Backing Up A Broken Hard Drive

[flossie]

My 18 month old Dell Inspiron 1545 died on Sunday. Error was 'No Bootable Devices Found'. After a chat with customer support today (very good experience as far as it goes) and removal of hard drive, syustem checks etc. I have been told that the hard drive is gone and data lost.

I haven't backed this up for a while as i haven't used it for a few months. Slightly gutted that I may have lost photos etc. In all fairness to Dell they have agreed to come and collect the laptop and repair it, replacing the hard drive. (I did get the 'out of warranty etc. but once I explained Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act they were fine about it).

Now, I requested that I keep the hard drive myself as I would like to see if somebody, somewhere, can attempt to recover the information and asked if they just use a test drive. Dell said I had to return it.

Before I arrange for collection, is there anywhere I can go to in order to do a backup and see if i can get the data back? I have an external drive linked to my work laptop. I am reluctant to see if i can use this in case I damage my work. Worth buying a cheap external drive and doing it myself, or take it to a specialist?

Please bear in mind that computers and IT are not my forte!

 

[ClubMan]

I've various free drive cloning tools in the past to try to backup and recover data from failing hard drives. What the results are and how much you can recover from the drive obviously depends on what state it is in. Most recently I have used ddrescue from the PartedMagic CD:

[broken link removed]

I've also used CloneMaxx - it used to be free but I don't know if it still is:

[broken link removed]

There are probably others out there but maybe try PartedMagic/ddrescue first...

g4u is another option that I just remembered using before too...

http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/

An this list might be of interest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_disk_cloning_software

 

[onq]

I suffered a hard drive failure on my business laptop in 2008.

Document backups were fine, but I hadn't backed up my e-mail in about three months.

I retained Critical Data Services to retrieve my information and they performed the task perfectly.

Not cheap (although prices may have come down) but good guys in a pinch and consummately professional.

 

[flossie]

Thanks for the responses. Just spoken with a friend who has a hub that he can try and retrieve data from and will take a look for me on Friday evening. If this fails I may take a look at your recommendation ONQ.

Clubman, I can't start the computer at all so can't access interenet on it. Downloads are banned on my work machine (thankfully AAM isn't! ). Might chat with my friend though before he starts working on it and see if he will do that for me.....

Thanks for the advice!

 

[ClubMan]

You'll need a separate working computer if you want to use any of my suggestions. You (or whoever does it) will also need a moderate to high level of technical knowledge to do it yourself. Otherwise leave it to the professionals.

I don't understand the reference to "a hub" above. Normally it means this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_hub

Do you actually mean something like this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_enclosure

 

[p15574]

Just spoken with a friend who has a hub that he can try and retrieve data from and will take a look for me on Friday evening.

Just ensure that nothing invasive is done with the drive, that it's only connected up as an external drive. Sometimes the data is there initially but is overwritten due to failed attempts to retrieve it

 

[flossie]

You'll need a separate working computer if you want to use any of my suggestions. You (or whoever does it) will also need a moderate to high level of technical knowledge to do it yourself. Otherwise leave it to the professionals.

I don't understand the reference to "a hub" above. Normally it means this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_hub

Do you actually mean something like this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_enclosure

My technical knowledge is poor at best so won't try it myself!

My reference to a 'hub' is from my friend saying he has a connection that plugs into hard drive to connect into laptops to try to retrieve data. Not sure how it works....

P15574 - thanks for the tip, will ask them if that's the case. I don't think they are taking it apart or anything.

 

[onq]

If this fails I may take a look at your recommendation ONQ.

Its not a recommendation per se as there has been a lot of water under the bridge since the summer of 2008!

The circumstances and personnel of the company may have changed beyond all recognition.

You way also start crying at the price, but ask them what the current rate is.



ONQ.