hard drive failure

[datadign]

I have a HP pavillion 7195 that crashed when my dsl & land line suddenly ceased working causing my O/S to no longer load. (sysconfig error) PC was given to me, do not have original start up O/S disk. Runs Windows XP Home Edition. I can get in to the recovery partition though did not have all data backed up before o/s failure. Repair center was to backup data so I could reload o/s from recovery partition though tech just called and advised they cannot read hard drive 'complete failure' & unable to recover data.

I'm not a desktop guru - seems though if I can get it to boot up to recovery mode the hard drive isn't dead.

Hindsight - should have backed up my data. Water under the bridge & lessons learned.

Any insight on if what I'm being told is accurate and any possible steps I can take outside of drive recovery services?

Thanks in advance. New here and appreciate the opportunity to obtain others expertise.

 

[acewarlock]

This could never happen, they don't have anything to do with the HD. See if you can boot from a Bootable Floppy or a Bootable CD.

it sound like you had a power failure and your BIOS Battery is dead and you lost the config. go into the BIOS and check the settings.




This is a Signature and not part of the answer, it appears on every reply.

This is an Analogy so don't take it personally as some have.

Why change the engine if all you need is to change the spark plugs.

 

[vacunita]

If you could get into the recovery mode, its likely the drive isn't dead, but the partition with the OS and your data may have been corrupted which would make any access to it difficult. You could try some of the available recovery apps out there. GetDataback and File Recovery Pro seem to have good success rate around here.

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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[datadign]

I appreciate the feedback. Tech just phoned and indicates after further diagnostics 'several bad sectors' on the drive and cannot recovery data.

I'm headed to pick it up.., hate to give up yet as I foolishly have data I didn't back up that I'd hate to too easily admit defeat to recovering.

Is there a way I can a bootup floppy or cd if I didn't have one created before the crash? I have none of the original o/s software to fall back on.

Thanks again..., greatly appreciated.

 

[G0AOZ]

If you want to recover data on this disk your best option is to attach it as a secondary drive to a working system, then run something like GetDataBack. If this won't do it, try SpinRite or even MHDD.

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[datadign]

acewarlock - thanks for the comments. I was able to locate a boot cd and also discovered the ac power cord needed replaced which I had not considered. BIOS battery appears fine. Running chkdsk /r at this time and at 50% - we'll see what happens as the afternoon progresses.

It appeared the techs had hopes of selling me either a new desktop or the laptop I stopped to check out after leaving the unit on their bench for repair.

Thanks as well to the others for the disk recovery links as I've got them bookmarked once I see where today's work lands me.