Hard Drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Maureen
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Maureen

I swear I should just give up on computers. I had to find a
workaround for my HP laptop since the power supply wouldn't work given
the cheap connector, so I bought a media cable a few months ago, and
that worked. Then the motherboard died, which I can't afford to
replace. Then, the hard drive on my desktop went and after spending
$300 I could ill afford, Best Buy came up with nothing but stuff on my
desktop and a few documents going back two and three years. They tell
me there's a place they can recommend that has the right tools to
retrieve the data, but it costs anywhere from $1,200 to several
thousands of dollars. I can't afford that. I'm still catching up on
bills from a bout with cancer and as a divorced mom with one teen in
h.s. and one in college, I can't sink even another penny into this.

I take full responsibility for not backing up important work, but when
you're trying to do it all, and are fatigued and have brain fog, you'd
be surprised how easy it is to screw up.

Here is my question: Is there any way I can play around with the hard
drive to try and retrieve the data myself? I know that must sound
out there, but I've learned a lot just by reading things online and
I've done my own networking, replaced sound cards and modems and added
ram. I know this is more complicated, but I'm desperate at this
point.

Thanks for any help anyone can give me.

Maureen
 
Maureen said:
I swear I should just give up on computers. I had to find a
workaround for my HP laptop since the power supply wouldn't work given
the cheap connector, so I bought a media cable a few months ago, and
that worked. Then the motherboard died, which I can't afford to
replace. Then, the hard drive on my desktop went and after spending
$300 I could ill afford, Best Buy came up with nothing but stuff on my
desktop and a few documents going back two and three years. They tell
me there's a place they can recommend that has the right tools to
retrieve the data, but it costs anywhere from $1,200 to several
thousands of dollars. I can't afford that. I'm still catching up on
bills from a bout with cancer and as a divorced mom with one teen in
h.s. and one in college, I can't sink even another penny into this.
Click to expand...
I take full responsibility for not backing up important work, but when
you're trying to do it all, and are fatigued and have brain fog, you'd
be surprised how easy it is to screw up.
Click to expand...
Here is my question: Is there any way I can play around
with the hard drive to try and retrieve the data myself?
Click to expand...

Maybe. What exactly happened when 'the hard drive on my desktop went' ?

Is the system still using that hard drive, or has it been replaced
with a new one, and you have the old hard drive loose now ?

If its loose, and has been replaced, you may well be able
to put it back in the desktop as a slave, and use one of
the file recovery programs to get a lot more off the drive.

I like Easy Recovery Pro myself, but it isnt practical for you to buy.
Dunno how you feel about downloaded licensed software, but its
readily available for download.

If you arent into that, there are other free ones around.
Unfortunately I dont know how good they are.

If you do plan to try a free one, it would be safer to clone the
drive the went bad first, at the sector level, so you can try
recovering from the clone and can reclone if it doesnt work etc.
You would obviously need another drive to clone to tho, and thats
unlikely to be feasible if you dont want to spend another cent.
 
I swear I should just give up on computers. I had to find a
workaround for my HP laptop since the power supply wouldn't work given
the cheap connector, so I bought a media cable a few months ago, and
that worked. Then the motherboard died, which I can't afford to
replace. Then, the hard drive on my desktop went and after spending
$300 I could ill afford, Best Buy came up with nothing but stuff on my
desktop and a few documents going back two and three years. They tell
me there's a place they can recommend that has the right tools to
retrieve the data, but it costs anywhere from $1,200 to several
thousands of dollars. I can't afford that. I'm still catching up on
bills from a bout with cancer and as a divorced mom with one teen in
h.s. and one in college, I can't sink even another penny into this.

I take full responsibility for not backing up important work, but when
you're trying to do it all, and are fatigued and have brain fog, you'd
be surprised how easy it is to screw up.

Here is my question: Is there any way I can play around with the hard
drive to try and retrieve the data myself? I know that must sound
out there, but I've learned a lot just by reading things online and
I've done my own networking, replaced sound cards and modems and added
ram. I know this is more complicated, but I'm desperate at this
point.

Thanks for any help anyone can give me.

Maureen
Click to expand...

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html
 
I swear I should just give up on computers. I had to find a
workaround for my HP laptop since the power supply wouldn't work given
the cheap connector, so I bought a media cable a few months ago, and
that worked. Then the motherboard died, which I can't afford to
replace. Then, the hard drive on my desktop went and after spending
$300 I could ill afford, Best Buy came up with nothing but stuff on my
desktop and a few documents going back two and three years. They tell
me there's a place they can recommend that has the right tools to
retrieve the data, but it costs anywhere from $1,200 to several
thousands of dollars. I can't afford that. I'm still catching up on
bills from a bout with cancer and as a divorced mom with one teen in
h.s. and one in college, I can't sink even another penny into this.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about dozen systems or what?
I take full responsibility for not backing up important work, but when
you're trying to do it all, and are fatigued and have brain fog, you'd
be surprised how easy it is to screw up.

Here is my question: Is there any way I can play around with the hard
drive to try and retrieve the data myself? I know that must sound
out there, but I've learned a lot just by reading things online and
I've done my own networking, replaced sound cards and modems and added
ram. I know this is more complicated, but I'm desperate at this
point.

Thanks for any help anyone can give me.
Click to expand...

Go to Best Buy to buy a system they have onsale for around $400 or so that
 
<Original post missing on my server. Replying here.>




Sounds half-assed for $300. What did you ASK them to retrieve?


They tell


If best buy was able to retrieve stuff, you probably can too. Looks
like they just plugged it in, found your desktop, and "my documents"
folder and burned them to a CD. And charged out the nose for an hour's
work. I think your hard drive is reasonably functional.

This is heresy, but, if you're willing to take a risk, plug it in as a
secondary master, and run chkdsk /r on it. (may take a long time, like
many, many hours) You'd be surprised how much damage the filesystem can
take, and still be rebuilt.

It Is prudent to clone it off, first, of course. But if you're not
spending another cent, that may do the trick.
 
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