[jbmcgaw]

Please Help! Home Depot warranty tech support has just replaced my new computer motherboard and hard drive. Now I would like to try to recover some data off of HD that the tech guy was kind enough to leave me for a few weeks. Took the HD to bestbuy and they said they could not read anything from it.
Here are my previous symptoms...
Computer startup would immediately go to frozen blue screen with HP logo on it and several F key options at bottom. Pressing any of these keys did nothing. Pressing any of these keys during startup would start initializing that keys option but then just stay frozen. I let it sit for hours (several times) and still nothing. The data I need is not worth spending $100's on but need to find out if there is something I can do. Here are my specs...
HP Pavillion A6642P
Vista home premium (64 bit)
Pentium E5200 (W) 2.5 GHz (65W)
Motherboard
Manufacturer: Asus
Motherboard Name: IPIBL-LB
HP/Compaq motherboard name: Benicia-GL8E
Hard drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11
500 GB SATA 3G (3.0 Gb/sec

I think all the data is still there but the HD is just not initializing or spinning or something.
Thanks for any help!!!

[acemann]

Invest in a USB 2 to IDE/SATA cable adapter ( got mine at Fry's for 20 bucks ).
Connect this to your dead drive and via the USB 2 adapter to a functional PC.
From there it should "see" it as an external device , You can run various utilities on it
to either repair ( chkdsk perhaps) or recovery sw ( eg.Glary undelete, recuva ) and hopefully you can get your data back.

Good Luck.

Note: USB 1.0 is too slow , make sure it is a USB 2.0

Older PC's that work can be had for cheap at garage sales etc. Can use that
as a temporary PC to fix your system. Or a friend's PC , work PC . . .

[floppybootstomp]

Do as acemann says or buy an external caddie to put the disk in which will connect to your machine either via usb2, firewire ir e-sata. You can buy caddies where the disk is permanently enclosed or open slot tray caddies where you can swap disks in and out.

Or if you feel confident enough open up your pc and connect the disk temporarily to a spare port.

[jbmcgaw]

Thank you both for your time I will try what you suggested.

Jim