Hard Drive has crashed....Help!!!!

[JanetTom]

Our hard drive has crashed, and our files are "lost" , we don`t know how to retrieve them,but know we need someone with specialist knowledge and software...

Does anyone know of a computer specialist they can recommend?

Luckily we had just had all the accounts for the business done, and have them on a disc. The rest of my life is heli in a hard drive somewhere......

Help.....

Janet

[Callie]

Sorry to hear that and I am of no help really. One of my PC's crashed last weekend and will log on but straight back off saying system setup error. It is at the Dr's now in West Palm Beach....

[Susie]

Hi Janet

Send e-mail to Punky, he is very good and fixed mine over the internet :) Has a degree in software engineering. He can also do tons of other stuff too, think hosting, and web design

I am sure he can help if he just has time as I know he is busy and in demand:)

[byjove]

Is it the only pc in the house?

[byjove]

Sometimes if there is no hope you can take it out and plug it into another hard drive, retrieve your flies onto the other pc, not programs though, and if the other pc doesnt have the same software it would be no good as you would need it to open the files.

[britcan]

one thing you may want to consider is an online back up. We will be using
www.carbonite.com

as it is the most inexpensive and good value out there. Another thing we already use, if you want to save money on commuting and access computer in the office from home is
www.logmein.com

it works really well.

[InnVic]

I know its sort of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted" but when you get fixed you could also consider an external hard drive for storage. We have a Maxtor one touch http://www.maxstore.com/product.asp?sku=3706860
- it also makes swapping info from our business computer to our lap top easy for Embassy visits etc.. (although you can't take a Laptop in)

[Susie]

I am always being nagged to take nightly back ups, do I listen ? No, do I know how to do it,? No

[byjove]

GEt yourself a flash drive Susie, you can get them from Walmart or office max, back up all files onto that. Goto file SAve as, in the top line look for flash drive you put in and save!

[florida]

hello folks

have a word with paul at www.crof****ervices.com please pm for contact phone number.

regards

florida

[JanetTom]

Thanks guys... we took the hard drive to "Geek Squad" who were great. The hard drive was EMPTY, and so we had lost all our personal photo`s and files etc... but they cleaned it up and de-fragged it. Re installed all the anti virus, and MS Word/Office. .. all for $29.00 We now have a back up system. The PC in the store also went a bit funny, so I`ve only managed to get back onto this site today.... Thanks for the advice.... Janet

[Susie]

GEt yourself a flash drive Susie, you can get them from Walmart or office max, back up all files onto that. Goto file SAve as, in the top line look for flash drive you put in and save!

Thats all I need , a flasher :) right now :rofl: :rofl:

So is this flasher information stored on a cd disc? on is the info stored on the computer?

[regularjoe]

Our hard drive has crashed, and our files are "lost" , we don`t know how to retrieve them,but know we need someone with specialist knowledge and software...

Does anyone know of a computer specialist they can recommend?

Luckily we had just had all the accounts for the business done, and have them on a disc. The rest of my life is heli in a hard drive somewhere......

Help.....

Janet
INFO AND ADVICE FOR FUTURE
It all depends on how serious the problem is. if the drive is working in the system powering up and making noises but you can't load a stable operating system then you have hope, if you Pc is reporting unable to find boot device then things can get either expensive or very easy.

1. If drive is making noises but no OS then you can either put the hard rive in a externel caddy the do them for 2.5 inch laptop or 3.5 inch desktop size drive and plug this into a friends or spare PC and access the data, or get a friend or spare PC and download a version of linux then will run from a live CD like knopix or Unbuntu. these CD's allow you to run a OS from a CD and place no files nor have the need for a hard drive. some of the live CD's even have burning software built in so you could access you data and burn it to CD or plugin a memory stick.

2. If hard drive is not responding and reporting "unable to find boot device" then you either send it to a data recovery company and pay something like $100 per Giga byte of data and most want to do the whole drive. Or you throw it in the trash and learn from your mistake and get your self a good externel hard drive that comes with backup software and do regular backups.

P.S. you can get software of the web to recover files, but the drive needs to in another Pc as a slave device and the process can take days.

And none of this can be done over the internet.

[regularjoe]

Thanks guys... we took the hard drive to "Geek Squad" who were great. The hard drive was EMPTY, and so we had lost all our personal photo`s and files etc... but they cleaned it up and de-fragged it. Re installed all the anti virus, and MS Word/Office. .. all for $29.00 We now have a back up system. The PC in the store also went a bit funny, so I`ve only managed to get back onto this site today.... Thanks for the advice.... Janet

Sounds like they lied to you and toke easy route out. If the hardware is working ok which it seems like it is now then data is NEVER lost.

When you delete a file on a computer it is not removed just forgotten, it is only lost when the system writes new data over the area of the disk or you do what is called a return to 1 format where the whole hard drive gets written to data 1 as in 1 and zero, seeing as you need special software and alot of time to do this i can only say sorry i did not see your post sooner and i hope the data you lost was not that great a loss.

You can run a data recovery program on your now working PC and mybe find some files but it is not recommended to run the software on the same drive as the data you are trying to recover you could break your nice new OS.

Also think about the external drive backup route. :)

[byjove]

hello regularjoe and welcome to the site. Can you post something about yourself in the introduce section. If you already have and I've missed it appologies.:welcome:

[kirtida8]

:welcome: regularjoe and thanks for the tips. At last some one with some tech knowledge other than poor punky.