Hello, I've got a problem with my HP laptop HDD. I had it on top of my table when I unwillingly kicked the cable of my laptop, and the laptop fall down on the carpet while the PC was running. The pc restarted and it never loaded up again. So I turned the pc off and then on, and select from the list start with save mode, it was loading some files and it stopped at file SPTD.sys(file corrupted or something), since than I tryed everything but it never load the windows again... I thing that the HDD got scratched and I will need to get new one. Now here is the problem, the pc is my father's and he has got some important files on it; Is there any posibility to save at least some of the documents..? PS: I tryed to reinstall windows, but the installation said that it couldnot find any HDD on the pc..? :( PPS: I also tryed to run HDD auto self-check in bios.. but it said the could not read from the HDD..? PLS HELP!!!

do you hear any noises coming from the hard drive if you put your ear up to it while it boots, if you just hear normal boot sounds you could try taking the hard drive out and buying a $10 external usb 2.5" hard drive case and use another computer to read the drive and test if the hard drive works or not and possibly backup the data to cd/dvd. if you hear a clicking noise the hard drive is broken and would cost $1000+ to get the data back from a data recovery center, and a 100gig 2.5" drive would cost around $100 CAD.

The cable to the HDD may have come loose reseat the cable and see if that helps.

Yes, I do hear normal sounds while booting!The pc even starts loading Windows XP and you can see the black screen with the win xp logo and under it the (loading...)picture. The laptop just never loads the windows completely and it stays there until you turn it off. -"buying a $10 external usb 2.5 hard drive case" -How does that work? (I have only this broken laptop and than another older and slower one, but thats different brand and the HDDs are different too, so I cannot exchange them).Now tell me if I understand: I will take the HDD from the broken laptop, than I'll paste it in to the case, and than I connect it (the HDD in the case) to another computer and try to copy all the files? Am I right? -Could you tell me which one would be best to buy? Thanks so much for the help!