Czarina Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Guys, My computer just up and died about a month ago. Went to turn it on one morning and there was just nothing happening. I thought it might be the power supply. The guy at the computer store told my husband the motherboard was fried and there wasn't much sense in repairing. It's an OLD machine, so it seems reasonable. Here's the problem though...we can't get any of the info off the hard drive. They said they tried but couldn't get anything. Suggested we would need to have a specialist deal with it to the tune of around $1000 to retrieve the data. Does this sound typical? Couldn't we just take out the old hard drive and hook it up to a new computer? Would the death of the motherboard cause the hard drive to die too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iliketea Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Pull out hard drive and use a usb to IDE/Sata Adapter to hook it up on new computer. Go to my computer and it should appear there. cost for adapter is about 15 bucks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtomicCEO Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Guys,My computer just up and died about a month ago. Went to turn it on one morning and there was just nothing happening. I thought it might be the power supply. The guy at the computer store told my husband the motherboard was fried and there wasn't much sense in repairing. It's an OLD machine, so it seems reasonable. Here's the problem though...we can't get any of the info off the hard drive. They said they tried but couldn't get anything. Suggested we would need to have a specialist deal with it to the tune of around $1000 to retrieve the data. Does this sound typical? Couldn't we just take out the old hard drive and hook it up to a new computer? Would the death of the motherboard cause the hard drive to die too? Do you have any computer nerd friends? I could list steps of troubleshooting, but they probably wouldn't make much sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wiegie Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 I am the worst Huddle Buddy in the world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtomicCEO Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Step 1: hook it up to another computer. didn't work? Step 2: put it in an air-tight, moisture-free ziplock bag, put in freezer overnight, hook it up to computer, try again. didn't work? Step 3: create an air-tight, absolutely dust-free environment in a bedroom, disassemble harddrive, insert platter into another harddrive that you already bought and have in the same room with you... or hire a service. Yikes. Do NOT disassemble the hard drive. That's where the gremlins live. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tazinib1 Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Step 1: hook it up to another computer. didn't work? Step 2: put it in an air-tight, moisture-free ziplock bag, put in freezer overnight, hook it up to computer, try again. didn't work? Step 3: create an air-tight, absolutely dust-free environment in a bedroom, disassemble harddrive, insert platter into another harddrive that you already bought and have in the same room with you... or hire a service. ARe you sure this procedure is for a computer???? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polksalet Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Aight, this is really dumbed down and is super easy. Buy this http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?invtid=BL...1PL&cat=HDD and stick the old drive in it. hook it up using usb. Now you have access to the old drive and can also use it as an auxiliary drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffraff Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Stick in another computer, change jumper settings from master to slave. Should see it, if not use a program like Stellar Phoenix to recover the files. Can a motherboard fry a hard drive? Sure, but rare. Usually the only time you can't get the info off yourself is if the drive won't spin the platters. If it spins, it may not be recognized by the operating system, but can still get the files off it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H8tank Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Can a motherboard fry a hard drive? Sure, but rare. I've never seen it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Riffraff Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 (edited) Aye, only if it makes it head crash or destroys the boot sector part of the drive. If the registry data portion of the drive gets damaged, it's harder to get the info back since it doesn't have the reference points anymore. More likely that a power supply would "fry" it though. Edited June 19, 2008 by Riffraff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
H8tank Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 More likely that a power supply would "fry" it though. Not impossible, but I have never seen it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polksalet Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Aye, only if it makes it head crash or destroys the boot sector part of the drive.If the registry data portion of the drive gets damaged, it's harder to get the info back since it doesn't have the reference points anymore. More likely that a power supply would "fry" it though. You could hook it to an o/s that doesn't use registers. I mean I can't think of any that don't have registers other than LINUX. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
untateve Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 I am the worst Huddle Buddy in the world. This is the same thing Czar pm'd me about you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caveman_Nick Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Guys,My computer just up and died about a month ago. Went to turn it on one morning and there was just nothing happening. I thought it might be the power supply. The guy at the computer store told my husband the motherboard was fried and there wasn't much sense in repairing. It's an OLD machine, so it seems reasonable. Here's the problem though...we can't get any of the info off the hard drive. They said they tried but couldn't get anything. Suggested we would need to have a specialist deal with it to the tune of around $1000 to retrieve the data. Does this sound typical? Couldn't we just take out the old hard drive and hook it up to a new computer? Would the death of the motherboard cause the hard drive to die too? That does sound like a typical cost for data retrieval. I had to have this done and used a company in NH about 4 years back. It cost a bit more than that. As far as the death of the motherboard causing the death of the HD, My guess would be that whatever caused the death of the MB also caused the death of the HD. Maybe a power surge or a short circuit. Maybe one of the kiddies spilled something and didn't tell Mommy and Daddy. The advice on how to hook up the HD is good. You could also try Polk's Puppy Linux to boot the computer and see if you can access the HD from within that OS. Whatever happens, when you buy a new computer make sure you get an external HD. No matter how tight your budget is, if you are going to keep crucial data on your computer system you should have a method of backing it up. Spend less on the computer if necessary and just make sure you keep back-ups. Or buy a sleeve of CD-Rs for a buck a pop and burn records of things you need. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtomicCEO Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Aye, only if it makes it head crash or destroys the boot sector part of the drive.If the registry data portion of the drive gets damaged, it's harder to get the info back since it doesn't have the reference points anymore. I have a $30 piece of software that can recover info off an NTFS drive after the boot sector was corrupted. So, Czar... plug it into another computer and if you can hear it spin up, there's good odds you can recover the data for a lot less than $1000. If it doesn't spin at all, or if it regularly makes a bunch of loud clicking noises (whssssssSSSHH-CLICK, whssssssSSSHH-CLICK, whssssssSSSHH-CLICK) , it's probably not going to be worth recovering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caveman_Nick Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 I have a $30 piece of software that can recover info off an NTFS drive after the boot sector was corrupted. So, Czar... plug it into another computer and if you can hear it spin up, there's good odds you can recover the data for a lot less than $1000. If it doesn't spin at all, or if it regularly makes a bunch of loud clicking noises (whssssssSSSHH-CLICK, whssssssSSSHH-CLICK, whssssssSSSHH-CLICK) , it's probably not going to be worth recovering. This is what cost the $$ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rocknrobn26 Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 I have a $30 piece of software that can recover info off an NTFS drive after the boot sector was corrupted. So, Czar... plug it into another computer and if you can hear it spin up, there's good odds you can recover the data for a lot less than $1000. If it doesn't spin at all, or if it regularly makes a bunch of loud clicking noises (whssssssSSSHH-CLICK, whssssssSSSHH-CLICK, whssssssSSSHH-CLICK) , it's probably not going to be worth recovering. If that doesn't work, there are a ton of retrieval companies around. I have no experience w/ them, but here's one that sounds reasonable: http://www.aerodr.com/?gclid=COTg1PLUgJQCFQ4hnAod3Hf9WQ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Czarina Posted June 20, 2008 Author Share Posted June 20, 2008 The world isn't going to come to an end totally if I don't get the data off there. I did do a huge backup a few months ago, but I ihave photos and Nick's iTunes library on there, stuff like that. Hubby is going to pick up the doorstop today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sox Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 You should probably still be able to get info and files of the hard drive. I had one going bad about two years ago.The computer would only boot up half of the time,sometimes programs wouldn't work.Put the new on in formatted,etc,changed the jumpers on my old one to slave and was able to pull all the files I needed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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