Re: [OT] Hard Drive Failure - data recovery

[Richard Malcolm-Smith <rich@xxxxxxx>]

neilball@xxxxxxx wrote:

> Well, it had to happen - I've experienced my first hard disk failure
(I think) in all of my many years using PC's &laptops..... and yes,
before anyone asks/laughs too loud (!!) I did not have a proper back up or
disaster recovery plan implemented. As a result I'm now left with the
difficulty and expense of deciding if it is worth trying to recover the
important data from the failed drive assuming that it is possible.
>
> The failure is on my laptop, the disk is NTFS and boots to the windows
XP splash screen before BSOD'ing and rebooting again (and again and
again...). None of the boot options makes any difference, and the recovery
CD fails when trying to find XP on the machine before reinstalling. I don't
think this is virus related as I'm pretty anal about that sort of thing,
which leaves me concluding the problem is the hard disk itself.
>
> Because of the importance of the data I don't want to try anything
that could cause more damage - I've seen suggestions that placing the hard
drive in a freezer may help - but I would rather try a professional
solution first. So can anyone suggest contacts worth trying to see if
anything can be recovered. I need to balance up the costs against likely
results before proceeding. Any help/recommendations would be gratefully
received.

Take the drive out and try to access it in another machine.

I have had this happen on my lappy, the data to boot went bad. (Actually to
come
out of hibernation) - Laptop drives have an enourmous amount of space to
map bad
sectors out, but it needs to be re-written first. Put it on another PC as a
secondary and copy what you need off it, run the manafacturers diagnostics
and
check its still healthy and then format and reinstall.


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