Consider yourself warned.

[blackcat77]

I lost everything about a year ago when Z*n* Al*rm demolished my hard drive. After that, I became a backup fanatic. In the case of really important stuff I have backups to my backups but never again will I lose everyything because of sheer laziness on my own part.

[Pando]

who's drive is it ?
Maxtor offer a data-recovery facility for crashed drives.
Third parties around do similar.

BUT it COSTS Do it comes back to how much hurt is there in what you lost

commiserations with you !!!

I'll check the manufacturer when I get home, but the computer is a Fujitsu Siemens... The thing was that they offered a data-recovery, for a few hundred €, but it "failed" and they could not recover ANYTHING. When it comes to hardware I'm a big noob, so I'm sure I will not getting any better results myself.

If you have access to a normal desktop PC or a firewire (or USB) enclosure you should try to connect the HD and see if it mounts.

I'm not sure if I even know how to do that, or if it would make any good. I'll probably some friend that knows something about hardware and let them have a go.

[Smithman]

Good reminder for me, thanks. I should back up my harddrive again, I've not done it in about a year.

[Lagonda]

I'll check the manufacturer when I get home, but the computer is a Fujitsu Siemens... The thing was that they offered a data-recovery, for a few hundred €, but it "failed" and they could not recover ANYTHING. When it comes to hardware I'm a big noob, so I'm sure I will not getting any better results myself.

No such thing as professional data recovery for a few hundred euros. It'll cost ya thousands.

[Pando]

No such thing as professional data recovery for a few hundred euros. It'll cost ya thousands.

Cant really see why it would be that expensive? But then again, this isn't really my area of expertise... I mean what costs? How do they do it? I thought the few hundreds was a rip-off.

[Matra et Alpine]

Cant really see why it would be that expensive? But then again, this isn't really my area of expertise... I mean what costs? How do they do it? I thought the few hundreds was a rip-off.

THe cheap recovery is jsut rebuilding the FAT and file segments from what's readable.
Works for "simple" head crashes and can get back most of what's on the disk.
99 times out of 100 when a company SAYS they will do a recovery for you they are usign one of the many packages available that do the job for pennies !!!!

The REAL deal is by the professionals who may even replace a head for the recovery and can program the seek controller to avoid the damaged landing area.

Finally the ULTIMATE recovery is done with spinning the disk up and using very sensitive equipment "reads" the complete magnetic structure on the disck and from that reconstitutes date.

It's because of the latter capability that government agencies have their drives smashed into tiny pieces

Price increases exponentially with each step !!!

[Pando]

THe cheap recovery is jsut rebuilding the FAT and file segments from what's readable.
Works for "simple" head crashes and can get back most of what's on the disk.
99 times out of 100 when a company SAYS they will do a recovery for you they are usign one of the many packages available that do the job for pennies !!!!

The REAL deal is by the professionals who may even replace a head for the recovery and can program the seek controller to avoid the damaged landing area.

Finally the ULTIMATE recovery is done with spinning the disk up and using very sensitive equipment "reads" the complete magnetic structure on the disck and from that reconstitutes date.

It's because of the latter capability that government agencies have their drives smashed into tiny pieces

Price increases exponentially with each step !!!

Well assuming that they tried the cheapest version, I can conclude that I cannot afford exponental increases, at least not in a near future. Can the other methods be tried "at home"? Perhaps the equipment is expensive, but I still cannot see why the process itself would cost that much!!

edit: the hd is a toshiba btw, if it makes any difference...

[Matra et Alpine]

damn, I've got some Maxtor diagnostics which are good for recovery. Allows you to take sectors off in blocks. So can "safely" avoid the bad bit. Don't know abotu Tosh, you could check their suypport sitse.

You can try using the software yourself, bittorrent can be your friend. If ANYTHING is readable it might ecover it. BUT not that trygin it can make the disk worse. But sounds as if you've nothing to lose.

Doing anythign else needs a clean room and SMD (de)soldering for the connectors

[Pando]

Ok, so now I'm a bit confused... I don't necessarily need any special hardware to do a "cheap" recovery? No I'm more amazed how they motivate the customers paying as much as they are.... It would probably have to be done on a desktop though, since I dont think I can fit two hd's in the laptop, right?

[PBB]

How ironic, I'm burning 60+ gigs of car pics, movies and music onto DVDs right now...

[Forever92]

Oh great thanks... I can't back up my HD either because both backup HDs are full (200gb). I'm still in the process of cleaning out my hd and burning stuff on DVD+Rs.

[Oliver_Newton]

I'd go with trying to hook it up to a desk top. My HD died about 6 months ago and I was able to put the dead/corrupted one back in my desktop PC as a secondary HD. Then because it wasn't needed to boot from, I was able to pull off about 60% of my files. The rest I could see, but was corrupted when my HD died. Best of luck. These situations are never fun.

[danno]

you can still get data off a crashed disk since all the physical markings are still there. All you need is a machine that reads a HDD. My mate has one. He already recovered one of my friend's HDD for him.

[dcsbeemer]

Strange, I had this problem just yesterday... There are 2 different types of blue screens though, at least as far as I know of personally when it comes to Win XP. The first type is the one that says "UNMOUNTABLE_BOOT_SECTOR", which is fixed quite easily in less than 15 minutes. The second displays for only an instant, then your PC restarts.

I had the latter problem yesterday. Turns out my "Windows Registry Hive" was corrupted. Time taken to fix using Winternals ERD Commander = less than 10 seconds.

If there's one thing I know about the "pros" at Computer Shops it's this: DO NOT TRUST THEM!!! You can trust a lawyer or a doctor before you trust one of these guys. They WILL detect it if you know very little technically, they WILL smoke you for all you're worth and quite often, they WILL worsen the problem or just create another problem elsewhere in order to keep you coming back for more...

Seriously, you have a better chance at emerging unscathed from the Ocavango Delta in Lion-mating-season dressed in T-Bone steaks than hearing the truth from a Computer Tech.

Indeed, consider yourself warned.

[Forever92]

You guys are making me more nervous... thanks.