[Me__2001]

got a call from my very upset girlfriend on tuesday, her laptop had stopped booting into windows

went down there and fired it up, got an error asking for a boot device so thought 'no biggie, MBR is probably corrupt' popped in knoppix and got a whole host of errors i've never seen before refering to the HD, tried a bootable version of XP i have, same thing

stuck in UBCD and ran some diagnostic tests, test after test threw up errors at which point things started to look bad

as a last ditch attempt i pulled the drive out and stuck it in a usb caddie, plugged it into me laptop and got the usual sound indicating a new device but nothing appeared, the drive was definitely spinning and warming up but no joy, there was a clicking sound which i'm assuming was the head going backwards and forward?

it has a lot, i say a lot when i actually mean all of her notes and essays and with exams in 2 weeks it would be good to get something

is there anyway of getting anything off it that doesnt involve sending it to a company like disklabs?

[Taffycat]

I'm sorry to hear that ME__2001, would this be any good, do you think? It's free.
Data Recovery
Good luck

Edit: Oops, just remembered this thread HERE

[muckshifter]

The more you try and get access to the HD, the more you risk never retrieving the data.


From what you tell us, MHO is, that HD needs to be sent to the pros.

Never leave important data on a computer, ever!

[crazylegs]

Sounds like its dead and trying to retrieve the data from it would be almost impossible..

Only way is to send it to a professional data recovery company, there they will remove the platters and retrieve the data...It'll cost you though..

[Me__2001]

thanks TC but thats not gonna do the job

mucks thats what i thought, i'm really quite dissapointed that she doesnt have a proper backup of her work, she's got some on her USB stick and home PC plus hard copies of her essays but has to redo half of her notes

pricey, tell me about it! got a quote off of disklabs

standard rate is £345 and that can take 7-10 working days

priority service is £95 to diagnose it and £899 to get the data, that'll take 4-7 working days

and the top whack is well you tell me, £125 to diagnose the problem and get this £1900!! to get the data and that takes ~36hours

think i'll be sending it off to them then tomorrow