Ask the Question

studio1@elemoine · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 9 Location: London

When a PC dies, i.e., when it suddenly doesn't recognize the HD anymore, does that mean the contents of the HD cannot be recovered?

If data can be recovered, can I find out what that entails?

Very grateful to get an idea of what I should do next!

Thanks, Elizabeth

Dan · Site Admin Joined: 30 Jun 2002 Posts: 131 Location: UK

can you tell us what make the hard drive is please ?

studio1@elemoine · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 9 Location: London

Compaq -- does that help? Running Windows 2000 Professional. Sorry, this is not my computer, but a computer at work and I don't know much about it. It was bought second hand, several years ago, I am told. I can't find manual or disks for this one (the other computers all seem to have theirs).

Sorry to be vague --

Bob425 · Joined: 19 Apr 2006 Posts: 5

There are companies that can recover data from a duff disk but it is very expensive, running into hundreds if not thousands of pounds to do so.

However depending upon the nature of the fault and the data you want to recover it might be possible to fix it yourself. If the disk is physically OK but you have a Windows loading problem you can take the disk out and mount it in another computer as a slave disk. This computer would then have two disks in: the original working disk that would be used to load Windows normally, and another drive that would appear as say drive E:. This new drive would be accessable from within explorer in the same way as you would access a floppy disk or CD drive.

You can then copy the files you want off it. Recovering data (word, excel, and even emails) can be done easily. You could possibly recover an installed application, say you had installed a program on it and had lost the install disks, like say Microsoft Office, but this would be a lot harder.

As I said, adding the disk as a slave disk is easy and quick to do, but it's not something I could talk someone through. However a local small business computer company or a friend in the know could do it for you.

If the disk is really broken and it's not just a configuration problem, then I think you're stuck.

In your situation I'd try taking it to a local computer company. They shouldn't charge you that much for it.

studio1@elemoine · Joined: 03 Apr 2006 Posts: 9 Location: London

Dear Bob 425,

Thanks for your advice. In the intervening days I have discovered a lot of what you have just told me. I have also found out that the error message (0x0000007B INNACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE) is a well-documented problem, but we couldn't find a solution that applied to our situation. We have tried to make the HD a slave, connecting it to another HD, but the computer would still not recognise it. I tried yesterday (was talked through this by an IT expert working for a friend's company), in safe mode, to boot with Command Prompt, but even that doesn't get as far as allowing a command prompt. The fact that the last component attempting to load when the boot fails is, apparently, a video card, gives this IT expert the idea that replacing the video card may solve the problem. He has very kindly offered to look at it if we bring the computer to his employer's company. So, I have my fingers crossed. I knew that it was technically possible to recover information from a damaged HD, but didn't know what the procedure or the cost was. There isn't too much data that needs recovering, as the computer was fairly regularly backed up. But there is some. I don't think it's worth thousands of pounds to retrieve, though. Anyway, we are working on it! Thanks for your help! I'll let you know how it all turns out!

All the best, Elizabeth

Dan · Site Admin Joined: 30 Jun 2002 Posts: 131 Location: UK

try this to see if there is anything useful

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=271274