It happened, my hard drive stopped working a week after my back up storage stopped wo

LondonDiva

Went to turn on the computer yesterday and it refused to start and went straight to a blue screen and won't boot up. - my external hard drive that I use for back up stopped working last week.

I've restarted about 19 times and also tried restarting with the XP OS disc in the drive and putting it in the drive - no joy.

As you can imagine, I'm pretty much in tears as I've lost 7 and a bit years of files, but I'm minding the pictures and emails of / from a couple of my relatives who've recently died.

A couple of questions:

1. is the hard drive definately caput? - is there anything else I can try, or should do?
2. I need to sort out my hard drive asap - I went on ebuyer and apart from the fact I need a 3.5" and a large capacity (400/500gb)hard drive, I don't know where to start.

I would make more sense later, but I'm in a bit of a stat and can't think rationally.

Any suggestions of which hard drive to buy today?

Please help

Diva

BillScarab

Yous hould be able to get your data back. There are professional data recovery companies who can do it although it is not cheap.

What is the exact error you are getting as it may be a simple fix?

When you tried to boot from the XP CD did you change the BIOS so it would boot from CD first?

totalsolutions

Hi Dont worry. You can get your data back -freely-. You dont need a new hard drive just yet so dont buy anything.
Now what does it say on the blue screen. Is it all blue? Sounds like you have a desktop PC. Have you looked inside?

weegie.geek

Just sounds to me like windows is screwed. Assuming it's not screwed because the hard drive broke, you've probably nothing to worry about.

Poppycat

Assuming the hard drive isn't completely duff you can often retrieve data on it by attaching it to another computer or getting a new one installing OS and attached the old hard drive and retrieving it that way

Getting it done professional is very expensive

BillScarab

Poppycat wrote: »

Assuming the hard drive isn't completely duff you can often retrieve data on it by attaching it to another computer or getting a new one installing OS and attached the old hard drive and retrieving it that way

Getting it done professional is very expensive

Agreed. I didn't explain very well in my post that professional data recovery is very much a last resort. But if the data is that important you can usually retrieve it one way or another.

We just need to know what the actual error is as it's probably a simple fix.

LondonDiva

Thanks for all your replies guys, I'm trying to get some perspective, but saying, at least no one died to myself doesn't seem to be helping.

Your queestions & suggestions are helpful, but unfortuantely, I'm computer illiterate, so:

*The screen starts off black with an option to start at last normal(?) and about 3 different safe modes - I've chosen each option & then it goes to a blue screen and says something about unmovable boot error or along those lines - will write it down & post at work tomorrow.

*How do I go about rebooting / changing the bios? - all I've done is try to start it with the OS disc, then started it and put the OS disc in - I've not twiddled with anything.

*It is a desktop - I even opened it up in the hope that there was a really obvious wire sticking out of place that I could push back in, but I had no clue.

helenshappyhens

hi
I know that say, pcworld charge about £100 to get info off a broken hard drive/external drive.
I took mine into a computer shop in Bury St Edmunds along with an external drive I'd bought from Maplin cheap and the man there transfered everything for £23.00. He said that It took about a day for his machine to do it. Wonderful service from personal computer services. Hence I've been there a few more times since.

helenshappyhens

from unmoveable boot error It appears that the drive is cuput. Think you'd be best to see If you have a reasonable independant computer shop nearby and do what I did

I had mine transfered to an external drive by the way 'cause my hard drive was still under warrenty at that time from computer supplier (Evesham!!!) so they came and replaced it, then took my old broken one away.

Poppycat

If you are not computer tech savvy I would also take it to a local computer shop not the big companies

It shouldn't take too long to connect it to another pc and retrieve data on to dvdrs or another hd, 1-2 hours tops to retrieve and backup

I know you been unfortunate of late with computer, but I would keep all personnel data in future one as much media as possible, ie external HD, DVDR's (couple of backups) and possibly a pen drive

HD tend to be quiet reliable media but the longer you kepe them the more likely they have of breaking down, ie couple of years worth out of them. They are cheap you can get a 1TB now for about £70

nomoneytoday

PC world charge £29 for a straight backup if the drive is ok, or £99 if its broken.

Replacement media or new HDD on top.

I know there are cheaper places, but it's not a bad price on the High Street..