We'll rebuild it faster, stronger, ... wait how much?

[tuftears]

Okay, with quotes ranging from $500 to $3.9K, I think I'm going to punt on hard drive recovery and just reconstruct what I need to. Fortunately my e-mail and files are all kept on a server host, and I just checked and fixed the FTP backup mechanism there. (good thing I did check)

My 2009 tax return was on the drive, but it looks like there's a form for requesting copies of tax returns from the IRS, so that's what I'll do. Other than that, eh, nothing on there that's worth a likely price of $2K.

Comments

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

unless it won't spin up anymore, try building a new system and put the old drive in on it's own IDE chain (or as a slave). Then throw Norton Utilities at it and see if it can rescue any data for you, which you then pull off the bad drive and onto the good.

This is why I use a RAID1 system. Lose a drive, not a critical problem.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

The PCB on it is fried. We've already tried it in several other computers and it wouldn't spin up.

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

Ugh, what a pain! But will you be able to recover your programming projects?

My sympathies. :(

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I had luckily saved two of my prototypes. I have to rebuild the GUI project, but I'm adopting a simpler approach this time out that may serve well.

[wordslinger.livejournal.com]

Well... ugh! That's a pain.

The amusing or ironic thing is that so many of us geeks don't back things up, either.

[cjthomas.livejournal.com]

Deciding not to ask friends to try the board-replacement, or was it deemed impractical?

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

The former, too much trouble and headaches trying to find parts etc.

[revar.livejournal.com]

I have previously gotten a board-fried hard drive to work by taking another drive of the same model, and putting it's board on the fried drive's disk pack. If you can find that model drive still in the stores or online, you might still be able to recover your data.

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

I did a little reading, it sounds like part of the firmware is stored on the boot sectors so it would still take getting recovery software and stuff even if I could get it to spin up. Also, I'm not technically ept enough to do that! After thinking about it, I figure it's less expensive to just do without.