Pc Crashed......is Hard Disc Data Recoverable?

[Dave-Ellen]

My mums PC has died on her............its 4 years old ........was on windoze millenium

she does a lot of work for the church local schools and like all of us didnt do regular back ups

Is there anyway the data can be recovred or is it tough pooh ?

[Kazi]

Hard drive might not have been affected as this is actually not part of the PCs motherboard. If the hard drive has gone, then its very unlikely the data can be recovered. Sorry

[MrADeveci]

Probably just crashed as apposed to been wiped off.

Just stick the HD in another machine .......... or a removable caddy, see if that works !

[kam05]

Windows ME isn't very stable at all. When I bought my laptop 5 years ago, it had Windoze ME installed, it kept crashing my laptop etc

.......haven't answered your Q, if the HD has failed then the data cannot be recovered...sorry

[monster]

I can remember something on TV that a company specialises in recovering data from knackered PC's. Not exactly sure what the company was called but it may well be worth running through google. :(

[Hando]

How did the PC die? What does it do when you try to boot it up?

If you're getting terrible noises from the hardrive (a kind of scratchy noise) then it's probably dead and the data is gone (unless you go for ridiculously expensive data recovery).

But if it's just windows system files corrupted or even another bit of hardware gone *poof* then you should just be able to pop it into another machine and grab the data there, as mentioned above.

In fact I've been able to successfully recover 90% of data from drives making scratchy noises in the past.

[xke_uk]

If the hard drive can be seen by the bios it is possable to recover data but it aint cheap.

Regards

Roy

[Dave-Ellen]

Thanks for the replies....

no noises...........just asks for a recovery disc......but when its loaded (disc) doesnt recognise it

[Hando]

No noises is a good sign, really.

Take the hard disk out and try it in slave mode (change jumpers on back of hard drive: should be a sticker on it to say which jumpers to change) in another PC.

good luck.

[Dave-Ellen]

No noises is a good sign, really.

Take the hard disk out and try it in slave mode (change jumpers on back of hard drive: should be a sticker on it to say which jumpers to change) in another PC.

good luck.

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cool

[Mark D]

No noises is a good sign, really.

Take the hard disk out and try it in slave mode (change jumpers on back of hard drive: should be a sticker on it to say which jumpers to change) in another PC.

good luck.

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cool

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If that doesn't work - let me know, I think I have a decent data recovery disc that you can boot from a floppy.

I had a SATA 160GB disc that died on me and windows would not recognise it unless I formatted it.

Using this program, I was able to recover all my files.

[Brettster]

What type of computer is it?

is the recovery disc a Red Floppy?

if it is you'll also need the recovery CD's too

but that option usually destroys all your data and restores back to how it first came from the shop.

[trocade]

Thanks for the replies....

no noises...........just asks for a recovery disc......but when its loaded (disc) doesnt recognise it 

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Don't use the recovery disc.. it will wipe the harddrive, better to do use the drive in another computer and copy all the data you need..

[Steve ( West Mids )]

Self and son have had 3 drive crashes in 2 years, 2 laptop one desktop. As indicated above you can usually recover all the data by plugging as a slave in another PC, in an external drive case ( USB or firewire ) or you can even get leads from places like Maplin. We managed to recover all the data from each of the discs. If disc is slowly on way out you sometimes have to do it in stages as it reaches a temperature and gives up.

Al alternative way is to buy a new drive for the computer, format it, install the operating system, and plug the old drive in yours as a slave and do it like that. After all you are going to need a new drive or computer anyway :(

[Tony-Bones]

My mums PC has died on her............its 4 years old ........was on windoze millenium

she does a lot of work for the church local schools and like all of us didnt do regular back ups 

Is there anyway the data can be recovred or is it tough pooh ?

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I use Win 98 and is absolutely...... 'pants' now!.... cant help with your problem other than send you 'Tigger'?.... 'nice cat' somewhat 'wedge' shaped and a superb target to kick when ****** off. ( Total flight time 2.56 hours )

[Nick The Greek]

slightly , recovery specialists:

£299+vat, no recovery no fee, specialists in Hammersmith. GF's work laptop HD died on her at the weekend, (she dropped it on the floor :shutit: ) so it's in there now...

[Steve ( West Mids )]

I'd have done it for half of that :) ( got all the cables to put laptop drive into desktop IDE ).

[ColinBarber]

spinrite from GRC is the best non professional hard drive surface testing and recovery tool.

Unless you format a drive at least 7 times over it's possible to recover anything, just costs £1000s to get it done.

[aido]

Definitely try it in another machine Dave first, easy option, if not something like Ontrack Easy Recovery Pro may help, but it costs, but you can get an evaluation version which you can test to see if it can find any data so you're not losing any money!

As Colin says pretty much anything is recoverable but at a huge cost!

[crazylex]

My mums PC has died on her............its 4 years old ........was on windoze millenium

she does a lot of work for the church local schools and like all of us didnt do regular back ups 

Is there anyway the data can be recovred or is it tough pooh ?

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I had this at a company maybe 8/9 years ago, when maybe not so many IT techies about. It had very impt info on it. We sent the hard drive off to some company and they recovered most of WORD/EXCELL +stuff like that. Was about £200 then.

To long ago to remember who, but found them on a search.

I would say unless it was melted, there will definately be some way of getting back onto another pc.

[lee_iceman]

No noises is a good sign, really.

Take the hard disk out and try it in slave mode (change jumpers on back of hard drive: should be a sticker on it to say which jumpers to change) in another PC.

good luck.

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cool

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If that doesn't work - let me know, I think I have a decent data recovery disc that you can boot from a floppy.

I had a SATA 160GB disc that died on me and windows would not recognise it unless I formatted it.

Using this program, I was able to recover all my files.

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I had the same problem with my 200Gb Sata drive, kept asking me to format for it to work.

My fix was to buy another 250Gb hard drive and use my mates program, File Scavenger 2.1, and it was able to recover all my files to my new drive and then I could format the 200Gb drive.

Highly recommend File Scavenger, PM me if needed.

[davepruce]

I can try to sort it for you.

I have software (various) cables (lots) computers to stick it in (a few).

If I get the stuff you want off it I'll quote you a price (not expensive) otherwise - nowt.

Let me know

If needed I will simply take the whole shebang and return it once done (or not!) if you are not comfortable taking the disc out.

[Parthiban]

Thanks for the replies....

no noises...........just asks for a recovery disc......but when its loaded (disc) doesnt recognise it 

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Hope its ok, but I had the same problem with a laptop a few years ago, and in that case it was the hard drive that was dead, boot virus or some other thing I didn't understand had killed it.

Although I also saw something on TV recently (gadget show i think) which was showing companies that can retrieve data off hard drives, might be worth trying if you can't get it out