Laptop Died, BIOS screen doesn't start, can I use a LiveCD?

Bohemian

Hello,

My IBM Thinkpad died the otherday. I tried to boot into Knoppix with no luck. Is there any hope in using a Gentoo LiveCD to boot the laptop up so I can delete important files?

Thanks,
Chris
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By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. - Socrates

adaptr · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 2:56 pm Post subject:

If the BIOS is dead you have gained an extremely expensive paperweight...
Contact IBM for a replacement BIOS chip.

...if that was the problem, of course - better send it RMA and let them sort it out.
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>>> emerge (3 of 7) mcse/70-293 to /
Essential tools: gentoolkit eix profuse screen

Bohemian · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 2:59 pm Post subject:

adaptr · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:09 pm Post subject:

If the HD doesn't start then it is probably dead...
Loud clicking noises indicate a head crash and are generally a bad sign.

What you should do is try to get hold of a converter to connect the HD to a normal ATA cable and try to get your data off.

If the documents are worth enough then you could ask for prices from one of the professional restoration firms - they usually have indemnity and confidentiality agreements if you so desire.

Won't be cheap, though.
_________________
>>> emerge (3 of 7) mcse/70-293 to /
Essential tools: gentoolkit eix profuse screen

Bohemian · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:11 pm Post subject:

I don't need the data recovered, I have it backed up, I need to make sure the people at IBM won't read it.
_________________
By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. - Socrates

adaptr · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:23 pm Post subject:

Call them up and require them to shred the HD and/or sign an admission of liablity ?
You're a lawyer - I presume there are rules for this stuff.
It won't be anything IBM haven't dealt with before; I would not normally worry about this sort of thing - especially if the HD is in all likelihood DOA.

The point is that they won't be likely to accede to your requests until they've examined the laptop to see what is actually wrong with it - if it won't boot up at all then it's not just the HD.

For a lawyer, this is a good time to investigate alternatives ;-)

A very simple precaution is to transparently encrypt the entire disk - or at least the partition where you store sensitive data.

Put the encryption key on a USB stick (or remember a possibly very long passphrase) and without it nobody will be able to access the data - not the NSA, not the FBI - nobody.
Take out the USB stick and the laptop is useless to would-be data thieves.
_________________
>>> emerge (3 of 7) mcse/70-293 to /
Essential tools: gentoolkit eix profuse screen

Bohemian · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:26 pm Post subject:

I should do that for my next laptop. Are there any guides for doing that?

I'll speak with IBM about this. I can draw up a contract.
_________________
By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. - Socrates

adaptr · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:30 pm Post subject:

Well, using the in-kernel cryptoloop extension is pretty painless, and you have a range of encryption methods to choose from.
Do a Google on cryptoloop and (as usual) prepare to read for a few nights...
_________________
>>> emerge (3 of 7) mcse/70-293 to /
Essential tools: gentoolkit eix profuse screen

Bohemian · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 3:31 pm Post subject:

All right, thanks.
_________________
By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. - Socrates

Travers · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Oct 2004 Posts: 142

Well since we don't know the status of the HD (if the bios won't work, it's probably not the HD's fault--it still should be good.) Therefore, someone could probably easily read your data. Call IBM and tell them the HD must stay with you. They might accomodate somehow (allowing you to yank the HD until the return of the laptop.) As adaptr suggested, cryptoloop is a good idea, use that for the future. If you can't get knoppix to work, then there is no chance of shredding (writing to the drive multiple times with random data to erase it) the drive. So I guess you're going to have to yank it.

As a note, the only way to completely erase a drive is to pull it out, smash it with a sledgehammer a few times, then burn it. I'm serious, and this is not paranoia. Sophisticated machines can sometimes pull data off the platters even after a full shred (especially the bad sectors.)

didl · Posted: Wed Mar 23, 2005 10:58 pm Post subject:

When I had my T30 serviced due to a bad LCD I took the
drive out (which contains somewhat valuable data)
and send it in without it. IBM didn't complain.

stonent · Veteran Joined: 07 Aug 2003 Posts: 1139 Location: Texas

Dell requires you to remove your HD before shipping. (Unless it is an HD issue)
They also recommend removing the battery and optical drives and any peripheral cards or extra memory.

The IBM and Dell repair centers coincidentally have the same address (hmmmm) on Knight road in TN.
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Inspiron 4100 & Sun UltraAXe
Portage on Solaris|Dell Laptop Hacks
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Bohemian · Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 3:00 am Post subject:

Interesting.
_________________
By all means marry. If you get a good wife, you'll be happy. If you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher. - Socrates

Travers · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 09 Oct 2004 Posts: 142

Gawd! Everything is going to h311! Dell and IBM togeather! AHH! (I hate Dell, they used to only put 128 megs of ram in their low-end boxes. Naturally they were swapping in and out all the time, AKA thrashing, and were practically unusuable.