Ok team,

My laptop hard drive has completely crashed and I have lost the last 4 years of my notes from medicine which I desperately need for my final exams in 3 months!!!!

While I know I am a frigging idiot for not backing up anything anywhere, can anyone please look past that and recommend anyone who may be able to retrieve my files?

This is a matter of life and death (literally - patients may die next year if I can't study my notes!)...

Thanks for the help :)

While I know I am a frigging idiot for not backing up anything anywhere, can anyone please look past that and recommend anyone who may be able to retrieve my files?

Trog should know how to fix it

Trog's in Paris!!!!!

Trog's powers aren't restricted to his immediate vicinity.

Have you tried R-Undelete?

Haven't tried anyone / thing yet... Been looking in the Yellow Pages but thought it would be better to go with a company people have had a good experience with...

When you say it has completely crashed, I assume you mean that you can no longer boot from it?

Maybe you could try one of those USB to IDE adapters that suit 2.5in drives and see if you can still read off it when it's plugged into another computer?

Something like this

Dont turn it on.. dont touch it, shake it, poke it, prod it or anything.. For a start...

im sure trog will recommend r-studio or something of that nature

http://qgl.ausforums.com/?agn=thread&id=2329300#11 see.. TOLD U SO

Maybe you could try one of those USB to IDE adapters that suit 2.5in drives and see if you can still read off it when it's plugged into another computer?

Tried that, it don't work... Trog is back this weekend but I didn't want to bother him with it! "Hi Welcome back brother NOW FIX MY F#&^#$^*$*^ COMPUTER"

This assumes that your HDD still spin up and you can still see it from the BIOS etc:

Buy either Undelete for R-Undelete. Once you've bought it you have 2 options normally:

1) Burn a bootable CD/Floopy with the Recovery software on (undelete has this facility) it and run the undelete from there and make sure that you save it somewhere OTHER THAN the crashed HDD Edit: Forget this option, I was on drugs, I don't think Undelete does it. Last time I use option #2. Sorry.

2) Make sure that you DO NOT install it on the corrupted HDD, install it on another PC where you can plug the crashed HDD into as a slave drive. Run the undelete software, and save it somewhere else.

If your HDD doesn't spin up, not recognisable by your BIOS etc recovery software is not an option, you will need professional data recovery people to do it. Generally the cost is high and varied depending on who you use and how bad the fault is.

The last time I used these guys: http://www.forensicdata.com.au

Unfortunately for us the drive was too badly damanaged and will cost far too much for the benefit gained, so we didn't go ahead with the quote. I had to send the drive to them. But I'm sure there are some other ones in Brisbane.

I just quickly Googled this. Can't vouch for any of them but someone else might be able to.

If you absolutely and positively need it back, these guys should be able to get it back for you but, be prepare to pay for it.

Good luck.

last edited by Opec at 17:43:29 29/Jun/06

is back this weekend but I didn't want to bother him with it! "Hi Welcome back brother NOW FIX MY F#&^#$^*$*^ COMPUTER"

Maybe he should have thought of that BEFORE he went overseas.

I used UNDELETE recently at work to recover data that a complete noob tried to destroy out of spite when they sold our business to my work. Although the drive wasn't trashed we got the data back , you could try that and it's only $40 for a license.

stellar phoenix isn't free but it seems to be able to find stuff

unlike r-undelete, it can scan a drive that the computer can't see. even a drive windows thinks is empty/unformatted. I've only tried the trial version and it could see all the files that were previously on the drive before the fat shat itself.

last edited by whoop at 20:08:00 29/Jun/06

have u tried rubbing toothpaste on it?

R-studio got most of my stuff back

This is what I did in the same situation, HDD was dead, blue screened, wouldn't boot :S ...

Got a Live Linux OS, booted with Knoppix or Ubuntu, finally managed to get into see local drive, found all files, copied over network, new HDD, reinstall :) I f***ing won that day haha :D

you could take it to a hard drive recovery centre, thing is they wont guarantee that they will get the data off anyway and depending on how much they get off you would possible even pay around $500

this is assuming the hard drive is physically f*cked, so what they do is they replace the broken parts to make a working hard drigve, had 2 die last week here at work and thats what was done to get data off

500$ is pretty cheap, last quote I looked at for professional data hdd recovery we were looking at a minimum of 1k for more routine recovery ops, up to 2k if they had to use their clean room facilities and replacement hdd components

i too suggest a bootable linux cd like knoppix or ubuntu

if thats the case then this is good too

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

ive got some hardcore boot cds for work based on windows PE, but the problem is if the files or tables are completely corrupt, a windows boot wont recognise it. thast why the linux one is better, beacuse it will read whatever is there, garbage or not

oh man, hard drive crash just before med finals. That's gotta suck :S

We had a great experience at work with a company in West End when a manager's hard drive died a few weeks ago.

He had some data that was absolutely essential on his laptop at the time, so cost was no option (thats especially important when you consider the cost of recovering the data was nearly $2000) but my understanding is that it depends on the type of drive failure, cost of man hours etc.

But that all said, they got every meg of data back and dumped it onto a brand new harddrive in a portable caddy for us. Very professional and very fast.

So if you're willing to pay, and none of the other suggested options work for you, this may be the only way you're gonna get your files back.