Member Avatar for Pizzaboy3000

Today I was using my laptop on the train and it was working fine.

On the return journey, I tried to turn it on but it wouldn't load. It goes to the main start-up screen, where it says "Toshiba", and where is has the options at the bottom, but then it suddenly stops. The monitor is still on, but it just shows a blank screen.

I was thinking it had might something to do with the fact that it got X-rayed at an embassy....either that or as I walked out, I took it straight through the metal detectors without realising that it might damage my laptop.

It's a Toshiba Satellite Pro SP6100..quite old, but important none the less. If anyone has any idea what's happened please tell me.

Thanks

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Short, practical next steps and things to try now that the drive is readable but files are locked.

Start by making a full, read-only image of the drive and work on the image instead of the original disk. This preserves recoverable data if something goes wrong. On a Linux system a safe one-pass copy looks like:

dd if=/dev/sdX of=/media/backup/image.dd bs=4M conv=noerror,sync

If the disk has bad sectors, use GNU ddrescue (preferred) to maximize recovered data.

If the problem is simply NTFS permissions/ownership (common after moving a disk between systems), reset ownership and grant rights from Windows rather than repeatedly changing ACLs by hand. From an elevated command prompt (Vista/7/8/10):

takeown /F "D:\path\to\folder" /R /D Y
icacls "D:\path\to\folder" /grant Administrators:F /T

GUI alternative: right-click -> Properties -> Security -> Advanced -> Owner -> Change, pick an administrative account, apply, then grant full control.

Important caveats: if files were encrypted with EFS you will not be able to decrypt them simply by taking ownership — you need the original user certificate/private key. Check file properties or look for .pfx backups of the certificate.

Before making writes to the drive run a SMART check and a surface scan to assess physical health (smartctl on Linux, or vendor diagnostic tools). If SMART shows problems, clone the disk immediately and send the clone for recovery or work only on the image.

For future trips: keep backups, consider full-disk encryption (so lost drives are safe), and carry drives in a padded case. Note that the immediate priority after a suspicious failure is preservation — capture an image, then attempt permission fixes or recovery on copies.

Acknowledgement: this builds on the thread comments from and and focuses on safe data-preservation and precise steps to regain access without risking further loss.

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Member Avatar for NORGEMAN69

Your hard drive will NOT be damaged by the x-ray at the airport. It's pretty harmless, except when it comes to high speed film, but I wouldn't go sticking your hand in there. I used to be a screener and I never heard any reports of anybody's harddrive getting messed up going through the x-ray.

Everything that has to do with magnetics can damage it.
So don't go through the magnetic detector gate, and don't let them check you with their magnetic stick.

Member Avatar for Pizzaboy3000

OK thanks for that.

It seems to be a problem with the hard drive- I've took the hard drive out and it works running on a Knoppix CD

The next step is recovering my important data. This couldn't have happened at a worse time, what with Christmas and everything and the fact that I'm about to leave the country.

The moral of the story is: BACK UP YOUR DATA!!
I'm sure everyone who's even a little bit computer-savvy knows that though.

Member Avatar for Pizzaboy3000

Strangely it seems to work now...
I used an IDE adaptor and I managed to recover my important data..
But I thought I'd put the HD back in the laptop again, and it seems to work..

Only problem now is getting access to the files because I changed the security settings around

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