Recover data by putting harddrive into USB case.

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Smithz
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David Smithz

Hi there,

I have taken a hard drive out of a faulty laptop for someone so that we can
retrieve the data from it. I placed the hard drive into a USB hard drive
enclosure and we can read the data fine from the hard drive.

However, I wanted to transfer the data from the hard drive onto my local
hard drive so I have an exact copy before it goes off to the laptop repair
place.

When we try and move the files across in Windows Explorer, it always gets so
far, and then reports that a certain file cannot be transferred because it
is in use or something (don't have the exact message), but then the entire
process stops and I am unsure which files have been so far copied over.

Very irritating.

Is there no way to skip the files that wont copy, or is there another way in
Windows I can approach this so that I can get as many of the files as
possible?

Thanks for any input on this matter.

David.
 
David said:
Hi there,

I have taken a hard drive out of a faulty laptop for someone so that we
can retrieve the data from it. I placed the hard drive into a USB hard
drive enclosure and we can read the data fine from the hard drive.

However, I wanted to transfer the data from the hard drive onto my local
hard drive so I have an exact copy before it goes off to the laptop repair
place.

When we try and move the files across in Windows Explorer, it always gets
so far, and then reports that a certain file cannot be transferred because
it is in use or something (don't have the exact message), but then the
entire process stops and I am unsure which files have been so far copied
over.

Very irritating.

Is there no way to skip the files that wont copy, or is there another way
in Windows I can approach this so that I can get as many of the files as
possible?
Click to expand...

There are a few possibilities:

1. The laptop drive is physically damaged. If this is the case and the data
is important, stop working with the drive immediately and send it to a
professional data recovery company. This is expensive, but only the drive
owner can decide the value of their data. General prices run from $500USD
on up. Drive Savers recovered all the data on a failed laptop drive for one
of my clients and it cost $2,700. He thought it was worth the money; only
your client knows what his data is worth.

Drive Savers - http://www.drivesavers.com
Seagate Data Recovery Services - https://www.seagatedatarecovery.com/

2. The laptop drive is not physically damaged, but there is damage to the
operating system and/or file system and the Windows operating system on
your host computer is choking on it. In this case, boot the host computer
with a rescue cd like a Bart's PE or Knoppix and see if you can transfer
the data that way. If the same thing happens, then the laptop hard drive is
probably physically damaged.

3. If you want to run a hard drive diagnostic on the laptop hard drive to be
sure, take it out of the usb enclosure and slave it directly to a desktop
computer. You will need a laptop-to-IDE adapter. Then boot the host
computer with the diagnostic media and do a thorough test on the laptop
drive.

Malke
 
David said:
Hi there,

I have taken a hard drive out of a faulty laptop for someone so that
we can retrieve the data from it. I placed the hard drive into a USB
hard drive enclosure and we can read the data fine from the hard
drive.
However, I wanted to transfer the data from the hard drive onto my
local hard drive so I have an exact copy before it goes off to the
laptop repair place.

When we try and move the files across in Windows Explorer, it always
gets so far, and then reports that a certain file cannot be
transferred because it is in use or something (don't have the exact
message), but then the entire process stops and I am unsure which
files have been so far copied over.
Very irritating.

Is there no way to skip the files that wont copy, or is there another
way in Windows I can approach this so that I can get as many of the
files as possible?

Thanks for any input on this matter.

David.
Click to expand...

Use xcopy with the appropriate switches (i.e. xcopy x:\*.* d:\somefolder
/s/c/h). This will copy everything from drive x: to d:\somefolder skipping
files with errors.
 
It is a well known long standing weakness in Windows Explorer that it will
abort copying completely if it encounters an error with a single file. I
suggest using xcopy with the following parameters - The /c - Continues
copying even if errors occur is particularly useful here. (This is a
boilerplate I use to ensure copying everything.)

xcopy /d /s /e /h /r /c /k /y SourcePath TargetPath

AFTER you have retrieved all possible data this way, then you can run chkdsk
/r on the drive. This may let you then retrieve the damaged file(s).
 
Thank you all for your assistance on this matter. In the end for the short
term I installed some backup software which then just copied all the files
for me. But the xfiles command I am now running on another PC which has the
exactly the same problem.

Very useful to know about this command.

Thanks

David.
 
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