My world lays in ruins...damn hardware!!!

[Robbie]

All is not yet lost! I have had this happen before too!

Seriously...I'm not joking, even though it may sound like I am.

Take the hard drive out and put it in a ziplock bag and get as much of the air out as you can. Take the bag of hard drive and put it in the freezer for a couple of days. I'm seriously not joking. This will cause the platters to shrink due to the cold and possibly shrink away from the read/write head long enough for you to fire it up and recover data on it if you work quickly.

If you think the DATA on the drive may be damaged...whatever computer you use to plug the drive into to get data off of it, I would SERIOUSLY recommend a program called GetDataBack, it works fantastically. Install that program on the computer BEFORE you plug in the hard drive from the freezer.

1. Freeze Hard Drive
2. Set up GetDataBack on other computer
3. Leave side panel off other computer
4. remove frozen drive, plug QUICKLY into other computer
5. try to read data and start copying important files QUICKLY
6. if drive is corrupted, start a GetDataBack scan quickly, and hope for the best.

I've saved a LOT of data from clickofdeath using this method.

[torstan]

That's the best, and wierdest, bit of computer advice I've ever heard. Wow.

The-Somberlain - thanks for the salutory warning. I'm off to back up my work now. I really hope that you are able to save some of that work. Losing all that data is a terrible thing.

[The-Somberlain]

Wow! That's surely a piece of original advise. Well, I am still checking my backups. See what else is missing...if nothing TOO important I might try the freezer thing. Else, I might pay some data recovery service...