Data Recovery

[theladf]

I know this is primarily for resolving tech issues with the site, I have a different problem with my laptop. Recently it was taking ages to boot up so I investigated the properties and being as it's 6 years old it had a mighty 256 meg of ram. I invested in a 512 meg upgrade (3rd time of asking the correct item arrived) and initially it's performance was much improved but then it started crashing and returning to start up on its own. I removed the upgrade and tried the thing again but it got worse eventually getting stuck in a bootloop. I bit the bullet and bought the machine I am using now but needed data off the old laptop hard drive. I took it to a well known retailer where they said they should be able to recover the data. I had a phone call today saying the usual methods of recovery had not worked and they would use IBLAS? to try to recover data when it became available. 3 hrs later another phone call, IBLAS has failed my hard drive, data now unrecoverable unless the drive goes to a specialist company who will charge about £700!!!!. I am picking the computer up tomorrow to cut to the chase does anyone know any cheaper means of recovering the data, and where I can get this done?

 

[MontyPlumbs]

PC World by any chance mate? If so, no wonder it's fooked - those idiots have probably wiped it.

 

[NotAnIDOYet]

I bought a cable of ebay that lets you connect your laptop HD to a spare IDE channel on a desktop.

Just set the jumpers to slave on the laptop drive and boot up, your drive should show in Windows Explorer.

Cable cost me about a godiva delivered, or pm me your address and I will send you mine for a loan.

 

[MontyPlumbs]

I bought a cable of ebay that lets you connect your laptop HD to a spare IDE channel on a desktop.

Just set the jumpers to slave on the laptop drive and boot up, your drive should show in Windows Explorer.

Cable cost me about a godiva delivered, or pm me your address and I will send you mine for a loan.

Doubtful this will work mate, sounds like IBLAS has destroyed the file structure on the disk.

I think it's quite possibly fooked mate, unless you get a specialist to look at it with the associated expense. I'd just bin it off and remember to do backups of your data in future...:S

 

[NotAnIDOYet]

Or depending how vital the data is:

http://www.rapid-data.net/

 

[monobrow]

The easiest way I can think of, is to use a linux boot disk such as knoppix and see if you can actually read the drive. All you need to do is download the image file HERE, burn the image to disc using nero or another similar burning program, then start the pooter with the disc inserted. It's not microsoft windows, so it will look different, but will boot the system entirely from the disc. Just be patient because it can take an absolute age....

Once you know if you can actually see the data, (should show disks as either HDA1 or SDA1) you know if you can "syphon" it off to either an external hard drive or a shared location on a network (wifi, or ethernet). Give it a shot and see what you can come up with.

 

[theladf]

Cheers for the tips guys, I have actually got a replacement hard disk being fitted but I am getting the old one back and will try any options suggested to recover stuff, mostly pictures. I don't really have any excuse for not backing up data more regularly, (lesson leaned the hard way!) I have a 400 gig external drive. Apart form the loss of the pictures I have lost the records of votes for ****** of the week since last years ****** of the year vote, and I'm not sure I can be arsed to recount 60 pages of votes:S

 

[Shugster]

As with the ladf, (and I suspect 90% of goaters), I haven't backed up any data either.

Does anyone know a good freeware package that backs up your data automatically when you plug another drive in?