Barn Owl

Well, KenB, I'm afraid I can't put your name forward for canonisation just yet as my harddrive didn't make a miraculous recovery after a night in the freezer. I haven't yet tried drastic method number 2 yet, but I'll report back to you if it happens to work. I'll also send a letter to the Pope at the same time! Anyway thanks for providing a bit of humour. It makes this crazy world go round.

Does sound a bit eccentric, to say the least! But, as you say it's dead anyway so maybe that's the kiss of life it needs! I'll give it a try tomorrow and let you know if the patient shows any vital signs of life...........!!

Hi-been away for a few days so I'm sorry I'm late with this update. I tried the adaptor, but it looks like there's no way back. The laptop didn't recognise the drive and there was absolutely no sound at all coming from the disk. I would have thought there should have been some sound, but it was as dead as a doornail. So, many thanks for your interest. I expect that's the end of the line now, but if you've any other feasible suggestions, I'm always willing to give it a try

Thanks, Vr. I've got my sound back now. Easy when you know how! Thanks a million. I might have got there on my own in the end, but you've undoubtably saved me a lot of time and frustration on the way.......I owe you one!!

Thanks for that. I. I'm on another laptop at the moment and I've tried your suggestion out on this one. I understand what you mean and I'll try it out later today. I wonder, though, if it will show up the same on the other machine as this ones runs on Windows7, and the other is Vista. Just a point, really, but I suspect there won't be any big differences.

Thanks...That does sound like a possibility, providing as you say that my system recognises it. I have ordered a plug in type sata adaptor as opposed to a caddy, which looks to be capable of doing the job. It was only £16, which isn't much really if it can breathe new life into disk. Keep your fingers crossed!!

Hi-Please can anyone help me out. I accidentally disabled the internal speakers on my Toshiba Laptop which operates on Vista. I was having trouble getting the earphone system to work and I thinks that's where my troubles started. I am now just left with the earphones working O.K. and also the 'Digital Output Device' (SPDIF), which I imagine enables external speakers to be operated from the machine, but the Harman Kardon internal speakers aren't enabled and I've searched all over my Laptop to try to find out where I can enable them from, but the option seems to have disappeared. I'm wondering now if I've somehow deleted the drivers, but if so I can't think how I could get them back. Can anyone possibly shed any light on this for me. Thanks in advance.....

To KenB.........Thanks a lot for that. As you say there aren't any guarantees, but just to know that someone out there has taken the time and trouble to actually reply with some very useful information is really appreciated. As soon as I get the chance I'll go ahead and give all your suggestions a try. Once again thanks a million.......

Hi, I'm new to 'Extreme Tech Support - Free PC Help' so I hope I'm going about the process correctly. I have a Samsung Laptop and recently the Hard Drive stopped booting up. As I'm not into the technicalities of computing, I took it into a shop and they told me it was damaged and the only way to continue using the laptop would be to fit a new Hard Drive. I went ahead with this and they gave me the old disk back. Foolishly, as it turned out, I didn't backup any of my files and it seems I've lost loads of irreplaceable photos and videos. I've just read somewhere about usb caddies and was wondering if it's feasible to slot the old disk into one, plug it into the laptop and see if any of the files are still there. I know I'm probably clutching at straws but if anyone can put me right about this I'd appreciate it. In the unlikely event that this might be a possible solution, please give me a run down of what I need to know, avoid, etc. PS to all you techies out there: please forgive any schoolboy errors I may have made by using incorrect terms ,etc!