View Full Version : Salvaging pics from a soggy laptop
Littlepeahead
09-02-14, 05:06 PM
As per the title, text from family member saying laptop ruined after a drink was spilled on it and upset she now thinks she's lost all her photos.
Annoying as I've been suggesting to her for over a year that she needed to back them up to cloud and/or DVD.
So if the laptop won't switch on can the photos be rescued? And if so, anyone on here in my area of Essex or London who has the know how to do it? (For payment, of course).
go to a shop get the hard drive taken out and put in a case, then it can be used as an external hard drive.
Spank86
09-02-14, 05:13 PM
^that.
maviczap
09-02-14, 05:24 PM
As above LPH
I have just dismantled my netbook, which wasn't too difficult, so I'd suggest the same for this laptop, so that it can be cleaned & dried out. Then it MIGHT work again. Get a shop to do this, if they can't do it.
If you need an adapter & USB cable to get the pictures off this HDD, I have one, as I've rescued photos and stuff from laptops before
Littlepeahead
09-02-14, 05:41 PM
Cheers guys. I may take it to work as my office is next to IT and see if they can help in return for cake.
Spank86
09-02-14, 06:54 PM
I expect they will. Especially if you only need the data off it, If you've already got a portable HDD or big enough memory stick they ought to be able to move it over. Assuming the HDD isn't the reason the laptops broke that is :D
Littlepeahead
09-02-14, 08:53 PM
Well here's the update. I got screamed at by my mother tonight because I hadn't backed up the photos so it was all my fault. Pointed out that I'd shown sis how to burn discs before. She had not done it. Also I installed Picasa ages ago so she could upload to Google but she'd forgotten her password and uninstalled Picasa last week when I tried to do a back up which is also my fault according to my mother. Her camera came with software to do back ups but she lost the disc. Sis has a boyfriend who is trained in IT but he didn't assist. Oh and sis broke her laptop spilling cider on it. But it's all my fault as I'm so selfish. I give up.
Sounds like my mother.
sent via the klacks
Mrs DJ Fridge
09-02-14, 09:30 PM
My mother too!
keith_d
09-02-14, 09:38 PM
You can't choose your family...
If your IT department can't help, I've got an external dock which can take SATA drives or an external 2.5" caddy if it's an old IDE drive. Both go into a USB connection on your laptop. You're welcome to borrow one or both.
Keith.
DJFridge
09-02-14, 09:48 PM
You can't choose your family...
If your IT department can't help, I've got an external dock which can take SATA drives or an external 2.5" caddy if it's an old IDE drive. Both go into a USB connection on your laptop. You're welcome to borrow one or both.
Keith.
And there you have another answer to the "What is that makes the org special?" question
If you do try and sort it but it turns out the drive has failed, you can always take it to a data recovery expert. The guys we use have managed to pull data of seriously damaged drives and only charge once they have demonstrated they can recover the files. It's a lot more expensive that the suggestions above (usually a few hundred pounds) but very useful when all else fails.
Spank86
09-02-14, 11:00 PM
You can't choose your family...
No but you can execute the ones that don't come up to scratch.
just a thought.
BanannaMan
10-02-14, 12:30 AM
I suspected it was all your fault as soon as I began reading the first post.
I hope you feel guilty after how you've treated your poor family.
;)
keith_d
10-02-14, 06:48 AM
No but you can execute the ones that don't come up to scratch.
just a thought.
I know you - you're Kim Jong-Un.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/ruthless-north-korean-dictator-kim-3066568
LPH, depending on the size of the hdd, you can turn it in to a perm external one by placing in a caddy as said above.
Alternatively, and I have done this before, but it is rather cheeky, go to maplin, buy an adaptor dock (like Keith's) for either IDE or sata depending on type of hdd. Nip home set up the dock and rip all the files you need.
Carefully pack the dock back up and return it to the store as it's no longer needed etc.
If they don't accept it as a return you have a dock for future use in case anything happens to another hdd again.
atassiedevil
10-02-14, 09:16 AM
As has been said, get the drive out and into a caddy. You might have to mess around with permissions to that drive, but that shouldn't be too difficult.
*Sends you a "No i will not fix your computer" Tshirt*
yorkie_chris
10-02-14, 09:17 AM
Waste of time, can't educate pork. Not your problem, only way they'll learn.
Retrieve pics, send invoice.
P.S don't forget to adopt an incredibly patronising attitude to it, remember you are dealing with dribbling idiots, making sure they know this with absolutely every sentence related to the problem will both be amusing and might even prevent a recurrence of the problem.
Littlepeahead
10-02-14, 10:07 AM
That made me chuckle YC.
My sister would not even come downstairs to speak to me last night and when I said to mum that I could try and take the laptop into work I was told that as I had 'been no help at all' (I was out yesterday but did text to say don't keep trying to switch it on and don't put it anywhere near a radiator to dry it out, only to discover she had done both!) she had already taken it to someone to try to get it repaired.
yorkie_chris
10-02-14, 11:58 AM
Lol do you not just miss the days when only clever people owned computers
Lol do you not just miss the days when only clever people owned computers
In those days people used to go and sit in the computer to warm up on cold days.
