Hard Drive Failure?

Trying to work on wife's coworker's comp and trying to save files.
HP Pavilion a1020n, XP Home (don't know how updated it is)

HP support told her the hard drive is fried.

Boots to Windows splash screen and then reboots with no pause.
Won't boot to any safe mode. (Drivers load and then reboots)
Last Known Good reboots.

Recovery disks did not do anything using non-format option
Error - The section IDA_CREATE_USER_DRIVE_U does not contain a valid dialog template.

Recovery partition did not do anything using non-format option.

Tried external enclosure, device not recognized.

Any other options?

 

Try slaving it up to a desktop computer. You might try some of the data recovery programs here: http://majorgeeks.com/downloads38.html Something like Unstopable Copier might let you copy the data to another drive and then access it. Sounds like it is RIP. :cry

E

 

That is when a live Linux cd comes in handy. Like Mepis or Knoppix. You can boot with one of those and copy anything that is accessible to another harddrive, cd-rw, or one of those USB memory sticks.

 

My desktop comp is an older one with no SATA connections.
Didn't think of a live CD. Will give that a go.
Thanks Fred_G & ArchAngel.