The hard drive in my laptop crashed Don't know what happened, the lappy just turned off one night and that was the end... no more data - lost everything. I should have known better and have a back-up but it's too late now. Let it be my lesson.


Soooooo, is there ANY way to get it back? I heard there are places that might be able to retrieve it but what about the cost? Will they charge me an arm and a leg? Since I lost EVERYTHING (3 years worth of data) I might consider giving it a shot but if anyone has any information about the recovery process, please share.


Thanks.

 

HAHAHA!!! Sorry to laugh, but that EXACT same thing happened to me a few threads ago...my son destroyed my laptop and my HD may not be able to be recovered..you may wanna check out the thread entitled, "Help my son broke my laptop!" or something like that..

oh, and some places I have looked at have pretty way up there prices for HD recovery...like 2k...

 

Ontrack has been really good at recovering data for me. It can go pretty high as far as recovery but if the data is worth it to you, they will try everything to get it back. Just check out ontrack.com

 

data recovery is very expensive... at least for trying to recover corporate data, but they have good success rates as long as the drive is not extremely physically damaged.

 

Best bet is to see what kind of a Hard disk it is. Buy an external casing, freeze the drive in your freezer for at least 4 hours, put it in the casing, plug in a working machine and get any data off of it that you can get. Wrap the hard disk in a few layers of newspaper, and put it in a double ziplock before freezing. If you have silicone pellet packets, add a couple to the ziplock bag as well before freezing.

 

Can you provide some more detail on what you mean by this? Just because the machine doesn't "see data" when it boots up doesn't mean that the files aren't still sitting there and retrievable by your nearest computer nerd.

If you want to try something on your own (or point your friendly neighborhood computer nerd in a direction), look into a utility called BartPE. You need a Windows CD and access to a working machine with a burner though.

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

As for data recovery services, I'll second Ontrack.

 

The lappy was on when I went out Sunday afternoon. I tried to reboot it Monday morning and the only message I got was something about pre-execution environment, PXE media failure... don't remember exactly what it said but the computer was not finding the HD.

I tried to do the external casing thing with different laptops (without putting the HD in a freezer) and it did not work. Also, a friend of mine who's a huuuuuuuge computer geek, tried to help and said that my chances of getting any info out of it on my own are not good. I already got a new HD, reinstalled whatever I could and remembered I had on the old one and will do back-ups from now on.

As far as retrieving data - yes, it would be nice to have it. All my personal and work documents are gone, pictures, mp3s, etc. However, I'm not going to pay $2K to get it back. I could get a new laptop for that price.

Anyway, like I said... let it be my lesson. I guess I always thought it would never happen to me and boy, was I wrong. Thank you for your suggestions.

 

I know you're serious, but if i didn't know better I would think you are fucking with us... how much are casings generally if u run out to compusa and pick one up?

 

$30-$40

 

29.99 at MicroCenter (got one last night)

 

good stuff! how's it working out for you? That may be my last hope before paying geeksquad 2k to recover my work data...

 

(<---- IT GUY) freezer method has helped me retrieve people's data many a times. Doesn't hurt before considering Ontrack and the like. If you're not going to send it in, it can't hurt to freeze the drive.

 

I've heard this before...how does it help? and is there a limit of time in which to do it?

 

Runtime data getdata back

PM me

what you will need to do is put the laptop drive in an external case and then connect it to another machine and it will get most of your data off.

I have done this for a few of my friends and family.

 

I have done this on a couple of occasions. Once it worked the other time the drive was too far gone

 

Didn't work. We tried it with three different computers.

 

Generally, the drive works for at least an hour after being taken out of the freezer and in a decent temprature-controlled room (68-72 degrees). However, that all depends how bad the HDD is damaged. The less, the better.

 

Are you running a Mac or Windows machine? SubRosaSoft.com's FileSalvage is a powerful data recovery program for the Mac. It can recover data from drives, even if they won't mount (as long as they spin up). You can checkout SubRosaSoft.com's site here.

 

yeah? how does that work with a Windows based system? I don't care about saving the drive, I just need the expensive data off of it that can't be retrieved anywhere else..

 

FileSalvage runs on a Mac but it will recover files from any type of drive. It can recover files from a Windows-based drive just as easy as a Mac drive. Connect the drive to a Mac with FileSalvage. The system will mount the drive. Select it and click the Recover button to recover all recognized files from the drive.

 

is there one that works like this for non-MACS?

 

Sorry, I'm not familiar with Windows data recovery for the most part. I've lived in a Mac world since I was about 6 and work for a Mac company. Good luck.

 

hahaha...no offense taken...

 

with Runtime software, GetDataBack program. you need that to read the crashed HD.

 

R-studio...I had a converter cable like this adapter I hooked it up as a slave drive in another pc with the software loaded. I used to work for a computer shop and I used it to recover quite a bit of data for people.

 

So with that u do not need the external case?

 

Nope, every time I did it, hooking the drive up as a slave was temporary, so I would leave the side of the computer case off and have the slave drive laying beside the computer on top of a static-free bag.

 

Well I lost my drive a few years back that had years of important data on it. First thing I tried to do was put the drive as a slave in one of my other PCs, but the computer could not recognize it. I didn't think to try an enclosure at the time, but something tells me it wouldn't have worked anyway since the other comp could not even read it. I went ahead and bit the bullet and went to American Data Recovery, and the total cost to recover the files $1975.00! I think the drive was only 80GB, and only had 40GB worth of data on it, but still it was nearly two grand to recover it. Considering the importance of the files I had on that computer, I think it was money well spent, but definetely not someting I would want to do again, hey at least they gave me a "free" 250 GB External to store the recovered data on.

I now make multiple backups of all my PC, my laptop, and even old hard drives. I recently bought a 500GB external drive in addition to the 250 GB, just for storing drive backups. I also have a blank 200 GB drive lying around that I may use for backups as well via an enclosure. Losing files really SUCKS!!! But now when I lose something I will feel real good knowing that it hasn't been lost. Its a pain backing up, but being able to recover from just one HD crash makes it worth it.

I also have a very old 1.2 GB drive with data that I'm curious about, but I can't read the data even with the enclosure. After calling ADR again, it seems that the cost to recover it would be around the same as my last drive. I figured it's not worth it to spend $2000 on data I might want, so I just let it go. I just wish I knew what kind of things they use to recover the data, so I can do it on my own if they are available to the general public.

 

try the r-studio demo. it works with enclosures and can read drives when windows cannot even recognize them. The demo allows you to view the data but not recover anything over 64kb.

 

yeah, this was my first major crash...I have learned to back up a little more often than twice a year...