Fried hard drive on my Dell laptop-Data recovery??

[nikki]

Damnit... Friday morning I turned on my laptop, worked on it for 30 mins, then laid down to take a nap. Just as I dozed off I started hearing a "click, click.... <pause> click, click... <pause> click, click..." and though to myself "is that the ceiling fan or something cuz it's annoying!" Well I get up and see the blue screen on my laptop "the PC has detected an error and shut down" blah blah blah and the clicking was coming from the laptop. I shut down and restart and it says "can not find hard drive or bootable device". Not good :whiner:

Later investigation with Dell phone support points to a bad hard drive as I pulled out the hard drive and no more clicking problems. So a new one is on the way but the kicker is did I just lose ALL my stuff? The only thing(s) I am really concerned with are my .jpeg files and my .mp3 files but most importantly my photos. Have I ever backed up my stuff... sad to say but I kept putting it off and didn't. So I wanna kick my own butt... but what I wanna know is who would you recommend to see if the data is recoverable? Any computer shops or computer savvy friends? I am willing to pay a decent price if someone can recover any data. It is an IBM 20GB hard drive and about 16 months old.

I can't believe I lost all my photos (weddings, 1st birthdays, other family deals, tons of race photos, red and me with pro riders, track photos from all over, etc.) I am so bummed :( Also I had a killer mp3 collection that would be near impossible to replace. If I made mp3 CD-R's to listen to in a mp3 player can I get these mp3's back on my new hard drive? If so how does this work and what programs would you recommend?

 

[nikki]

Ouch... just got quoted $850! BTW approximately 10-13GB on space was used on the hard drive. This sucks :(

 

[MrLuckey]

Nik, send PK a PM. I think he used a data recovery software package or service here awhile back.

Also a note about MP3's. A couple days ago on the radio they were saying (for whatever its worth) that the recording industy has started a campaign to really nail some people who have MP3's. Apparently they are going to try and make an example of some people. No idea if its true or not but I'm staying away from the music sharing for awhile until I get more info.

 

[Zerotact]

Nikki, Sometimes you can put a hard drive in the freezer, and it shrinks the parts just enough to get it to spin again, but you have to quickly remove the data. If you can't find anyone, I will try, but I cannot garuntee results, and You have to get the drive to me, meaning you can't give it back to dell untill I am done.

 

[nikki]

Well Dell hasn't asked for it back (yet) but I kinda don't think they will. The new hard drive should arrive today or tomorrow. Maybe I'll try the freezer trick tonight. Thanks for the offer zerotact I'll keep ya in mind.

 

[Zerotact]

Here is what I would do,
Seal it up in a bag, and freeze it.
Get a laptop HD to standard IDE connector
Connect the laptop drive to a regular computer, and boot to the non laptop drive.
After it's booted and running, go into the bad laptop drive and pull you data over to the regular computer.
If you try to boot to the bad hard drive it may get too hot too quick. That's why you boot off another drive. It's also quicker to be able to just pull the data over as soon as you can acess it.

I have done this many times at my job... Kinda... Meaning I have had full size computer drives start "clicking " and I have loaded that drive as a 2nd drive in another computer and pulled the data across. I'd say I have about 90% sucess

 

[nikki]

Wow thanks for the info!!! I do have access to my step-mom's brand new Dell desktop pc. Where do you pick up a laptop HD to standard IDE connector? How much do they typically run? Does it connect through USB or a serial port? And do they come with software that you use to access the laptop HD?

 

[Zerotact]

http://www.myxtech.com/p/1857.html

It will look like that Or close, On the desktop, I'd say pull the connector off of the cd rom, and use that to plug the laptop drive in, as you don't want bolth drives hooked up to the same cable. So you will have to open up the desktop, to get to the cables. I would suggest moving files in small batches, and not all at once, As the drive is running it will warm up, and stop working. Sometimes it takes me several stages of moving data over, but I eventually get it done I'd say 90% of the time. The other 10% the drive simply would not spin up.

 

[wardy]

didn't my 3.5 year loss of information teach ya!!! last year I had a head come off my hard drive and it scratched the heck out of it makeing retrieving information impossible.

I burn a cd at least once a week, twice a month for sure. in fact i am going to do one now!!!!

hope ya get it fixed or figured out, they hold people up for ransom on that recovery stuff.

wardy

 

[Papakeith]

wardy, everyone has to get burned at least once.
I did use a program sucessfully a couple of months back Nikki, but it was labor intensive (mostly because we didn't purchase the copy, and the demo would only let us recover 1 file at a time. It got the job done though.

If it is clicking, chances are that it is a controller card error. the fact that it can't find the bootable device also points this way. If it is a controller problem, a software solution won't work.

I know it sounds really hack, but sometimes simply pressing the top and bottom of the drive together will make a better contact, or close a poor solder joint long enough for you to recover your data.

Good luck,
let me know if I can help.

 

[Philip]

Sorry nikki!! :(

Hope you resolve this!