So I dropped the laptop and the hard drive is a gonner- seems that is a mechanical fault, and so not something that software can help with.

Good news is that all the actual job related work was backed up, but music and photos never were (not enough blank DVDs/time etc..) Any ideas on a ballpark figure for how much it might cost for an expert to dive in and see how much can be retrieved?

Cheers

Joe

On the order of £500 when I enquired a couple of years ago.

How confident are you in doing it yourself? There are articles online about this, most involve swapping the hard drive platters into an exactly identical drive at a far lower cost than a proper data recovery company.

Well…. it’s certainly a better option than £500 for a few pics and tunes! Have you got a link AlasdairMc?

Cheers

The one I read, many years ago admittedly, was on tomshardware.com – they recommended swapping out the parts of the drive bit by bit, PCB first to see if that resolved it.

What happens when you try to boot it? Is the drive seen in BIOS? Is the problem definitely the drive and not another part of the laptop?

Stevomcd has it but PLEASE be so careful and do not buy online. The data recovery industry is 90% scammers

I had a chat to some experts about using the method AlastairMc suggests.

It is *possible* but has a pretty low probability of success. Essentially, drive makers are constantly changing the boards & firmware and you need to get an exact match to have a hope of it working.

The company we use at work charges £1k after an initial check, but doesn’t guarantee to retrieve anything, I’ve had colleagues swap HDD parts around with some success, but as already mentioned it needs to be exactly the same model.

The repair guy says it is the hard drive, which he is going to replace – I think I might try and get a quote from a local company for data retrieval, but I’m not going to spend a fortune on it, just worth saving the time it will take to rip all my CDs again… main thing I will miss is my GPX library 🙁

Well…. it’s certainly a better option than £500 for a few pics and tunes!

How would you feel if it was, ummm, your only copy of your wedding photos?

Not saying this happened, mind, or that it was anything to do with someone plugging the laptop power cable into the external drive by mistake…. 😳 😳 😳 😳 😳

hand it into the police and say you’ve been looking at naked children. they’ll be able to get your data off in a flash!

“Essentially, drive makers are constantly changing the boards & firmware and you need to get an exact match to have a hope of it working. “

This is why he said:

“swapping the hard drive platters into an exactly identical drive”

So if you can get one (should be no problem unless it’s over five years old… maybe not even then), then it might not be too much of a chore. 🙂

How would you feel if it was, ummm, your only copy of your wedding photos?

I’d feel an idiot for only having one copy, and only have myself to blame.

Storage is considerably cheaper than recovery.

you can get external HD’s for less than a ton.
pictures and memories, priceless….

Check out the folk on Tech Support Forum. Plenty of experts on there who really know their stuff. Might take a day or so for someone to respond, but once they do you could be on your way to getting sorted.

I got the drive information off a bust portable hard drive, stuck it into a permanent search on ebay, and it has never found a drive. So I can’t try to swap the bits over.

The company we use at work charges £1k after an initial check, but doesn’t guarantee to retrieve anything,

😯

I’ll offer the same service for £800. Remember no garantee that I’ll actually do anything once I have your £800.

Thanks for your thoughts folks- gf s brother is an it expert, so I’ll show it him when I get it back. If he can’t help, Bruneep, I’ll give you a call. Maybe… 😀

gf s brother is an it expert, so I’ll show it him when I get it back

translated: “He’s a sql system admin so must understand all about hard drives” 😉

How would you feel if it was, ummm, your only copy of your wedding photos?

I’d feel an idiot for only having one copy, and only have myself to blame.

Storage is considerably cheaper than recovery.

That’s nice Cougar. And if you were plugging in the drive for the very purpose of making that backup?

That’s nice Cougar. And if you were plugging in the drive for the very purpose of making that backup?

I wouldn’t have deleted them from the camera at that point.

Sorry if I sound a bit harsh, that’s not my intention. But it’s really important and no-one ever listens until it happens to them, by which time it’s too late.

If you value it, back it up. Twice. Offsite. Disks fail all the time; recovery is complicated, difficult, expensive, and completely avoidable.