reinserted it to see if it was just loose after the fall. Didn't work.

Does anyone have any other ideas I could try before resorting to buying a new emergency computer? I was planning on buying a new one some time this Summer since I got a new job but if I buy one now as opposed to later I would probably be a bit more limited in what I get. Also, I'd like to be able to retrieve the data on the drive. Some rather important documents are on it.

In the event it is hopeless does anyone have any good recomendations for a good but low priced desktop PC? I had considered going with AlienWare when I got arround to getting a new PC but I'm open to something else. I just want it to be able to play most current games at an average/normal graphical level and also any recording/editing benefits would be a plus since I've been learning podcastery. I figure I can upgrade later if I need/want too.

My Dad is going to look at it this weekend and see if he can do anything to help get it running. Plus he gets a company discount for Dell computers through his company so there is incentive there to save money.

Thanks for your advise.

[ShyGuy]

Try the drive on another system if possible. This may require an adapter. If the system won't see the hard drive, there are some old school tricks involving slapping, freezing and moving the drive in a figure eight motion (this is from official IBM documentation, no kidding)

If that doesn't work, the next step is to send it off to a recovery center, where they may have to open the drive in a clean room. We have used a company called Gillware several times http://www.gillware.com/ our average cost per drive was about $700.

[Stratos]

I'll try the slapping and swinging stuff. I dunno if the stuff is worth $700 though. Might be cheaper to just swallow the loss.

I have another friend who has some spare laptop stuff lying around so I may get in touch with him.

[BranDonk Kong]

Get my laptop - Gateway FX P7805-U. It's $1150 at Best Buy (unless it's on sale), but it'll play most current games...at max settings. 17" 1920x1200 screen (shop around so you don't get stuck with the 1440x900 screen), 2.26Ghz Core 2 Duo (which can be upgraded, to a quad-core, even), 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, GeForce 9800M GTS.

[Stratos]

So I may have found an answer to my problem. There is this program called SpinRite that helps correct errors and recover HDDs. Only $90 and a 100% monney back guarantee if it doesn't fix my problem. A friend of mine used it before.

[ShyGuy]

If your BIOS can't see the hard drive, SpinRite isn't going to help.

[Stratos]

Then is it the computer that is broken? Like, should I try and swap the drive with another laptop to grab the information? Or is the hdd dead-dead.

[ShyGuy]

What I would do in your situation is use a notebook hard drive to IDE adapter or a USB notebook drive adapter to plug the drive into a different system and see if it detects it at all. This will eliminate the notebook itself as the cause of the problem.

[Stratos]

Yeah, I tried to hit up a tech friend for a cable of some kind but he's not sure if he has one. I may have to just let it lay until I can afford a new computer to test this one with. I hope it's just something with the laptop. It was falling apart as it is. It's the data on the drive I care more about.

Whats the price range for one of those cables?

[ShyGuy]

Not much, like $20 or less.

Here's what you need at New Egg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156015 or http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812203012

[Stratos]

OK, thanks for the links.

I may do some price checking at a few local stores first though.

[NWR_Lindy]

Yeah, you gotta isolate the problem.  Determine if it's the drive itself, or the connector that you're plugging it into.

[carolina17]

It might be wise to buy a new and cheap computer instead of paying repairs which are always expensive. It's not under warranty anymore and you're going to waste your time. Check your local dealer. I would save money if I were you. Alienware computers are quite expensive.
Asus computers might be more suitable for gaming.

[Stratos]

I actually decided to order from Dell because my Dad gets a discount for them. It is shipping next month. Oddly enough, the day before when I customized everything I wanted, it said it would ship on the 1st. But then when I went to my Dad's and we rang it up the next day it pushed the date to the 21st. Strange and sad I have to wait an extra couple weeks. Though I did get a free widescreen monitor the second time I rang it up.

Once I get it I'll worry about trying to pull the data off of the old HDD. No one I know would let me hook it up to their computer so that is on hold for now.

Thanks anyway, Carolina.