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I just have to ask one more time

My hard drive crashed Friday.  As terrible as that was, one good thing was that I had a few of my important files printed out on hard copy.  But not all.  Nor did I have them backed up elsewhere.  I was intending to get to that, esp. since the last time the computer started acting up - but just didn't get to it.  Then, CRASH!  Another good thing that happened was that it didn't take long (comparatively speaking) talking to someone in India before he proclaimed "I'm going to send you a new hard drive."  It arrived Tuesday.   (Thank you, Dell.)  Obviously, it is installed & I am back online - after figuring out my router & my cordless phone share the same frequency.  (Actually, they are quite selfish about the frequency & my phone won.)  A call to Belkin on a corded phone fixed that.  ALWAYS keep a corded phone in the house.
The bad thing.  When it crashed, the screen said 'no operating system found.'   Does anyone know if there is any hope for retrieving any of my work on that old hard drive?  If so, how?  And, how about recommendations for backing up files?  Just burn them onto a CD?  I had a huge list of 'favorite' sites saved for my business.  All gone.  Anyone ever have this happen?  I realize how much I depend on my computer - TOO much.
 
Ok, I may have a ghetto fabulous solution for you. Now, this is a one shot deal so you must know what you need off of your drive before doing it.

Take your HDD and put it in a static free bag and seal it up. Then stick it in your freezer over night (yes, you heard right)

The next morning take it out and immiediatly install it. If it works your time will be limited and once it crashes again the game is usually over.

Option #2 is send it to a specialty place that recovers data from dead drives. It will run you around 3 grand or so, and I doubt your data is THAT important.
 
Try installing it as your d: drive (slave, secondary, whatever) and try to access it. You won't be able to boot from it, but you might be able to access some files.
 
Okay This is what i Do for livingLOL Take the drive like sundewguy said and slave it.. if the drive dosent show ,make shure it is set to auto detect in the BIOS ( sometimes it is holding the deleat key on startup) call dell if you can't get to the BIOS. In the Bios see if it is being recognized... THe other help is that nortons utilitys most of the time will find the drive and from there you can copy over the data.. also FIX IT utility has something that will find the drive and take the data off!!! Each of these programs cost like 40 to 60 bucks

Any questions let me know also let me know how you make out

Jim
 
Hey, thanks for all the ideas!  I will try the freezer thing tonight.  I have a notebook which only has room for one hard drive at a time.  It has a floppy drive & a CD drive so I don't know how the slave idea would work.  When I sent my computer to Dell last month, it kept shutting down, they reset the bios.  Then this month, it crashed.  If I can't do this myself or with someone's kind help, it is just not worth even $40. to retrieve the data.  It is all my client's records (a small book!) and I can recreate them (but what a pain that will be!).
 
Hmm, I have never tried the freezer trick with actually having to boot from it, but good luck.
 
Yeah, I think a boot is very unlikely to happen. Is Williams a notebook as well? If not then you may slave it on his then copy them to disk. I personally always keep a slave drive now. Unfortunately for some reason adware and other junk like to hide in my F: drive

Joe
 
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