Any computer expert around ?

[siriala]

I'm in need of technical help, big time. I've had to re-format the laptop so many times that I almost never save anything on it anymore. So I use external hard drives, plural because I need a lot of space for my caps and my scans and my many pics of Ewan and Christian... But one of those HD refused to work yesterday. It's my back up HD so I have

Comments

[gateruner]

*hugs back*

Very pretty Clive wall! *drools* Candy does some lovely work, doesn't she?

As for the hd, does it do anything at all now? Even try to make any noise when you try to access it? Any lights?

Depends on how far gone the drive is, as to whether the data can be recovered. (or, at least feasibly recovered)

[siriala]

Oh yes, Candy has a real talent and she's also working a lot every day to improve it more and more !

There's a pretty blue light when I push the button, to indicate the power is on but that's all. No noise, and that's what alerted me at first and got me very worried. By "feasibly recovered", do you mean by me or by anyone ?

Is there the same law in the USA forbidding the copying of data ? And by the way, do you plan to keep your con pics online for a while ? There are so many of them, I didn't have time to watch them all ;) I'm so glad you had a good time there !! ;) *hugs*

[gateruner]

By "feasibly recovered", do you mean by me or by anyone ?

Both actually. Almost all data can be recovered in some form these days, it's just whether you want to put that kind of money into it. That's what I was meaning. It could be very costly. It sounds like the heads and bearings have gone out, so the drive won't spin up.

Which means the data is most likely all still good. Unless one of the heads bumped or scratched one of the platters while trying to reposition when it went out. Either way, most of the data is probably still good.

Bad news is that I wouldn't have a clue as to how to retrieve the data at that point.

Is there the same law in the USA forbidding the copying of data ? Not that I'm aware of. Not with your consent especially. Now, there may be if they know you have copyrighted material on there, maybe that's the issue. But most people don't care what you have on your hd, nor do they ask. They generally only want to know if it's really that important to you to retrieve

[tularia]

There is a software called Ghostmachine, Ghostdrive, or something similar, that lets you 'ghost' data from one harddrive to another. That might work for you, providing that your harddrive hasn't gone completely belly-up.
Good luck! I resorted to storing everything on discs, 'just in case'. I'm tough on harddrives. Sounds like you are too! lol