G'day all,

I am finally back in the country, and once again enjoying the power of the T.

Anyway, so I download all my holiday snaps onto my PC, and am glad most of them turned out OK. But, what should happen next? You guessed it: I go to start up my PC the next day and, uh oh, major f_cking problems - can't even load windows (xp) in safe mode. Various diagnostic tests confirm that the hard drive is rooted, or at least no longer easily accessible. So, if I want my holiday snaps (no back-up at all) and other important files back, I need to get someone to recover the data for me. Can anyone out there recommend a good company in the Sydney region?

Ta

Mate the data recovery places charge unbelievable amounts. Look in the yellow pages under computer - data recovery services.

Before you do...

First thing to do is pop by the computer markets and see if you can find the same hard drive as a second-hand or even new unit.

Take it home and then carefully detach the circuit board from underneath, being extra careful to remove the ribbon cable(s) that come from the hard drive casing and clip into the circuit board. Note that these generally have a piece that lifts up so you can slip the ribbon out of the connector. Now swap this new circuit board for the old. See how you go for getting the drive to work.

It's an old trick that sometimes yields good results.

Edit... umm.. you have tried the drive in a different computer haven't you? To rule out the fact that it might be the IDE controller on the motherboard/

Edited February 29, 200422 yr by Scootre

Was it a moving part that f*cked up in the HD? try pulling it apart and seeing if you can see what is physically wrong with it.

HDs do not like being pulled apart... unless you *really* know what you're doing. Touch the heads and watch them touch the platter. Then you're really screwed.

My sister laptop HD just stuffed up. Same problem "operating system not found", wierd clicking noise. New HD installed.

Bloody IBM usedpads

Years ago, HDs used to be reliable. These days, they fail reliably. And lo and behold, the major players have now reduced their '3 year warranty' on their HDs to just 12 months. Scumbags.

as long as the HDD is still functional there is a way to get the data off of it...it takes 3-4 hours though. Send me a PM aniken and I'll let u know what to do.

I've had the same thing happen to me during uni and I had my major projects on there...I wasnt about to restart a months work so I spend a few days and found some nifty ways of recovering the data. Very effective and quite easy when shown how; and yes, done goto data recovery places - they charge a fortune and u can do it urself. Dont pull the HDD apart cause theyre usually a vacuum inside and it'll screw the heads up.

If your talking about data recovery specialists your talking thousands of bucks.

First I'd try ghosting the drive, and using ghost explorer to try recover the files. If this doesn't work let me know.

I'm sure a lot of the guys around here from Sydney will be able to help you out rather than going to a Company which will charge you mega bucks.

But if no one will help, the company I work for can do it for $165 per hour.

Various diagnostic tests confirm that the hard drive is rooted

Ithought this was going to be about a different driver you might have destroyed in Thailand

hrm..... Here I am thinking that everyone has a backup strategy (don't worry, many a time I have lost alot, but luckily I usually had a backup somewhere, even if it may have been from 6 months before).... Much cheaper than losing everything.. :(