My son’s laptop died recently [refused to boot or even load BIOS, motherboard failure diagnosed] so a replacement was acquired over the recent sales and I am trying to restore his stuff – specifically his iTunes library.
I have removed the HD from the old laptop and put it in an external enclosure and can read it, but any attempt to copy much suff fails – the copy hangs and sometimes the computer freezes till the disk is removed. Attempts to check the disk also fail. I am beginning to suspect there is some sort of issue with the HD as it performs the same in two different external caddies.
So. Any thoughts on whether this could have been the issue with the old laptop; any ways to recover the data or any other ways to recover an iTunes library?

Hi,

It does sound like the drive is faulty from what you’ve said.
Are you sure the enclosure is ok? If it was me I’d try another ext enclosure/cable (if you have one) just to rule out another issue and then run chkdsk on the drive or some form of diagnostics and see what the outcome is.

If the old laptop wasn’t booting to BIOS then that means it was having other issues as well. If it was just the drive then you would have got an error along the lines of “no bootable device found” or “Hard drive 0 not found”

HTH

Si

I’d use a self contained linux disc like knoppix (download and create a cd/usb boot device) to boot your ‘good’ pc with, while the enclosure is attached. Linux tends to be less fussy about dodgy disc access*, and won’t lockup like Windows does. The itunes library (& files as a default) is stored in the “itunes” folder within your “music” folder of your profile. The linux boot device will boot into a desktop and though it may take a bit of fiddling and playing around (havent used it for a while TBH), it shouldn’t be too difficult (See here for a guide) to transfer the data over, assuming linix can access the dodgy disc.

*If the HDD is faulty it seems more likey that caused your sons laptop issues. With the hdd removed will the laptop try to boot now?

Si
As luck would have it I have two caddies available {one new one borrowed], both work fine with another disk and both ‘fail’ in the same way with this one, so think I have eliminated the caddy.

Old laptop performs identically with its disk removed, blank screen, irritating beep, nothing else.

Z1ppy, Might try the Linux option if he cannot recreate from the files on his phone. I can read the disk enough to find the library, but it does not seem up to allowing me to copy much of it.

As I say linux is much better at working with dodgy discs, there no gaurantee it will work but it won’t just lockup/freeze like windows does at the 1st sign of any issue & can ignore parts of the disc it can’t access and will recover the other files it can.
Shirely his whole library/file won’t be on his phone, only ‘part’ of it (unless it’s small)