Lost 8 years of my kiddies lives :-(

Hammyman

tomsolomon wrote: »

All the more reason to take it to someone who knows what they are doing before the drive dies completely.....

Indeed. But then again, I've only 20 years experience as a PC engineer so I probably don't know as much as these guys.

closed

If you aren't prepared to pay £500-£1000, you or someone else will have to try a software solution, try unstoppable copier, it's free.

Disk imaging will try and read the whole disk, when it hits a corruption, it will freeze/stall, however you don't need the whole disk, just the photo's, which may or may not be on the bad bit. As I said before, if the head has really crashed (which is by no means certain), then any disk access may do further damage, but if you aren't prepared to pay loads of money for recovery, you've got nothing to lose.

Before trying anything, download the diagnostic software from your HD manufacturers website, it will give you a good indication if this is a physical problem, or a logical one. Does the drive tick?

enigma52

as I see it, and bear in mind I am a fatalist, you have 2 options regardless of how many people post their helpful suggestions on this thread. Either pay to have them professionally recovered or bin the hard disk and accept the loss. Trying anything will reduce the chances of anything being recovered. Either way it is up to you what you do but you must make the decision not anyone else.

amcluesent

Take pictures of the kiddies now.

Then run the images through that software which changes the features to match the selected age. That way you'll get something like how the looked as babies. Just saying...

kabayiri

Hammyman wrote: »

Indeed. But then again, I've only 20 years experience as a PC engineer so I probably don't know as much as these guys.

It's tricky to get right, for a variety of reasons.

Offering diy advice to someone always assumes they are comfortable in executing the instructions given.

I've noticed in my house a complete lack of 'clean room' facilities suitable for recovery of data from hard drives ... it's probably a flaw in the style of house .
This is one of many reasons I would pay for a specialist company.

tomsolomon

kabayiri wrote: »

It's tricky to get right, for a variety of reasons.

Offering diy advice to someone always assumes they are comfortable in executing the instructions given.

I've noticed in my house a complete lack of 'clean room' facilities suitable for recovery of data from hard drives ... it's probably a flaw in the style of house .
This is one of many reasons I would pay for a specialist company.

It's quite simple really. You don't offer DIY advice for something like this.
It's a professional job for a professional person that knows what they are doing. Someone who has maybe many years of experience, that has seen and dealt with these kinds of issues.
I wouldn't even trust a job like this to PC World in all fairness. They would probably want to change the motherboard or something, and then charge you for a copy of Norton on top, just for the hell of it.

pstones578

VoucherMan wrote: »

Someone got out of wrong side of bed this morning?
Op had long since said there was no backup (as on the other thread where you made the same unhelpful comment.)
Effective used of copy and paste though!

I actually typed it not copy and paste. Must have been the same advise as the other thread. Over the years I have lost count of the people who could have recovered their data with something as simple as a good back up. Hopefully the OP will have learned a valuable lesson and implement a sound backup strategy. If they need something in real time I can recommend https://www.carbonite.com as that has served me well over the years.

pstones578

pstones578 wrote: »

I actually typed it not copy and paste. Must have been the same advise as the other thread. Over the years I have lost count of the people who could have recovered their data with something as simple as a good back up. Hopefully the OP will have learned a valuable lesson and implement a sound backup strategy. If they need something in real time I can recommend www.carbonite.com as that has served me well over the years.

These guy's do corporate and personal datas recovery too.

http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.co.uk/

I've used them professionally and they have got people out of the stuff hitting the fan in the past that I have worked for.

kabayiri

tomsolomon wrote: »

It's quite simple really. You don't offer DIY advice for something like this.
It's a professional job for a professional person that knows what they are doing. Someone who has maybe many years of experience, that has seen and dealt with these kinds of issues

Agreed.

A friend who was on my electronics course at Uni actually runs one of these places. It would be unwise of me to mention the actual place on here.

What was interesting was the amount of capital required to start up such a venture. I am genuinely not surprised at the costs they charge.

Oh, and they charge per Gb last I checked. So the larger the drive, the more it costs.

nearlyrich

Donnie wrote: »

Toshiba has a warranty that does. Just an aside.

So does Acer but in both cases the base warranty does not include accidental damage it is an upgrade and in no case does a warrnty repair cover recovery of data. I was just pointing out that the OP could potentially get a new laptop if she had the accidental damage warranty but if she was hoping that the data would be out back on she would be disappointed. If a laptop is sent back to the service centre of any vendor they usually come back recovered to factory settings and they always stress they cannot guarantee data will be saved in the event of a warranty repair.;)