theryugobuddy Posted August 20, 2005 Share Posted August 20, 2005 My VPR Matrix (Best Buy) computer I've had for three years crashed Monday. Ugh-- I took it to CompUSA where they told me the hard drive was "bad", so I bought and installed a new hard drive. BUT, I'm out all the info on the old drive-- I've installed the old drive as the slave to the new one, and the Device manager shows its installed and working properly, yet the drive does not show in My Computer. What else needs to be done to get into the drive? or am I chasing a dream? I talked to a company today that told me it would be $1200 to retrieve the files on the old drive, and I ain't made of money-- Any thoughts would be appreciated-- And if you're not backing up your files, I am living the stupidity of not doing so--back yours up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meuge Posted August 20, 2005 Share Posted August 20, 2005 It's hard to say - there are a variety of data recovery utilities available online... but they presume that the drive is not malfunctioning. If you tell me more about what exactly happened, perhaps I can make a suggestion. P.S. My advice is to purchase an external hard drive (160GB or more can be had for ~$100) and use a program such as Second Copy to automatically back up designated files/folders to that drive at set intervals. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theryugobuddy Posted August 21, 2005 Author Share Posted August 21, 2005 I will be checking the drive Monday again at CompUSA -- last week the tech there hooked it up to a tester and said it was "bad", and I didn't ask him what that meant. It was a PXE failure, and he told me I had to get a new hard drive. The drive does show up on Device Manager, do you know how to get My Computer to recognize it? I've never had a master/slave hard drive combination--Does the master drive show up as the C drive and the slave a different drive? My understanding is if its a mechanical malfunction I'm at the mercy of a recovery company--is that right? Thanks for the help-- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunburnwilly Posted August 21, 2005 Share Posted August 21, 2005 The $1,200.00 to retrieve data sounds a bit steep . My sister paid $400.00 to retrieve the data on her old hard drive when it crashed . All of her buisness files were on it so it was worth it for her . Check the yellow pages and see if another company around you will do it for less . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theryugobuddy Posted August 23, 2005 Author Share Posted August 23, 2005 Where did your sister go to retrieve the data? I've heard $2000, $1000, and $1200 her in Tampa--with no guaranteed results-- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shade Posted August 23, 2005 Share Posted August 23, 2005 I've never had a master/slave hard drive combination--Does the master drive show up as the C drive and the slave a different drive? -------------------------------------------------------------- Yes. It'll probably show up as D, and move your CD/DVD drives up a letter. ----- P.S. My advice is to purchase an external hard drive (160GB or more can be had for ~$100) and use a program such as Second Copy to automatically back up designated files/folders to that drive at set intervals. ------------------------------------------------------------ This would be a good idea. Alternatively, if it's a small amount of data you want to back up (spreadsheets, pics, etc) you might be able to get away with burning the data to a CD/DVD. If you do go the hard drive route, make sure it's an external. You could use an internal, but if the power supply goes it could very likely take both drives with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sunburnwilly Posted August 23, 2005 Share Posted August 23, 2005 ---------------- On 8/23/2005 11:18:21 AM theryugobuddy wrote: Where did your sister go to retrieve the data? I've heard $2000, $1000, and $1200 her in Tampa--with no guaranteed results-- ---------------- She went to a local company called PC Doctors here in Charleston . Actualy they went to her house and picked it up . $400.00 ... Similarly a girl I work with attends the medical college here and her laptop crashed with all of her school stuff on it . I called my sis up to find out the company she used and they fixed her up too . Maybe you should try somebody outside of Tampa , maybe Gainsville , it's a college town bound to be several companies there doing this service . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coytee Posted August 23, 2005 Share Posted August 23, 2005 Dont know if youve fixed your issues yet but heres my first thoughts on your questions. If it sees it as master/slave then the jumpers must be on CS or cable select. The location of the drive on the cable determines if its the master or slave. This is good. Now, go into your start button, see my computer? Well, RIGHT click on it and click on MANAGE. When Computer Management opens up, DOUBLE CLICK on Disk Management under the Storage section. On the right side of the box you SHOULD now see your hard drives. If you can see them and all seems to be working fine then Im at a loss for you (unless you can go into a dos window and manually copy your data over) If you do NOT see your D drive, you can assign letters and rescan for disks. I dont know if this will help you because Im not exactly sure what all you can do from this window. I just know that I once had an issue of not seeing a drive and this is where I ended up having to go to kick it into gear. Good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theryugobuddy Posted August 29, 2005 Author Share Posted August 29, 2005 Thank you for the post--- I tried the Disk management console, and still had no luck. It only saw the new drive, not the old one. I'll check with the computer company in Charleston to retrieve the data off it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
