hi my hard drive has stopped working! i think there was a powersurge and
ther is serious data corruption. what can i do to get my work off my hard drive.

Please reply

Andy

Recommended Answers

All 2 Replies

Little if it's really dead.
There are companies that can retrieve (or try to) the data for you but those services cost thousands of dollars/Euros at least.

If the drive is still under warranty the best you can do is try to get a warranty replacement for it. Contact your drive manufacturer.
They might even be able to repair it if the damage is minor but often that's not feasible.

Since you have internet access I would suggest you get a copy of Knoppix LiveCD.

It is a free download. It will boot from the CD and run entirely in RAM and never touch your hard drive. (Very important that you do not install or write to this disk)

With Knoppix you can boot up, and selectively try to recover your programs. Often just the OS is corrupt, or the program you were running or accessing when the problem occurred are corrupt.

You can save your work to floppy, or burn it to a CD with the included software. It helps if you have an old CD Drive to boot knoppix if you intend to burn things to CD.

If you do not have broadband for the 650 meg download you can spend 20 on the book Knoppix Hacks and the CD is included. Not the very latest version but close enough to save your info.

Good luck,
Come back after you try this and we can go from there.

Be a part of the DaniWeb community

We're a friendly, industry-focused community of developers, IT pros, digital marketers, and technology enthusiasts meeting, networking, learning, and sharing knowledge.