I've been involved in IT for some time now and I think it's safe to say that since people could purchase them without supervision, situations such as the one Clare describes have been pretty common.
I still do tech support for family when needed. Some of the conversations have been eye-opening.
Jambo
SvNewbie
10-02-14, 12:12 PM
I pretty much refuse to do tech support. My dad is good at that non-sense though. Much of that is about having bits to swap and see if it works (a lot like bike repairs).
Littlepeahead
10-02-14, 12:17 PM
The irritating part was when yesterday I said to my mother 'I spent an hour round here last week trying to back them up but (sis) could not remember the password to her son's Google account which is what we were going to use to back them up and she choose the password so what was I supposed to do?'
So mother says, 'well that just shows you weren't going to help her as the pictures are not on his tablet, they are on her laptop'.
Trying to explain to my mother that a Google account meant that we could back them up via Picasa was a waste of breath. Suggesting that my sister could have, as I suggested last week, followed the very simple instructions to open a Dropbox account was also me being unhelpful!
As for leaving a pint of cider (or tea or juice) on a wobbly shelf and then leaving the lap top on the floor below regularly...!
When the house next door burnt down a couple of months ago I thought the message might have finally got through to my sister to back things up to a remote location but clearly not.
Spank86
10-02-14, 12:43 PM
I pretty much refuse to do tech support. My dad is good at that non-sense though. Much of that is about having bits to swap and see if it works (a lot like bike repairs).
I help my parents when they need it but they know full well that if they're not prepared to listen and want to whinge I'll just wander off and they can sit with a broken bit of kit the rest of their lives.
No skin off my nose.
atassiedevil
10-02-14, 01:03 PM
Oh, lets not go there. I'm an IT pro of 20 years, and every time my sister "asks for my help" every time i intervene, "I'm doing it wrong..."
I just don't go there these days. Apparently an Honours degree in my field, and membership of several professional bodies means nothing compared to someone who has only worked 6 weeks in her entire life....
Nuff said....
ClunkintheUK
10-02-14, 01:21 PM
My Dad is pretty good with tech, but is also a complete technophobe. He will build his set up to pretty high spec at the time, house is wired for Cat5 etc but then won't touch it untill something breaks, so he still has no way of streaming netflix, though they use the DVD service all the time. He still backs up his computer to my mums every other day (he works freelance from home) and the whole system to DVD every week, then every months takes a couple of DVD worth of back ups round to his mates house. Has no idea about cloud services. I assume this will change when the system gets a virus and his mate (retired) is in the south of France for 6 weeks.
keith_d
10-02-14, 01:21 PM
Fortunately, my sister is pretty good at using her Synology system. So when she 'lost' some photos recently she just retrieved them from backups.
Next time I visit her we're going to look at putting an offline backup in her garage which requires a specific login to access it's files. Partly in case of fire, but mostly in case another 'Cryptolocker' type virus does the rounds.
Keith.
Paul the 6th
10-02-14, 02:00 PM
Just one second….
Sis has a boyfriend who is trained in IT but he didn't assist.
Ape-face has a boyfriend now? FFS.
punyXpress
10-02-14, 02:16 PM
I help my parents when they need it but they know full well that if they're not prepared to listen and want to whinge I'll just wander off and they can sit with a broken bit of kit the rest of their lives.
No skin off my nose.
They went to great effort & expense to alter their wills and leave it to you, you ungrateful barsteward! ;)
Spank86
10-02-14, 02:20 PM
They went to great effort & expense to alter their wills and leave it to you, you ungrateful barsteward! ;)
They know I don't want any of it so that doesn't work.
Problem is they've got no one else to leave it to.
DJFridge
10-02-14, 08:17 PM
I only ended up doing our work IT by accident (the accident being me having a vague interest in techy stuff and being the only person onsite who could do more than turn them on and off again) and, it being a family firm, I frequently get asked to sort stuff for the in laws too. To be fair, it isn't always their fault - just most of the time. Fat Finger Syndrome being the main problem, "Yes, if you grip your phone like that strange icons WILL keep appearing on the screen. So try not to?" Grrr. Mind you, I can be as bad. All our photos and music are backed up, but only to a NAS in the house. I really should work out how to use Dropbox!
maviczap
10-02-14, 08:27 PM
Partly in case of fire, but mostly in case another 'Cryptolocker' type virus does the rounds. .
Yes, which is why I'm backing up my files to an unattached HDD.
So FOLKS if you haven't backed up your precious files do it now before its too late there is no known cure for Cryptolocker at the moment.
Its much worse and more expensive than a pint of cider.
I'm convinced my PC will get infected with this virus, due to the stupid emails my wife's friends send her, which she opens :smt071:smt071
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