Pulling data off a non booting Win 8 Asus Ultrabook?

[drnick5]

Hey Folks,

Ran into a problem on a clients computer that I haven't had before. Computer came in not booting (giving an error saying fies are missing or corrupt in system 32). They have a bunch of pictures they want backed up. Typically I'd open the computer and pull the drive, hook it up via a usb adapter and copy the data off. However in this computer, it has an ADATA SSD that seems to have a proprietary connector. (it's smaller than Msata). SO I don't havea way to hook it into anotehr computer.

I bought this adapter: http://www.ebay.com/itm/370883398078?_trksid=p2060778.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT

but it will take a few weeks to arrive, I mainly bought it to have on hand incase I run into this in the future.

So for now, I tried booting to my ultimate boot CD and launched parted magic. I was able to see the SSD and locate the files, great! I plugged in a usb flash drive to copy the files to, but for some reason, it wouldn't mount the flash drive. I went into the partition manager, and reformatted the flash drive, which allowed me to mount it. however, when trying to copy files from the SSD to the flash drive, it is VERY slow. (copying 10 small pictures gave an ETA of 2 hours).

Does anyone have any other solution I could try to recover this data? Any other Live boot CD's or other software that might work?

 

[ohio_grad_06]

At least on physical drives you are best off to use a tool like ddrescue. If you have parted magic it's included on that. Might be best to use that to try and copy it onto a physical drive you can work from. Can't speak for ssd's, but trying to copy files like drag and drop method can finish off a physical drive.

May not be a bad idea to send it off for data recovery if their data is valuable to them.

If you try it yourself, i can attest that with physical drives if they have a lot of data doing that transfer can take a few days. Just start it, leave it alone and let it do it's thing. Maybe put it on a laptop cooler if you have one.

 

[Romaniac]

That looks like mSATA adapter to me....?

Just bought one off NewEgg - worked great. Turned out laptop was damaged, SSD was fine.

Are you located outside North America?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...TCH&Description=mSATA+adapter&N=-1&isNodeId=1

 

[DataMedics]

That mSATA adapter you bought should work just fine. (It is mSATA by the way, just not the same adapter sometimes called Micro SATA used on some 1.8" laptop drives and laptop CD/DVD drives).

Though if you want to get it done faster, you might just consider booting up a linux live CD or USB such as Knoppix. On the laptop or another laptop with the same mSATA slot (some desktop motherboards now even have the slot, might be worth checking the computers you have around).