BigStewMan Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 I needed to get to some of my writing and it's gone ... on a dead laptop. I'm trying not to be too upset about this, but it is tragic ... some of my best work is gone. The laptop fires up fine and the screen looks great until I open anything, then the screen flitters super fast and anything on the screen is unreadable. I can't recreate this stuff even though I basically know what was written. This isn't the first time. Years ago, I had a project that was going great and my house was burglarized and my computer stolen. I tried to recreate it and couldn't. The author Garrison Keillor told a story about how he lost his best work at an airport. He said he knew the story, but was never able to re-write it -- that is what happened to me. Somewhere amongst all my stuff is an external hard drive that may have this stuff on it; but I don't know where that drive is and I don't know if the one and only time that I used it to backup my computer was before or after I wrote these key pieces that I now need. I'm such an idiot and this one is gonna hurt ... real bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldtimer Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 I have scraps of paper all over the place yet are lost. Some excellent faux Faulkner, and even a poem about cold corn on the cob. It's more humanity's loss than mine. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndreG. Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 BigStewMan, have You thought about uninstalling the harddrive from your laptop and putting it into a external shell and save your data? Just my idea on this. Andre 6 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OO1 Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 42 minutes ago, BigStewMan said: I needed to get to some of my writing and it's gone ... on a dead laptop. I'm trying not to be too upset about this, but it is tragic ... some of my best work is gone. The laptop fires up fine and the screen looks great until I open anything, then the screen flitters super fast and anything on the screen is unreadable. I can't recreate this stuff even though I basically know what was written. This isn't the first time. Years ago, I had a project that was going great and my house was burglarized and my computer stolen. I tried to recreate it and couldn't. The author Garrison Keillor told a story about how he lost his best work at an airport. He said he knew the story, but was never able to re-write it -- that is what happened to me. Somewhere amongst all my stuff is an external hard drive that may have this stuff on it; but I don't know where that drive is and I don't know if the one and only time that I used it to backup my computer was before or after I wrote these key pieces that I now need. I'm such an idiot and this one is gonna hurt ... real bad. dont reboot your laptop any more , you do not want to risk losing the data -------send me your laptop , I will either repair it , or retrieve your data ----no problem 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OO1 Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 what is the model no --------brand ------of the laptop -------what type of windows -----if you have a screen shot of the problem , take a picture and post it - did you have an anti-virus active ----- 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OO1 Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 if you have an external monitor -----plug it into the laptop and test to see if the external monitor has the same issue - 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 Steve- Often drives that won't boot/run the operating system, etc., can still be accessed when added to a second system. As Randy asked... what brand/model of laptop, and what OS. If the drive is easily emoved, I can send you a shell that you can then plug into a usb port on another pc. If you encrypted the drive... all bets are off. Bruce 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 I just had an old laptop die and pulled the HD and put it in a docking station and found all of my old files. I am not an expert by any measure, but when you replace this, make sure your operating system is on a separate partition if not drive. You can create a very cheap backup (about $15) by using MS Synctoy (free) and syncing your files to a USB every night using the 'echo' feature. An external drive is probable better, but at least this will allow nightly backups of everything very cheap. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marvel Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 18 minutes ago, tigerwoodKhorns said: You can create a very cheap backup (about $15) by using MS Synctoy (free) and syncing your files to a USB every night using the 'echo' feature. An external drive is probable better, but at least this will allow nightly backups of everything very cheap. And make a usb copy of that drive at least once a month and store it somewhere else safe. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 1 minute ago, Marvel said: And make a usb copy of that drive at least once a month and store it somewhere else safe. Yes, I have raid servers, Synctoy copies and offsite backups. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thaddeus Smith Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 Not all is lost Steve. Happy to help as well if you're not able to get sync'd up with Randy for whatever reason. As others have said, the drive can likely be pulled and accessed from another computer. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NADman Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 Thanks for reminding me. Going to redo System Image to Ext HD tonight. Good luck @BigStewMan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OO1 Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 19 hours ago, BigStewMan said: I needed to get to some of my writing and it's gone ... on a dead laptop. I'm trying not to be too upset about this, but it is tragic . Steve , First thing to do is to retrieve all the data-documents-files etc -and do a backup -------then diagnose what is the problem - 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OO1 Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 5 hours ago, Thaddeus Smith said: the drive can likely be pulled and accessed from another computer. yes - 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OO1 Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 19 hours ago, BigStewMan said: this one is gonna hurt ... real bad. NAAH - dont worry about it -piece of cake 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MyOwn Posted July 16, 2020 Share Posted July 16, 2020 Good stuff here. https://computer-fixperts.com/data-recovery/common-types-hard-drive-failure-explained/ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigStewMan Posted July 17, 2020 Author Share Posted July 17, 2020 13 hours ago, Marvel said: If you encrypted the drive... all bets are off. yes it was encrypted. Thought I was okay today ... turned it on and it fired up. The sign in screen was clear and stable, then once I click on an application, the screen went black and stayed black. I have so many boxes in storage and the external hard drive can be in any one of them. I read something today that said with the Catalina OS that is on that Mac, that an iPad can be used as a second screen. I'll have to do more reading about that; but fear that I'll have to do something on the damaged laptop to enable a second screen to be active? That would be impossible with a black screen. I'm SO not tech savvy so I can't understand how the screen can be perfect until I click on an application then it either goes black or flutters so fast that is it unreadable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OO1 Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 24 minutes ago, BigStewMan said: yes it was encrypted. I read something today that said with the Catalina OS that is on that Mac, -I was wondering if it was a Mac ------Catalina OS has issues with a black screen and Graphics ------ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mungkiman Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Have you tried starting it in Safe mode? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grasshopper Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Hi Steve I'm zero help with your problem. I was doing good to get my streaming music to run... Hope you can unlock your lost files. .... before you frisbee the computer. You might consider paying a tech to say, "Oh, we just need to push this button". "Simple" on a computer is an adventure to me. I don't have enough of a computer vocabulary to execute the simplest tasks. I had to learn to "type" because the damn things.... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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