Laptop HDD has died - but need to recover some of he data
 

My PICO laptop packed up the other day. I was shutting it down, the drive made some weird clicking noises, and when I tried to start it again - no joy <img src="frown.gif" border="0">

I was able to start it in safe mode with network support (albeit after a real battle) and transfer some stuff from it to another machine - however there's one file which I really want, but when I try to access it (e.g. rename/ copy / move) the OpSys comes back at me saying that 'Data error (Cyclic redundancy check)'

So can any of you recommend a UK based data recovery company that can rescue that one file - and if so what kind of money do they charge ?

Thanks in advance.

Crashy

by chance i just have an "empty" PICO laptop on my desk....could try with that while placing the hd in it.
Think you are not too far off my place...mail me at
[email protected]
if interested

Bad Luck, CD. When I had a similar problem a while back I contacted a company called Vogon (I think) but they were horrendously expensive and I didn't bother. (eg, £4-500 for starters).

Nowadays, if it were that important to me, I might just be tempted to lash out on an external HD caddy - they come with USB interfaces I think - and put the HD in there. Plug into another like-minded PC and see what the data situation is.

A good File Recovery Program I paid real money for (about £40) got me out of a deep hole recently when the Windows Folder I was after had become "accessed denied" to even the system administrator.

It's called "R-Studio" from "R-Tools" at the following link:

<a href="http://www.r-tt.com/" target="_blank">http://www.r-tt.com/</a>

I was able to "recover" the Folder to another Folder as though it were deleted/lost and then used the Win 2K Recovery Console to repair the damage. But this was all in the data and there was no physical damage to the HD.

Good Luck!

Crash, if you have a desktop (or access to one) rather than forking out for a USB caddy, try and get hold of a 2.5 to 3.5 adaptor. This is basically a socket close coupled to an IDE plug with a power cable pigtail. Plug one end to the hard drive, the other to your desktop, auto discover the hard drive and dive into DOS (remember that??).
Mind you if the sectors are scrambled then I don't like your chances. Had to send a laptop off for recovery nearly 2 years ago. Don't know the cost (suspect BIG) but the data came back on a CD. I wanted mainly Powerpoint data...it was there but needed major reformating to make it usable again.
Oh for a backup plan that works 100% :)

Max

Many thanks for the replies thus far, indeed fobotcso I've also contacted Vogon and they've since quoted me £150+VAT - which, given the importance of the file I need recovered, seems almost cheap at twice the price - accordingly I'm gonna give them a go and I'll let you ALL know how they do.

So watch this space, and thanks to one and all who've replied.

Crashy, why didn't you call me???????????

CALL ME!!!!