The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums here.
The Guiding Principles and New Rules document is now in effect.
Data Recovery
AJAlkaline40
__BANNED USERS regular
__BANNED USERS regular
My girlfriend's laptop is currently incapacitated. A lot of the files on the drive are incredibly valuable to her, a lot of sentimental photos, art she's made, schoolwork, etc. The laptop is saying it's having a boot issue, which indicated to me that there's probably a hard drive problem. While she's on the phone with tech support, I just wanted to check and see if anyone knows how much it would cost (and how likely it would work) if we were to attempt to have a company retrieve data from the hard drive.
AJAlkaline40 on
0
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
Yeah, I found a few different sites that offered it, but none of them really gave me an idea of how much it would cost.
You remove the hard-drive, plug the cable into it, then the other side into a working computer. It will treat the HD as an external storage source, allowing you to transfer files off of it and onto the other PC.
I've saved a few HD's this way, it's very simple and cheap. Crucial part of an IT person's gear
That sounds awfully convenient.
Yeah, and it is. It's a shame how many people pay $500+ for a company to do the exact same thing.
Ok. Go to: http://knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html
Download a copy of Knoppix and burn it to a CD. Put the CD in the broken computer and boot from it (you'll probably need to hit a button like F11 during bootup to choose to boot from the CD instead of the hard drive).
YOU DO NOT NEED TO INSTALL ANYTHING. Knoppix is something called a "LiveCD" which means that you will go right into it without touching your computer or hard drive.
Your hard drive should be listed as a drive. Open it up and transfer everything/everything important to a flash drive, USB device, or run a crossover cable to a second computer and push it over the network.
IF THIS DID NOT WORK:
something might be busted in the computer, but the hard drive is ok. In this case, open up the computer with a standard screwdriver and take out the hard drive. Put it in the working laptop of your choice. Transfer data to another machine. If you can't boot up, do the Knoppix thing above to your own machine (with the important drive in it).
My understanding is the kind of failure that occured on my drive did not require cracking it open in a clean room, which woulda put it closer to $2K+.
Here's the cable I was talking about: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812156102&cm_sp=DailyDeal-_-12-156-102-_-Product
Can typically find them about half the price, places like Fry's Electronics
If the hard-drive has a physical problem with it that precludes recovering files in this manner, you are looking at some exorbitant costs. Best to take this, then, as a painful lesson in keeping a backup.