My computer "crashed" yesterday

AlleyKat

DIS Veteran
Joined
Mar 7, 2006
Messages
1,017
I want to have the hard drive repaired(I'm aware of the cost).

If you have been in this situation or know someone who was, where did you/they send the HD?

Was all of your information retrieved?

How long did it take?

I hate to admit this, I have at least 500 photos on my drive that I didn't save to disk or have printed. :sad1:

Lesson learned, to say the least!!!!!
 
Sorry to hear about your HD crashing :(
Your data MIGHT still be able to be retrieved but it may cost several hunderd dollars to do it.
You could look in your local yellow pages for computer repair in your area. They would cost less then sending the computer back to the mfg.
Best of luck!

I back up my photos onto DVDs plus also backed up on an external hard drive.
 
I have used Geek Squad through Best Buy. Didn't have any info retrieved and can't remember how much the guy who came to the house said it would be, but remember thinking it wouldn't be cheap (like maybe $200?). With Geek Squad you can either have someone come to your house or take the computer to them. They were very up front about how much different things cost. In-store I think might have been "first come, first served"; at home is obviously an appointment.

I just recently bought an external hard drive with a terrabite of space (I take tons of photos and we have tons of music in itunes we need to back up). I had been using CDroms and USB (pen) drives, but they didn't hold enough. I think the one I bought was $149 at Best Buy prior to using my coupons. Less space is cheaper, and Walmart may be too. It is really easy to use - just copy and paste. The USB drives are the same easy thing

Good luck - I know I'd be freaking out if I lost any of my photos :wizard:
 
My DF is a computer engineer who suggested I send the HD to a specialist(not Geek squad or a similar entity).

There are companies "out there" who retrieve info. from HD's but the cost can run into the thousands.

They are forensic specialists, so to speak, solving the "mystery" of why the drive crashed and retrieiving the info. at the same time.

They may not retrieve all of it, but they get darned close to it.

Of course it'll come down to what caused the problem!

I don't care about anything but my photos(Disney trips and beloved pets that have passed away)!!!!! :sad1:

Any of you use one of these specialists?
 

There are free programs out there that can get your pictures back. Dont be a sucker and pay someone to do the exact same thing.
 
Our computer got a virus and we were completely unable to do anything. It barely even started up. We really thought we were going to lose all our documents, music, pictures and have to buy a new comp. But we found some local guy who owned this small town company. There were computers everywhere when we walked in. It took him about a week but he was able to totaly fix it and retrieve all our files! It was only about $100 too! It was fantastic! Not only that, but he gave us all these steps to do each time we shut our computer down so it doesn't happen again. I recomend him to everyone now!

I'm sure you don't live near me but just look for a local business.
 
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I want to have the hard drive repaired(I'm aware of the cost).

If you have been in this situation or know someone who was, where did you/they send the HD?

Was all of your information retrieved?

How long did it take?

I hate to admit this, I have at least 500 photos on my drive that I didn't save to disk or have printed. :sad1:

Lesson learned, to say the least!!!!!

It depends......

first, you say your computer crashed, does that mean it simply won't boot up into the OS or will the HDD not power up at all?

if the HDD can power up then you can image the HDD and all data using several tools available, the fastest is LinuxDD, but there are other imaging tools available. they make a bit for bit image onto a different media (HDD)
The imaging process can take from several hours to several days, depending on a host of factors.

once that is done there are several ways of getting the data. The most easiest is to scan for the Hexadecimal picture headders and "carve" out the data taht way. it can take a LOT of time.

there are automated programs that will do that, but again, you are back to being expensive.

What big city do you live in or near? most yellow pages have people that can do that service, but many of them are now listed under forensic data services, and/or some states require these people to be licensed as private investigators.

the problem with those "nerd herd" type of technical services is that they have limited experience in that sort of thing, and also YOUR DATA may not be safe from pilfering by them. If you have sensitive personal information, you are opening yourself up to them making copies of files that you may not want them to copy.
 
It depends......

first, you say your computer crashed, does that mean it simply won't boot up into the OS or will the HDD not power up at all?

if the HDD can power up then you can image the HDD and all data using several tools available, the fastest is LinuxDD, but there are other imaging tools available. they make a bit for bit image onto a different media (HDD)
The imaging process can take from several hours to several days, depending on a host of factors.

once that is done there are several ways of getting the data. The most easiest is to scan for the Hexadecimal picture headders and "carve" out the data taht way. it can take a LOT of time.

there are automated programs that will do that, but again, you are back to being expensive.

What big city do you live in or near? most yellow pages have people that can do that service, but many of them are now listed under forensic data services, and/or some states require these people to be licensed as private investigators.

I'm close to Boston and Providence.

the problem with those "nerd herd" type of technical services is that they have limited experience in that sort of thing, and also YOUR DATA may not be safe from pilfering by them. If you have sensitive personal information, you are opening yourself up to them making copies of files that you may not want them to copy.

I'm well aware of the limited knowledge those "nerd types" have. I also mentioned how glad I am that I never "cruise" the internet, thankful that I don't have to worry about anything I've looked at, any site I have visited! ;)


DF ran diagnostics and states the hard drive does power up but it's getting sector errors/read errors.
 
I don't recommend taking you computer to Best Buy. They told us that our hard drive was totally crashed and there was nothing more that they could do. A friend of my DH worked on our computer and it is running great now. I just don't think that Best Buy is that great.
 
I want to have the hard drive repaired(I'm aware of the cost).

If you have been in this situation or know someone who was, where did you/they send the HD?

Was all of your information retrieved?

How long did it take?

I hate to admit this, I have at least 500 photos on my drive that I didn't save to disk or have printed. :sad1:

Lesson learned, to say the least!!!!!