toddvj Posted August 30, 2005 Share Posted August 30, 2005 What brand of HD is it? Go to the manufacturer's website, and download their software, like what you would use to set up a brand new drive. That may be all that is needed to get your computer to recognize the old Hard drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonfyr Posted August 30, 2005 Share Posted August 30, 2005 If you are going to persist in trying to re-install this drive to your computer PLEASE be careful! As I suspect that you are most likely going to suceed in corrupting or reformatting the File Allocation Table on the drive and thus lose whatever pointers are left to the data, thus requiring a more extensive data recovery process. There are a couple of excellent forensic data recovery programs for this use but they cost more then what you will spend to recover the data! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theryugobuddy Posted September 6, 2005 Author Share Posted September 6, 2005 Yes--I got to that point that I had to reformat to get into the drive, tried a few ways to go around that option, but it wouldn't so I didn't-- To me, re-format means erase! I've resigned to the fact that the problem is mechanical--only the Device Manager recognizes the drive--no where else. And I assume that if its mechanical, no software can help you-- I'll save up to get a pro to try to remove the files. Thanks-- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malcolm Posted September 13, 2005 Share Posted September 13, 2005 May I, too, suggest that in the future you back up cricitcal files? You can back up to tape, removable disk, another fixed disk drive on the same machine, a server, etc. There is software that can automate the process if you wish. But any approach will take some human attention from time to time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonfyr Posted September 13, 2005 Share Posted September 13, 2005 Checkout Gillware. They charge a very reasonable (for the industry) $378.99 for Windows based hard drive data recovery. http://www.gillware.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theryugobuddy Posted September 13, 2005 Author Share Posted September 13, 2005 May I, too, suggest that in the future you back up cricitcal files? You can back up to tape, removable disk, another fixed disk drive on the same machine, a server, etc. There is software that can automate the process if you wish. But any approach will take some human attention from time to time. Just call me stupid-- I've got an external hard drive now-- Just dumb, I had backed alot up on discs but got out of the habit several months ago. I didn't think it would just stop without a warning-- dragonfyr-- Thanks for the tip about Gillware -- I'll post the results Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacksonbart Posted September 16, 2005 Share Posted September 16, 2005 Good Luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theryugobuddy Posted September 20, 2005 Author Share Posted September 20, 2005 D-fyr-- Thank you so much for the tip on Gillware-- So far, so good. I shipped the drive last week, and got a call today that they have recovered 35.8G and that it was a mechanical drive/reader problem. They called to make sure that they had looked in all the right places to find the files that I would want off it. They will ship it back tomorrow with all the files on DVDs plus on the hard drive I sent them -- Very professional communications via e-mail and phone. Cost : $530 total for recovery and service of the drive to temporarily repair it, including DVDs and transfer to hard disk-- Thanks again--that's a little less than the $1000 and up I was looking at until I contacted them-- We'll see when I get the info back!! They keep the drive so that if I don't see all the files I want they can look again for them--at no further charge-- Thanks again-- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michael hurd Posted September 27, 2005 Share Posted September 27, 2005 Cool, you saved almost half a kilobuck! Better in your pocket than someone else's. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Spinner Posted September 28, 2005 Share Posted September 28, 2005 there goes your Music ....! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theryugobuddy Posted September 30, 2005 Author Share Posted September 30, 2005 Hah!- yeah, I'll have to rely on killer burned bootlegs from Forum members for awhile! I got the package yesterday, 8 DVDs of all the files I thought were long gone-- I sent a hard drive to them to copy any found files, but they put the files on DVDs, too -- no charge! I guess once they got the $530... Anyway-- thanks again--I'm glad I posted here with this problem. The Klipsch Forum saved me $$$! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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