HD is bad -- can I retrieve? PLEASE HELP

PLEASE HELP! So my laptop froze up yesterday and went to a blue screen/error message...I took it in this morning to a computer guy that I have used in the past, and he took out the hard drive to try to retrieve the files (photos/work/life stuff) and he said the the hard drive has a "funny" sound and is not able to get the files off. This is really serious or me. Are there any other options? He mentioned that there are places that you can send it and they can possible get them off.

Questions...

1.) Just because this guy couldn't do it, does that mean that if I take it to someone else that they MIGHT be able to?

2.) If I do need to send it away to retrieve the files, what am I looking at as far as the cost to do this?

3.) Also if it is really expensive, given that I am already having to replace my laptop, we are not financially ready to spend a huge amount to get the files off as well, does it need to be ASAP, or could we wait a year or two? -- I am most concerned with the photos of my two year old daughter that I had on my computer.

Any help and advice will be much appreciated. I am in a bad place right now, and feel as thought I have lost everything. I would be very grateful for any computer support.

Thank you.

 

maybe yee, maybe no. You need to run some testing tools. The best one would be from the website of the manufacturer of your harddrive

Too much, unless you have very important data that justify the cost. Those recoery companies are used by companies (I think this was true in the past only because now practices use server with multi backup systems).

If it's a harddrive failure you only need to replace the harddrive.

Just put the hardrive in an anti-static bag and in a cool and dry place.

What's your harddrive? manufacturer, name and specs?

 

It is a Toshiba Laptop, Satellite A15-s157, Intel Celeron 2.2 GHz, 40GB HD, 512 MB of DDR SDRAM

It is about 5 years old, and really not worth keeping...I needed a new computer, it is just happening a little sooner than I was prepared for.

You mentioned testing tools? Do I go to Toshiba.com for that? Right now I cannot even start the computer in SafeMode.

I am mostly concerned with the photographs that were on the computer...but I also had business and work stuff as well.

 

The hard drive clearly has a mechanical defect. Do not try to use it again, unless you absolutely KNOW you'll be able to pull the data off. Clicking sounds generally means either the motor is bad, or that the hard drive heads are HITTING the data disk which further damages the data on there.

In all reality, data recovery at this point is going to cost $1000 or more.

 

Hi It Sounds Like The Motor Has Gone This Is A Well Knowen Problem With Toshiba If You Can Contact Your Manufacture And Give Them Your Toshiba Model/part Number That Will Be Able To Help You In One Way Or Another Because Thats A Bad Thing For Any Pc Person To Fix From Of The High Street Thay Might Be Able To Recover Your Data If Its Just The Motor. Also I Hope The Guy Who Was Looking At Ur Hd Was Free From Static .

 

Toshiba won't help. Corporation like them don't offer recovery options.

If the data in the harddrive is personal and you think like me that a data recovery service is too expensive, then you could try the follow:

Cover your HDD with tissue, and put it in a plastic bag. Then leave it in the freezer for few hours. As soon as you remove it from freezer connect it to your laptop and back up your stuff.

I didn't test this method myself, but few have tested it including a hardware magazine (don't remember which one) and they say that this technique will fix a harddrive temporarely. This shoud give you few minutes to back up as much data as possible.

 

If you hear mechanical 'noises' that sound bad, the *worst* possible thing you could do is try and use 'testing utilities'. This will just make the data loss even worse.

Powering up a drive under such conditions will just make matters worse.

If the drive doesn't make bad mechanical noises, then the culprit is often the circuit board. Sometimes you can swap them and get your data back for just the cost of a circuit board. But unless you know what you're doing, I would suggest that you defer to professionals, if, indeed, your data is worth the thousands of dollars that a professional data recovery will cost.

Moral of the story: always keep backups. Especially for a laptop. Laptops are less reliable overall because of thermal and their physical use patterns, so keeping backups is even more important.

 

You want to look at Drive Savers. Depending on the problem, it will cost anywhere from $500 to several thousand. If the platters are fine, they will remove them and place them in a new drive and recover the files that way ($500 option) if the platters are bad, they have to go in and recover bit by bit. (Several thousands) I've seen them take hard drives from the bottom of lakes, that have fallen from planes, that were mostly melted, and recover almost all, if not all, the data off them.

They were the company that recovered the drives from 9/11 towers and uncovered the data that helped validify it being an inside job. They were hoping the falling towers would destroy the servers...