Give us a little more information as to "crashed." There are commercial programs available out there that can retrieve files of all types. However, it is recommended the software be installed on a separate computer to maintain the integrity of the "crashed" hard drive. By doing ANYTHING on the computer with the bad hard drive, you run the risk of overwriting any of the files you are trying to retrieve.

There are too many unknown variables to fully address your situation. My advice would be to let a local computer shop tackle the job.

BTW, I just went through a similar issue. I paid for the software and was able to retrieve a large % of the files I was trying to recover.
 
I have used Geek Squad through Best Buy. Didn't have any info retrieved and can't remember how much the guy who came to the house said it would be, but remember thinking it wouldn't be cheap (like maybe $200?). With Geek Squad you can either have someone come to your house or take the computer to them. They were very up front about how much different things cost. In-store I think might have been "first come, first served"; at home is obviously an appointment.

I just recently bought an external hard drive with a terrabite of space (I take tons of photos and we have tons of music in itunes we need to back up). I had been using CDroms and USB (pen) drives, but they didn't hold enough. I think the one I bought was $149 at Best Buy prior to using my coupons. Less space is cheaper, and Walmart may be too. It is really easy to use - just copy and paste. The USB drives are the same easy thing

Good luck - I know I'd be freaking out if I lost any of my photos :wizard:

Just as a word of warning--back up anything you have on your external HDD to another format as well, like DVDs (no matter how many it may take). I bought a Seagate 1.5 TB hard drive from Best Buy, had thousands of irreplaceable photos, hours and hours and hours of irreplaceable video, and I shudder to think how many GB my iTunes library was. WAS. The stupid thing crashed and burned (and I wasn't even using it at the time...it was working when I went to sleep and would only make a sad little clicking noise when I woke up.) Seagate claims "there is no problem" because millions of people haven't yet complained (though thousands have...but apparently that isn't a big enough percentage to warrant any kind of action on their part.) They said that if the drive was under warranty, they would replace it. However, they wanted $700 to retrieve my data, and even then there's no guarantee they'll be able to get a damn thing back (if there were, I'd kick out $700 in a heartbeat,, though certainly not to those %%#@#^&*&&). They offered again to replace the drive, and I said, "And what, precisely, would give you the idea that I ever wanted to so much as lay eyes on one of your products ever again, LET ALONE use one?!" Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Sorry. This happened on Aug. 4 of this year and it still hurts. A lot. It feels like someone took all of my photo albums out to the dumpster and set them ablaze. Moral of the story: don't EVER leave yourself with a single point of failure.
 
DF ran diagnostics and states the hard drive does power up but it's getting sector errors/read errors.

I'd pull this Hd out of this PC and hook it up as a second HD (do not boot from it, use it as an extra storage drive only) on a working PC and see if you can copy those pictures over to the working PC Hard Drive.

Those bad sectors may prevent you from booting, but it may let you copy just fine.

Let us know if it worked. Good luck.
 
Just as a word of warning--back up anything you have on your external HDD to another format as well, like DVDs (no matter how many it may take). I bought a Seagate 1.5 TB hard drive from Best Buy, had thousands of irreplaceable photos, hours and hours and hours of irreplaceable video, and I shudder to think how many GB my iTunes library was. WAS. The stupid thing crashed and burned (and I wasn't even using it at the time...it was working when I went to sleep and would only make a sad little clicking noise when I woke up.) Seagate claims "there is no problem" because millions of people haven't yet complained (though thousands have...but apparently that isn't a big enough percentage to warrant any kind of action on their part.) They said that if the drive was under warranty, they would replace it. However, they wanted $700 to retrieve my data, and even then there's no guarantee they'll be able to get a damn thing back (if there were, I'd kick out $700 in a heartbeat,, though certainly not to those %%#@#^&*&&). They offered again to replace the drive, and I said, "And what, precisely, would give you the idea that I ever wanted to so much as lay eyes on one of your products ever again, LET ALONE use one?!" Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Sorry. This happened on Aug. 4 of this year and it still hurts. A lot. It feels like someone took all of my photo albums out to the dumpster and set them ablaze. Moral of the story: don't EVER leave yourself with a single point of failure.


Sadly, Seagate has major problems with Hard Drives over 500 GB capacity.
 
Wrong. If you arent 100% confident in your answer do not answer. It spread misinformation.

Don't know what the problem is, but will those programs work if the drive isn't spinning? I don't think those are 100% either.
 
Can you fill us in on what you mean by "crashed" Are you getting a BSOD with any errors? If you are getting an "unaccessible boot device" error it can be as simple as booting into a Windows recovery counsole and running fixboot followed by fixmbr. To do this boot to a Windows installation disk and run the recovery option and choose to use the recovery console. This is the most common failure I see because of the nature of the way operating systems interact with the boot sectors and MBRs of magnetic disks. If you are getting no screen at all but there are audible beeps from your motherboard it could be a RAM problem. If you just can't boot the drive may be accessible if you use it as a slave drive. Unbootable and unreadable are vastly different.

It is really is a bad drive I use a product from GRC called Spinrite which is very good at repairing disks with bad sectors. It is rare that I can't get data back from a drive that I let Spinrite churn away at. It can take a while depending on how bad the disk is (my record is 13 days) but it has saved many drives for me and my friends who call me whenever they have these kinds of problems.

If the disk has lost its ability to obtain servo lock it is going to be very hard to get the data back without some forensic intervention. This is when you hear short click bursts followed by what sounds like a reset, then the click burst again, reset, repeat. Believe it or not sometimes the thing that fixes this is letting the drive sit in the freezer for a bit.

Spinrite is bootable so it can be loaded into the bad computer and doesn't right anything to the drive. It isn't free but it is cheaper than sending the drive off.

Good luck.
 














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