8 replies to this topic

[St3liz]

Hi,

 

My wife's laptop, a Dell Vostro, has a broken charger connection. I've tried a couple of chargers but with no joy. The battery is now flat.

I've done a bit of research and I'm pretty sure there is no hope of rescue but it would be handy if I could access the hard drive one more time to grab some files.

What are my chances?

[Tomk]

The only thing I can think of is...if you know someone with a like computer you could charge the battery in their machine.

Other than that, you can always pull the hard drive and access the files with different computer.

[terry1966]

you can always replace the charger connection, until then tho you may be lucky and just by gently moving it around with the charger plugged in you may be able to make it connect and start charging the laptop so you can carry on using it.

 

replacement video :-

 

[St3liz]

OK, thanks for the suggestions.

I don't know anyone with the same laptop so that would prove difficult.

As for replacing the power jack, I've had a look at these videos before and if it wasn't for the fact that I would have to disassemble the laptop down to its component parts I would have a go. I don't think I have the patience for that.

 

I've had a little success, I removed the battery and managed to find a position for the power lead that would give an almost reliable connection, with the help of some sellotape. I have now rescued the data to a portable HD.

As it costs a minimum of £50 to have the repair done I think my next move is to clean off the HD and put it on Ebay and buy a new one. Any advice on the most assured method of wiping the HD would be appreciated. Thaaks.

[paws]

Hi, I'm not quite sure why you want to buy a new hard drive and wipe the old one as you will still have an unreliable power socket on your computer...

 

However to answer your question about wiping a hard drive, directly , a lot of folks have used dban.

 

Take a look here for more information.

 

http://www.dban.org/

 

Regards

paws

[St3liz]

Hi,

 

Sorry, I wasn't very clear in my previous post. I meant clean the hard drive and sell the laptop.

 

Thanks for the link.

[terry1966]

be careful it may have a restore partition you need to re-install the operating system (os), so unless you have a way of putting a clean os on the laptop you really only want to wipe certain partitions, (the os and data partition, not the restore partition.) and not the complete drive.

 

[St3liz]

Yes it does have a restore partition, thanks for reminding me. 

[terry1966]