Dropped Laptop

Hi guys…. My nephew's laptop was dropped from about 3ft. When I tried to turn it on, it would stop at a dos window with a message: "Operating system was not found" I tried to boot up with the recovery disc, but that didn't work. What I tried next: I installed a working HD from my laptop and it booted up and ran just fine. Conclusion: Is the dropped HD toast? Is there anyway I can recover the data that's on that HD? What tools are needed? Thanks for all your input. Paul

If the data on the hard drive is that important, I'd suggest you take it to a service center. First contact the manufactor of the laptop and see if there's a authorized service center for their product.

Thanks LD for your reply…. This is what I did and was lucky to recover data. I got an adaptor that fit the Toshiba HD form factor and converted it to USB. Luckily, only the OS got hosed and the file structure is still intact with all the HD sectors in place. Got A new HD and now running win XP-SP2. Thanks again, WTT….. Paul

Glad you get the data retreived