Dropped laptop

[FlameCity]

Hoping the great tech minds of CP have some suggestions . . .

I have a friend's laptop here that was dropped (fell off a night table). There's no physical damage to it. It still turns on (sounds like the fan and everything is running fine). The problem is that it keeps hanging and not booting fully or bringing up the screen to Launch Startup Repair. When I try doing the startup repair it fails and says that it can not be repaired automatically. None of the advanced options work either.

I've tried starting in Safe Mode. While it will come up in Safe Mode about every 10 seconds I get a Windows Explorer Stopped Working, then Windows Explorer restarting . . . not allowing me to do anything unless I can do it in 10 seconds or less.

So the question is what is my best course of action here. She'd really like to recover her photos and a few files then maybe just try a wipe and reinstall? How to recover the lost data or repair windows to at least open?

Any help would be great . . . and very much appreciated!

[cKy]

You can take the hard drive out and hopefully (assuming it isn't damaged enough) put it in another machine to slave it out and pull everything you need off.

Sounds a little off that a drop would cause the OS to stop unless something was damaged on the HD.

[Frank MetaMusil]

Get this - http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...24680(ME).aspx

Remove the hard drive and connect it to the enclosure. Plug it in to another computer and grab the files you need. Afterwards, format it and then put back into the laptop. Install Windows or other OS.

[Rathji]

I am guessing there is some damage to the hard drive, but you won't know unless you can plug it into another machine or some sort of external enclosure/adapter.

An option to the drive that Frank posted, if you want to be able to plug in and access drives on many types later on is a USB to SATA/IDE adapter. A little bit more expensive, but a little more flexible. Not suitable for use as a regular external drive though. http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...13663(ME).aspx

[sclitheroe]

Originally Posted by Rathji

I am guessing there is some damage to the hard drive, but you won't know unless you can plug it into another machine or some sort of external enclosure/adapter.

An option to the drive that Frank posted, if you want to be able to plug in and access drives on many types later on is a USB to SATA/IDE adapter. A little bit more expensive, but a little more flexible. Not suitable for use as a regular external drive though. http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...13663(ME).aspx

I have this little gadget, and I cannot count how many hours of time it's saved me. If your a techie and deal with repairing multiple machines its unbelievably useful.

Great recommendation.

[ricosuave]

Its possible that the hard drive or the memory chips have loosened.

Pop off the covers and check that too.