Data Recovery Help

[LoraJ]

My desktop PC computer no longer sees my C: drive so it will not boot.

I have done everything that the support on the HP site says to do and their solution is to "get a new hard drive." Most of my important files are on another drive, however, my condo association files are in the documents folder on the C: drive. Yipes.

This actually seems to be a known problem with this hard drive (although known to me too late) and it really needs a firmware update. There is a chance though that my drive is too far gone. I am going to call HP tomorrow and see if they can do something about this.

If not, I need to get these files off of this drive. I hear data recovery is expensive. I was looking around the net and a lot of these companies I have not heard of and I feel weird sending my drive to someone I don't know.

Can anyone here recommend a company that does this and how much it may cost in case I cannot get it to work again?

 

[jlewisinsyr]

Well depending on what is wrong with the drive, the first thing I'd do is try to slave the drive on another computer, this would allow you to try to access the drive without passing through the boot record.

Recovery services are pretty pricey, so short of this working or possibly getting it to fire up directly I'm not sure you're going to have any luck but a recovery service.

There is a good lesson here, either manually install a back-up service and run it often or choose an automated online service.

 

[buzzlady]

http://www.qvc.com/qic/qvcapp.aspx/...20GB-Backup-Hard-Drive-w-Dock-InternalUSBCord

Would something like this help - or is it too late?

 

[LoraJ]

Too late for that.

Once I am up and running again, I think I will be getting an online backup account.

 

[MrsToad]

This just happened to DM's hard drive last month - she could not boot off the drive. Using a hard drive enclosure and adding it to another machine as an external drive did not work for us, either - the second PC could not read the drive. We tried several other fixes, including trying to repair the boot record, but did not have luck with those efforts, either.

As a last resort we selected www.werecoverdata.com to evaluate the drive. Their estimates (approx. $400 at the low end) seemed to start at a higher rate than some other services, but reviews of their service indicated they seemed to have better luck on the first try than some other services.

We shipped the drive off to their NY facility. They do not charge unless they can recover data. After a day or so, they emailed a list of files that they could save, quoted a price, and copied the files to an external drive I included when shipping them DM's bad drive. In our case, they saved everything she needed. Cost: $650.

Yes, it was very expensive. However, DM, who is retired but does much of DB's business proposals and invoicing, was so distraught over the potential loss that I thought her health could be at risk if we didn't get the files back. Since we didn't have to pay unless we felt the files they could save were worth the quoted cost, it was worth sending the drive. I'm glad we did.

PS - she typcially backed up to CDs/DVDs, but hadn't in the couple of months before the crash. As soon as we upgraded her PC, we added an external drive that her system automatically backs up to each week. I actually gave her two external drives so she can swap them every month and send one to my house. I do the same with my backups - one rotates off-site to her house.

 

[LoraJ]

Thanks MrsToad. I put in a request with that company last night.

My DH was also just telling me about a product he heard called Spinrite. May look into that as well, but I would think the drive needs to be working.

I will try and deal with HP later today to see what they can do.

 

[nd5056]

I’d advice you to wait until you put new HD into your PC and reload OS.

Once the PC is working again, connect the HD internally or thru a USB device and check if it appears in My Computer after restart. If it does, you can copy all the files.

Sometimes the MBR gets corrupted – yo0u can’t boot from this HD but it’ll recognize it as additional storage HD.