Thinkpads Forum

Ok, today it was confirmed that my hdd is failing in my T400 that's less than 1 year old. Thankfully it's under warrenty, but the bad news is that I need to backup my Outlook info. I can get the laptop to startup...sometimes, and when it does it will usually freese as soon as I start doing something. What I'd like to know is what are my options as far as backing up Outlook .pst? Can that be done in safe mode? Any suggestions or ideas are appreciated.

Thank you

Take the HD out, use a universal ATA/SATA adapter such as http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6812161002
or get a cheap USB SATA enclosure such as this: http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-2-0-2-5-SATA-HA ... 0491332813
Connect via USB to another PC or laptop and copy your personal files over.

wow, great! thank you

Ok, I bought the universal adapter. When I hook up everything, I see some folders, but when I click to open them, they say empty. Any ideas?

Windows might be hiding them from you.

Open an Explorer Window,
Tools menu
Folder options
View
Check "show hidden files"
Uncheck "Hide protected operating system files"
Click "Apply to all folders"

Nothing. Now when I plug it int, I see the drive, but with nothing in them. It has not been formatted so everything should still be there.

Seems to me that since you can still see folders on the old drive, that it is not completely dead. Why don't you try a file recovery program like Recuva, and see if it can restore the data in those folders. If that one doesn't work, there are others that can repair bad sectors on the hard drive, and correct other file system problems also. But, Recuva is a good one, and it's free!

I believe the reason you cannot open the folders is that you do not have permission to. Boot up Windows in SAFE MODE (F8 at boot to get SAFE MODE boot menu). See following thread. Of course, don't delete the folders, but after following the steps below (except delete), you should be able to access them.

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13247

Ok, for some reason it's not letting me do anything with it now. The drive is running, and on the screen I see all partitions, but nothing in them. Changing the permissions isn't possible because the security tab isn't there. When I first hooked this up yesterday, I was able to see files and folders, now nothing. Any suggestions?

Disconnect everything, then start again from scratch, and maybe try another PC or laptop.

No such luck. I don't understand, the first time I plugged everything up I was able to see files. Now nothing. Very frustrating.

Does anyone have any other ideas? I'd really appreciate it if anyone had anything else to offer. I could really use it.

Thank you,

How about booting from a Linux OS CD to see if you can access the files on your HDD?

Edit: My comments here made no sense, so I removed them. I was thinking about a different thread I had been reading and then posted in this thread. Sorry.

The bad drive is out, and the new one is in. The bad one is sitting on my desk hooked up via the usb adapter.

Can anyone offer any advice on what to do next? I'd really like to get this issue resolved and the old drive sent back to Lenovo this week.

Thank you,