«

You haven't told us how the hard drive is failing. Data error, system
can't see it, won't boot. What? Why is his data so important?

Dave Hardenbrook wrote:
> This is a follow up to my previous posting about a PC whose hard drive
> got zapped by a power surge. I have been looking into data recovery
> services, and $800-$900 seems the norm, which is WAY beyond the scope of
> my client, who is a low-income senior living in a mobile home.
>
> So, setting aside a bake sale to raise money to recover the data (I *am*
> seriously considering a fundraiser of some kind), do I have any other
> options at this point? The behavior of the drive doesn't suggest
> crashed heads. At power-on the drive seems to spin up normally, but the
> POST displays the error "Primary Master Fail" and the system halts.
> Also, even though the drive make and model shows up in the CMOS and in
> diagnostic programs, the S/N field shows up as a blank. Does this point
> to a firmware or circuit board problem?
>
> Say I were to buy an identical drive and swap circuit boards -- Could
> that possibly solve the problem? I'm not even sure if this can be done
> without disturbing the drives innards, which I know must be protected
> from the contaminants of the open air.
>
> I know I'm proabably grasping at straws at this point -- I'm just
> wondering if there's anything I might try before I proceed with trying
> to raise that several hundred bucks. Why is data recovery so expensive
> anyway? Is it purely the cost of maintaining the clean-rooms? Or am I
> not unreasonably cynical in thinking that there's some price-massaging
> going on, because they know how desperate it is to lose critical data
> that's not backed up...?
>
> --
> Dave