Ok check this out..... My laptop screen is completely busted. My laptop turns on and everything of course still but I see absolutely nothing. Problem is this: I have a TON of documents and pictures on the hard drive that mean ALOT to me. How can I get them off? I triedto pluga regular desktop monitor into my laptop but I get nothing. Don't quite know if there is some sorta key combination i need to do or something to get it to switch over but it won't doit on its own. How do I get my information off of that hard drive? Is there some sorta cable or something that I can purchase and how much would that be?

The BEST thing of course would be if I can get a regular monitor to work with it and then I take everything and put it on a flash drive.
If anyone can help....its a Compaq c303 NR. Still have a manufactures warranty but of course that doesn't cover what happened to mine

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

well, worse comes to worse, you can take it to a computer store and they can compile everything off the hardrive and put it on cds for u. It will cost ya a little bit though.

 

Ok Bigger problem......

Just when i thought that I could do it.....My keyboard doesnt work....errr!!

Ok so its hopeless now right?? lol

No chance of plugging in some external keyboard?

 

You could take the hard drive out, get a USB external 2.5" enclosure, and plug it into another computer. They sell them at Circut City (this is the one I bought when I was in your same situation)

 

+1 to clx, I was gunna say just pop the harddrive into another laptop if you can get your hands on one but this is a MUCH more economical idea.



Actually now that I think about my idea a little more its actually really stupid. Go me. Good call clx

 

+1000

I shudda visited this thread last night, *I* cudda been the hero!!!

If you can tie your shoes you can swap out the HDD to an external enclosure. Heck, since it's got your OS on it, too, you could theoretically boot from it, on any other system with compatible ram & such, if the other system is set up to read bootable from USB, of course.

I've built prolly a half-dozen of these, in teh last 2 years, and am connsidering hooking up a buncha these for my geek friends as x-mas gifts, since 2.5hdd's are so dirt-cheap, these days. 100g sata's for $60-$70.00!!! or less...

Anyway, if you need someone to talk you through it send me (I'll bet Cyber, or any of about a dozen others ofus would be happy to help, too) a PM and I'll give you my digits & talk you through the very, very easy process of removing your hdd and putting it into an external enclosure.

 

Did you drop it on the floor? Possibly spill water on it?

If you find your keyboard working there is a fn key on the lower left next to the CTRL key. Press and hold the fn-key and there should be a Fkey with a little icon that looks like sorta like this || that you'll need to press as well. Holding the fn key and pressing the || key again and again will cycle through the different video output options, IE laptop screen, external monitor, laptop screen + monitor, etc.

If the laptop is fairly new you can call and get a replacement keyboard. Although, if it suffered water/fluid damage than it may be more serious than that and your video card or motherboard may have been effected.

To say the heck with it and merely get the information off the hard drive than read CLX's above response.

Good luck!

 

Thanks guys for the help!

I ended up listing the laptop on craigslist for parts and someone is gonna pick it up for 70 bucks. I also told the guy that it might not be until monday when I can give it up since im working on getting documents off and he wants me to do it sooner and will bring his cable to clear it off.

I first thought of putting the harddrive in another laptop I havebut it wont fit


So im still super sad I dont have my laptop. But I guess Black Friday is next week and the BEST day of the year so im sure to get another one then.

Thanks for all the help!

 

it doesn't have to fit in your other laptop. thats what the 2.5" enclosure is for. you take the hd out of the laptop, stick it in the enclosure, then plug the enclosure into your other laptop via a usb connection, and transfer the info to your other laptup. the enclosure will actually act like an external hd from now on as well.

 

the problem is system boot upsoftware and in order to reset it you need a USB key board this allows you into the system setup by keeping the DELETE/DEL button down and puts you into the BIOS then you can reset to default, awkward things laptops