HD Crash.... How F'ed am I?

Zele · #1 03-22-2006, 06:22 PM

Hi, all.

I assume something like this has been posted before, but I could only find one thread on HD crashes by searching, and it didn't really answer my question.

Anyway, this morning Windows froze up on me, followed by a blue screen telling me to reboot. I rebooted, and never got out of BIOS. I did a little poking around in BIOS, and it cannot find my HD at all. When I power the machine on, the hard drive spins. I have powered on maybe three times since the blue screen with the same results (it then occured to me that I should probably stop doing this.)

My question is: does this mean for sure that there's a physical problem with my HD, or could it be something less expensive to deal with? i.e. should I even bother getting a regular techie to help me, or should I bend over and contact DriveSavers (I am a semi-retarded masochist and have not backed anything up)?

Cheers,
Zele

Bostaevski · #2 03-22-2006, 06:52 PM

could be fried IDE cable or controller. If it's the HDD... take it out, put it in the freezer for like 30 minutes then reinstall and try again. Make sure you got some kind of backup device ready to get what you can, while you can.

Or if it's that important, take it to the local computer repair shop. You'll probably pay more than they deserve but might be worth it.

Bostaevski · #3 03-22-2006, 06:53 PM

If you have a separate computer, try putting the HDD in there and see if it recognizes.

Zele · #4 03-22-2006, 07:08 PM

Thanks, Bostaevski.

I think I'll take the safe(r) route and go with the local repair shop. Being overcharged is probably what I deserve for having no backup scheme, and if they can fix it it sure beats the prices at the HD recovery places.

Bostaevski · #5 03-23-2006, 03:21 PM

I heard once from a guy that used to do hard drive data recovery... would charge a FORTUNE for it. I think the client would likely be envisioning he was taking the drive to some lab where everyone where's static free white coats in a "clean room" and they do delicate surgery on the drive.

The truth was, he'd take it home with him and throw it in the freezer. Give it some time in there then take it out, plug it into an old junker computer he had and then just copy everything onto a new hard drive. Some crazy scheme where he'd charge something like $200 just to TRY it whether he got the data back or not. If he got it back then it was another $800 or something.

T3485 · #6 03-23-2006, 04:52 PM

There is a extremely slim chance that your local repair shop is going to be able to recover your drive, but they should be able to tell you if the drive is indeed dead or not.

An actually clean room recovery will cost you thousands of dollars. Not worth it in most, if not all, home user cases.