Hard Drive failure? Salvaging the situation?

Hi - before I got my latest ebay PC up and running I had a really good system from Amazon that was pretty cheap. I went away on holiday and when I came back, the second time I used it, it failed to boot. It was clearly something quite bad, potentially, as there was no option to start in safe mode etc etc.

I tried to start it again about 4 times and then did looked in the BIOS. I have no real idea with any of that, but I did run a HD check and it failed. It seemed to say the hard drive had failed.

I have the option of paying some shop 50 quid just to look at it and then the cost of salvaging a questionable amount of data from the HD.

Is there anything I can do to try to "save" the PC and if not, is there any way I can use my working PC to take the data from the "failed" hard drive on the other PC?

Thanks.

 

No guarantees, but you can try removing the defective drive and hooking it to another working PC using a device like this (this is from Amazon's US website; you should be able to find the same brand or similar device from a UK retailer).:

http://www.amazon.com/C2G-Cables-30...=1380394521&sr=8-1&keywords=usb+drive+adapter

This is likely the same thing the PC shop wants to charge you for. If the drive is totally dead, this will not read it. Your odds are about 50/50. If it doesn't work, it's unlikely you'll be able to retrieve the data unless you sent it to a specialist who may charge upwards of $800 USD to disassemble the drive in a "clean room" and attempt to recover the data from the internal platters.

Hope this helps.

 

You may just be able to install this drive in your working PC as a secondary (not boot) drive without having to buy anything. Alternatively, you can get a drive enclosure specifically for your drive type. From there you might be able to use a data recovery program like Recuva from the makers of CCleaner to recover any salvageable files.

Whether you have to buy an adapter or not depends on type of drive it is and the available drive interfaces in your working computer. And the success of any data recovery will depend on how damaged the drive is. Note the adapter gman suggested is a bit expensive because it supports both SATA and EIDE drives which may prove beneficial in the future if you need to connect a drive again down the road. There are less expensive ones for just SATA or just EIDE (PATA) that offer less flexible support.

Obviously, you don't need telling, but this clearly illustrates the need for a viable data backup program BEFORE failures like this occur. ALL READERS should heed this lessoin because ALL DRIVES WILL FAIL - eventually.

The reason professional "forensic" data recovery services are so expensive is they are very labor intensive, requiring specialized facilities, equipment and training. But depending on the data on the drive, may be worth it.

 

glofut read the post I started called " Will not boot up"
Lots of good info there It,s in the Hardware section

 

Thanks for the replies and links. I'll check them all out later and get back.

 

glofut my post is in the software section