I am going to cry

Cute_'n'_Quirky

albertross wrote: »

have you tried safe mode (F8 at boot)?

Yes, Dell went through this - it just returns me to the blue screen!

Cute_'n'_Quirky

One more thing, please, if you don't mind?

Dell want the hard-drive returning to them for it to be destroyed.

Is it safe for me to allow them to do this?

albertross_2

If the old disk is spinning at all, and visible in the bios, then you could wipe it with dban to be safe, I'm sure Dell have procedures to dispose of the disk, or return them to the manufacturer, but procedures aren't always followed, if it was me, i would try and wipe it.

But, when you get the CD, try and fix it first, it may be fixable. Post back when it arrives.

BritBrat

Put a bootable Linux disk in in the CD/DVD drive, boot to the linux disk then see if you can navigate to the faulty "C" drive and if so back up the files to a pen drive or some other external device.

You may even be able to format the drive after so personal info will be gone.

If it was me I would ask if I can keep the old drive and put it in an external case and try to recover the data later.

Dead_Eye_Jones

I wouldnt give up on the drive, but it will depend how keen you are to get the data.. there are ways to recover data from even the most busted of drives aslong as the disc itself is still in good nick. However expert help comes at a cost... google data recovery and you should find some services. Phone up such a company and have a chat - see what they can do and for how much!

If you send it back you dont know where it'll end up. Worse case it will be intercepted by a data thief who will know how to recover personal info .

Of course this doesnt help you now, but to anyone else reading - BACK UP THOSE DRIVES! It will happen eventually. You will lose data. Imagine it happening. How annyoing it would be. Lose work, photos, software, music, etc. Now go buy a detachable USB hard drive and do regular backups. Keep the drive off site or in a fire proof box in the attic or whatever...

Cute_'n'_Quirky

Dell are sending a courier to bring the new hard-drive and to take away the old drive tomorrow. Not sure if I can get away with keeping the old drive.

I cannot do anything with the computer until they bring me some disks. When I bought the computer Dell did not provide me with any disks, the computer arrived ready-loaded.

I do keep stuff on a 1GB pen but the one thing I have lost is my tax return details for the year ended March 2007, which has gone. I don't save as a matter of course - and so this was not saved on the pen. Everything important will be, from now on! Close the stable door after the horse has bolted, etc, etc.

britbrat - what is a linux please?

deadeye - In 20 years of having computers this is the first time anything like this has ever happenen - maybe just luck, who knows.

albertross_2

I would ring them up and insist that you keep the drive for a day or two so you can attempt to recover your data.

Or ask them to send an XP CD first.

Failing that, can you borrow one from anyone.

Failing that, you may be able to do something with a linux liveCD or create a bartpe cd on another working system

Chippy's link from another thread..

http://www.shockfamily.net/cedric/knoppix/

b33r

Cute_n_Quirky wrote: »

what is a linux please?

It's an operating system, like windows, however much more secure, safer to use, customisable and quicker.

Linux comes in many flavours, (as it is open source) so there are many different versions of it. Try it on your new computer, you may like it, i would recommend ubuntu for a beginner, and get used to trailing forums to work stuff out

What britbrat was referring to is a Live linux CD as there are versions of linux you can put on a CD and just run from there (it will use your RAM to save temporary files etc) and so you do not need a hard drive to run it. Once it is running you may be able to browse to your defunct drive and remove files (onto a memory stick for example).

Knoppix is probably the most used live version of linux and is available from here:

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html


You will need to burn the image to a CD, set your laptop to boot from CD rom drive (done in bios) and then wack it in and off you go.

EDIT: Very nice guide albertross

Cute_'n'_Quirky

The new hard-drive and cd's arrived today.

Have decided that for one really important document it isn't worth the expense of doing much.

At the very least I would like to reformat the old hard-drive so that the information on it cannot be used by anyone else. I have attempted to reformat but it will not respond to anything! Any ideas? Or is this just a sign that it is totally defunct?

At present I am formatting the new hard-drive with Windows XP Media Centre.