Dad's computer, desperately want to save :(

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  1. Dom
    Posts : 2,295
    Windows Seven Ultimate
       #1

    Dad's computer, desperately want to save :(


    Hi guys, me again.
    I have to say, this problem has nothing to do with Windows 7, or any other OS. The problem is worse, and to do with its hardware. I hope some of you guys with experience may know how to help me.
    Story: -
    Yesterday afternoon, my dad was on his old laptop, an Acer Aspire 1360 trying to get his internet to work on his USB wireless adaptor. When he plugged it in, the computer wouldn't detect it. So I set about prising apart the two out cases of the USB stick. I found, where the USB plug and the solders weren't all connecting up with eachother. So what we did, was plug it in without the case, and use our thumbs to make the contacts meet. It worked, and the laptop picked up the adaptor. But to all stupidity (but in my defence, I have had no experience of hardware issues in my life before, and had no idea where static electricity came in the line) I put the edge of a metal spoon, on the contacts, then suddenly the whole laptop just died.

    Pressing the power button was useless. It was then we realised static in the spoon must've shorted out the electrics in the adaptor, then travelled through to the laptop circuits. My dad thought that it was no use trying to fix it, it was probably 10 years overdue warranty () and the laptop was very slow either way. He put it on my lap, and said "Here's an early Christmas present". I told him he had all his business files, personal data still on the HDD. It was then he told me to try and take out the HDD and maybe get it to life in my laptop.

    I took it to my room, and began disassembling it. And man, I think I've learned a lot. I took off the casing (there was lots of it) and managed to get to the circuitry beneath the keyboard. Just out of curiosity, I decided to take out all the screws and see if there was anything interesting. To my delight, I found the actual CPU beneath a heat sink (very easy screws to get off ), pushed on the 'latchet' and off came the CPU. I was amazed, never actually seeing or holding one of these things in person in my whole life. I put it back after a period of staring at it.

    After that I tried removing every other piece of hardware inside, including the CD ROM drive, the touchpad, the RAM (will become important later on) disconnecting the keyboard, removing the screen (I cut off the wires, thinking I would not need it again ) etc. till none of it was left untouched. It was then, after boredom, I decided to try turning on the PC again. Lo and behold, the heatsink fan started spinning, I heard some clicking of the hard drive, and it was alive for about 10 seconds, then suddenly powered off. I kept on turning it on and off, to see if I could get any more life out of it (each time it stayed on for a bit longer or a bit shorter). Of course, I didn't have the screen on it so I couldn't tell if it was actually doing anything the time the fans were spinning. By now, it was about 11 pm at night (usually half nine for me) and decided to give it a rest.

    The next morning (this morning) I tried turning it on again. Same as before, but I jumped out of my seat as I heard loud beeps coming from somewhere underneath the motherboard; there were 4 beeps. I went about searching on the internet and found a page which identifies the amount of beeps and the causes. As it was something to do with hardware, I took everything out, one at a time, each time booting up and the same beeps happening each time. I had tried everything I thought of, then I realised there was the RAM module on the underside of the case. I took it out, booted up the laptop and there were no beeps emitted. I put it back in, the beeps there again. I tried the stick in a different slot, still beeping. Removed it again, no beeps.

    I thought this was very strange, as I had no idea how a module of RAM (192 mb worth ) could have got broken overnight.

    I decided to ask for help here, and well, here's what you got.

    So, please can some of you help, my dad would be so grateful if I could do something to help either put the hard drive in my laptop, or otherwise get his laptop working.
    We would appreciate so very much, thank you in advance,

    Dom.
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 17,796
    Windows 10, Home Clean Install
       #2

    The post beeps can dignose the specific problem. With the make and model of the computer and an exact decription of the beeps, we can help diagnose.
    Example 2 long and one short beep etc.
    We know that it is hardware.
      My Computer


  3. Dom
    Posts : 2,295
    Windows Seven Ultimate
    Thread Starter
       #3

    4 short beeps.
    Mentioned in OP
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 17,796
    Windows 10, Home Clean Install
       #4

    Yes, sorry, that was mentioned, quite a bit of information in that post.
    Ill see what comes up with 4 beeps. Be back soon.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 2,259
    W7 Professional x64
       #5

    So, you cut the wires to the screen? The only way to repair that is replace the connector or solder the wires back together, which will be a very tedious process, and if you are new to solder work, not fun at all. It should be pretty simple to do two things

    One, swap the hard drive with your own, and boot it up. Burn files to DVD's and enjoy.

    Two, external drive enclosure, and plug the hard drive in via that. Take ownership of the files, change permissions, copy files, and enjoy an external storage device :)
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 31,242
    Windows 11 Pro x64 [Latest Release and Release Preview]
       #6

    Dom,

    I would concentrate on recovering your dad's data from the HDD, If you have an old desktop this may be easier that trying to use a laptop.

    As this is an oldish laptop you more than likely have an IDE interface drive and by attaching to a spare IDE port on a desktop (I would probably just swap it with the CD/DVD drive), you should be able to recover the data.

    If you do not have a desktop and to prevent potential problems for your working laptop have a look at an external drive case and then you can use USB to transfer to another computer either yours or any new one your father buys.

    These enclosures are available at PC world for not too much so would be available on-line for a lot less
      My Computers


  7. Dom
    Posts : 2,295
    Windows Seven Ultimate
    Thread Starter
       #7

    LiquidSnak said:
    So, you cut the wires to the screen? The only way to repair that is replace the connector or solder the wires back together, which will be a very tedious process, and if you are new to solder work, not fun at all. It should be pretty simple to do two things

    One, swap the hard drive with your own, and boot it up. Burn files to DVD's and enjoy.

    Two, external drive enclosure, and plug the hard drive in via that. Take ownership of the files, change permissions, copy files, and enjoy an external storage device :)
    I happened to have tried soldering at school... pretty easy I must say.
    Since my own laptop is so much more modern than my dads, it will be very unlikely that the two HDDs have ATA connections.

    If they both have the same connections/plugs I can store my dads files on my own external HDD, as we don't have any blank DVDs/CDs at the moment.

    Thanks for the suggestions, greatly appreciated, I'll see what I can do to save my dads files
    As for the laptop, he would probably prefer that to work again, but beggars can't be choosers
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 17,796
    Windows 10, Home Clean Install
       #8

    Get the data as suggested and then we can work on the beep codes
      My Computer


  9. Dom
    Posts : 2,295
    Windows Seven Ultimate
    Thread Starter
       #9

    Barman58 said:
    Dom,

    I would concentrate on recovering your dad's data from the HDD, If you have an old desktop this may be easier that trying to use a laptop.

    As this is an oldish laptop you more than likely have an IDE interface drive and by attaching to a spare IDE port on a desktop (I would probably just swap it with the CD/DVD drive), you should be able to recover the data.

    If you do not have a desktop and to prevent potential problems for your working laptop have a look at an external drive case and then you can use USB to transfer to another computer either yours or any new one your father buys.

    These enclosures are available at PC world for not too much so would be available on-line for a lot less
    No desktops in the house I'm afraid.

    I can take pictures of the drive interface if you wish, and the laptop itself maybe.
      My Computer


  10. Posts : 2,259
    W7 Professional x64
       #10

    If it is SATA, it will have a small connector for data. If it is IDE it will have a wide connector with several pins.
      My Computer


 
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