11 replies to this topic

[wardyxxx]

Well today, at 4pm. My laptop exploded in a cloud of smoke and sparks.

Best bit was my external hard drive was currently doing a back up - it severed the connection. Corrupting all my data.

And as some of you know, I'm in my final year of Psychology at Uni of Sheffield.


Lost ALL my work. Trying to recover some data, but I've been working at it for ages!

[minimaff]

Not good news.............

We use to write it on paper in our day, that wouldn't have happened unless you fell over in a puddle lol

Hope you recover it

[minimininut]

Well today, at 4pm. My laptop exploded in a cloud of smoke and sparks.

Best bit was my external hard drive was currently doing a back up - it severed the connection. Corrupting all my data.

And as some of you know, I'm in my final year of Psychology at Uni of Sheffield.


Lost ALL my work. Trying to recover some data, but I've been working at it for ages!

Oh no, that's bad news, and sounds like my worst nightmare (I'm a psych student too, but PhD). I'm obsessed with backing up, but have never considered my laptop exploding during the process of doing so

I really really hope you manage to recover as much as possible and good luck with your degree and dissertation.

[Kam]

Oh no, that's bad news, and sounds like my worst nightmare (I'm a psych student too, but PhD). I'm obsessed with backing up, but have never considered my laptop exploding during the process of doing so

We use to write it on paper in our day, that wouldn't have happened unless you fell over in a puddle lol

[davidv]

Good look on the recovery.On some things i always use an external hard drive to play safe on all my P.C.s.Some of the old Norton Software is good at finding things and Hard drive full Copys.

[Hekmat]

Sorry to hear that, I went through a similar thing about 3 months ago where my PC decided to crash and wipe out the hard disk. I got a tool called "Active Boot Disk" which is an excellent piece of software. Managed to recover all my files and drives.

The laptop may have been damaged, but the hard drive should be still okay, I would suggest trying to find someone at uni to recover the files from the hard drive.

[Juju]

If you can a PC doctor to certify it as irreretrievable, you'll be able to seek mitigation (if your work suffers as a result).
Good luck getting it back.

[newbambeeno]

I had a similar thing happen to me, only less dramatic! My Hard drive over heated and my backup disc can only be recognised for about 3 seconds, then it disconnects itself.

My housemate had his HD go in the final year, he sent it off somewhere and they extracted the data from the HD and sent him a new one with his old data on. You might be able to do that with either of your discs. I think he contacted the manufacturer of the HD, and he ended up sending it to Holland. It cost him £80, but you can't put a price on your work!

I don't want to sound 'told-you-so' or hind-sighty, but since I had my problem, I keep my "if this disappears, your life id ruined" stuff on an external HD, a memory stick and on data discs. It's probably overkill, but I lost all my final year work in a blink of an eye, only I was lucky enough for it to happen 11 days after my final hand in.

[wardyxxx]

Ive extracted my HDD, got some of my data off, but I'm gonna have to send it to Dell. The motherboard has gone.

Joy of joys. No laptop till Christmas then!

Borrowing one now, but it's got no wifi.

[M J W J]

I know how you feel.

The folder on my memory stick with all the work I have done for my group project at uni disappeared last night. The rest of my work is still on there just not the one folder labelled group project. I have a deadline next Thursday so need to replicate 5 weeks work by then. Luckily I wrote down on a piece of paper all my references so have got back my research quite quickly but still lost the complete Pro E cad model of my winch and gearbox that I designed. I need to design a second winch and revise the original by Thursday.

It has had a bit of an affect on my other project. My tutor was not happy with me today. I suppose I should spend less time on the mini forum and get on with it

[wardyxxx]

UPDATE! I bought my laptop of ebay 2 years ago with a 3 yr extended warranty. Apparently, it's "prestige", next business day cover.

So, an engineer from Dell is coming round to fix or replace my laptop on tuesday! Now that's customer service!!

I was expecting at least a 6 week wait for help from dell!

Oh, and I took her to bits today.Its the motherboard, or the RAM. not got the kit or patience to identify which!

So (hopefully) fear not TMF. I will be back soon!!!!!

[Black.Ghost]

As has already been said, unless it was the hard drive that turned to smoke, you should be able to recover it, or at least that on the external drive. There is a device you can buy (I think £20 IIRC) but I cannot remember what it is called. It will plug into any hard drive and read the data straight off it. You need to actually remove the hard drive from the laptop/external casing though. Good luck with it.