RayLopez99 wrote:
On Tuesday, April 16, 2019 at 5:16:55 AM UTC-4, tumppiw wrote:
Paul kirjoitti 16.4.2019 klo 8.59:
Paul wrote:
RayLopez99 wrote:
Here's my dilemma: I want to recover some photos on my girl's now
dead laptop (she spilled coffee in it, typical girl hehe). I have a
backup. The laptop was a x63 Windows 10 system with an AMD chip that
was 'soldered on', the modern trend where nothing is fixable, and the
PC repair guy said it's not worth repairing (he actually got it to
work before it completely died, but it had problems ever since the
coffee spill that never went away, like some sort of residue was
literally gumming up the mobo, possibly spraying some solvent on it
would have helped, but I digress). I got a system with lots of RAM,
also x64 Win 10, and I run Oracle VirtualBox. So is it possible to
somehow virtually restore this dead laptop on VirtualBox? I could of
course do a physical restore on my new laptop, get the photos, then
restore back to my image file. Just wondering if there's another
way. I hate restoring hard drives from image files since I always
fear something bad will happen, thou
gh so far in the half dozen times I've done it nothing has.
RL
What did you use for your backup ?

Chances are, you don't need to restore anything,
and the image file just needs to be mounted.

There are 20+ commercial backup tools, each different...

Paul
You mention a modern trend.

Would this machine, perhaps, not have any backups at all ?

And you're asking how to get files off an eMMC flash
soldered to the motherboard ?

You see, the CPU soldered to the motherboard, I think you're
dropping a hint that this unit is "thin and light", and has
thus many compromises in terms of access.

When you know a new computer sucks with regard to this sort
of thing, backups are much more important.

Paul

What is the make/model of her laptop?
If it has a "normal" HDD, why not only take that of of it and connect to
your machine?
If it's a soldered eMMC, that might make it more problematical


--
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Thomas Wendell
Helsinki, Finland
Translation to/from FI/SWE not always accurate
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I see. Interesting. Well I'm not an expert with modern PC laptops but back in the day I've built towers and even soldered together ribbon cables, lol, but I think I can do what you ask, if I understood correctly. I will write what I understood below. From the two answers by Paul and tumppiw, I think there are two options on how to proceed.

On the first option, the backup program (to answer Paul) was Macrium Reflect Free (I think, from memory, unless I used that cheap Chinese software backup forget the name now starts with an A). So regarding Paul's option, I wonder, if I pay for the Macrium Reflect Pro (paid version) that perhaps I can 'mount' the Image file from inside of the Macrium Pro (paid) version software? I bet I can! I recall seeing such a feature advertised in their website...if so, this might be the easiest thing to do, assuming I used Macrium Free for the backup.

On the second option, to answer tumppiw, I guess I would need to connect the old mechanical HD to my system using a SATA cable, and power supply cable, then boot up with this HDD connected to the PC, but obviously in a secondary SATA slot not as the primary HDD (the "C:"), and what would happen? Even if it's got an OS in the boot sector, obviously as as secondary HDD it should show up renumbered as say the "D:" drive, right? Then, I go to the D: /Photos /Movies folders of this old mechanical HDD, copy what I want, power down, take the mechanical HD out of the PC, and done, right? Oh, that sounds so easy too!

Much appreciated if you can confirm the above two options, as they are a lot faster and easier than what I was planning to do.

RL

To "mount" an MRIMG in your possession, you could use:

1) Another Windows PC, install Macrium ReflectFree on it.
2) Connect backup drive with MRIMG on it.
3) Right-click the MRIMG file and examine the options offered.

You can change the drive letter it mounts as, then copy the
files out of the "virtual drive letter" it creates.

*******

The "old" drive from the broken laptop, can be connected to your
tower. It doesn't need a special port number or anything.
Any enabled SATA port would do (i.e. not turned off in the BIOS
for some reason). Master/slave means *nothing* to SATA. It's
a sham. One-drive goes with one-cable goes with one-port.
It's that simple.

When booting the computer, you check the boot order
in the BIOS, by opening the BIOS setup screen with the
key it tells you to use. The POST screen has a legend
at the bottom, which indicates (Asus)

Prsss del to enter BIOS

Press F8 for popup boot

The POST screen is only visible, if you disable the
manufacturer Splash Screen in the BIOS. (When the product
is new, you consult the user manual with regard to the
key press needed to enter the BIOS.)

Different products use different keys. The above is an example.

You can modify the boot order with the first key, and
make sure the "old" drive is not at the top of the list.

The F8 key presents a list of drives to boot from,
and you select the OS drive the computer normally
uses, rather than the "old" drive. The Popup boot key
is preferred for control purposes (as you can easily
steer the computer on every boot with it if you want).

Either method should cause your "regular" OS to boot.

Paul