my mums computer has stopped working overnight (has a hdd error on post screen)
so ive brought the hdd round to mine to see if i can sort it out - which i cant

it wont boot as a slave drive or as a master.  but it shows as being connected in the initial post and i cant boot from the os cd when the rouge drive is connected (no beeps on post when its connected).
think it might be dead tbh

is there any way of recovering the files? id consider sending it away for recovery etc

anyone know any firms etc that do this?

I do know of someone who does it, but it costs and Ive never used them.
Have you tried putting it in the freezer overnight then connecting it and getting your data off as quick as poss?
Im told it works!

i havent tried that no
how much does it cost for someone to recovery the info?

Youd be talking at least a couple of hundred quid for a company to recover data from a dead drive.

If however the drive died while still within its warranty period youd be best to contact the manufacturer and complain.

Quote from: ShakeyYoud be talking at least a couple of hundred quid for a company to recover data from a dead drive.

If however the drive died while still within its warranty period youd be best to contact the manufacturer and complain.

Think you have left off a Zero there..



Cant you connect it up on your system & mount the drive so you can copy the data to your PC?
 Its detecting in the bios I presume? and it spins up?

Quick google:

http://www.easyrecovery.co.uk/

Dunno how good they are, but £250

egg how do i mount the drive?

i have 3 hdds of my own in my machine, ive disconnected the primary slave on one of the ide drives and changed the jumpers on the dodgey drive so its set to slave, then tried to boot up.

i cant get past the post screen, i get 2 beeps and it shows as a primary slave on post.
the post splash screen is very very slow when the dogy drives connected also.

the drive doesnt feel like its spinning up either

will get a screen grab uploaded in a min

Spinrite 6 - Saviour of all hard drives.

http://www.grc.com/sr/themovie.htm

http://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm

http://www.grc.com/sr/testimonials.htm - In my experience (recovered 3 drives myself, and recommended it to 2 friends, both have recovered multiple hard drives, from click of ceath, to "it wont boot!") I completely agree with every single one of those testimonials. Its amazing.

I think were jumping the gun here for data recovery.

Your looking at £500-£600 for it to be recovered if that is the case.

Mounting a drive.  Even if a drive is accessible windows will not automatically asign it a logical drive letter.

Right Click My Computer -> Manage

Go to disk management.

Image Ive nicked from some where....



If the drive/partition is showing but is in black, then it hasnt been marked active yet.

Activate the partition, and assign it a drive letter.  Get the documents/files of ASAP onto your machine, stick that back in her machine and reload.

If you cant find the partion, your looking at data recovery send away jobby.

if you can get the drive to display in the disk manager (see pic above), then assign it a drive letter.  

If you still cant see any data, or it says it needs formatting then try a program called "Getdataback".   Ive used it a few times, and its an excellent piece of software.  I would be inclined to try the hard disk in a USB caddy rather than plug it directly into the IDE channel.

tried spinright via a bootable cd
it doesnt recognise the faulty drive at all so i cant repair it or anything


faulty drive set as slave on the primary - leads to a hard disk error message - pressing f1 resets the pc - same thing happens every time


faulty drive set as master on primary (only hdd connected this time)

thanks for the input
I cant get into windows using my own working drive when the faulty drive is connected

would it be worth buying a usb hdd caddy to try? how do they power the drive?

seem to be having probs with getting the drive to power up

Quote from: crazylegsthanks for the input
I cant get into windows using my own working drive when the faulty drive is connected

try i tin a USB caddy, and dont plug the caddy in until you have the computer booted up.  

thanks beaker - ill nip out to maplin tomorrow if not im going to preston for the day on sat anyways

- having said that maplin doesnt look the best place to look

Quote from: crazylegsthanks beaker - ill nip out to maplin tomorrow if not im going to preston for the day on sat anyways

if you are going into Preston, and using Maplin then dont go to the one in the middle of town, its sh*te and they have taken almost all the PC hardware to the one at Capital Center.  If you are in the middle of town head down to friargate near the university and go into 4mat computing, they had cheap ones in for £10, they arent too bad.