Hi fellow forum members 
My computer's hard drive recently crashed and I can no longer access it at all, my os will not boot, bootloader does not detect it, etc. While I had most of my data backed up, some was not of the most recent versions. I can't believe my luck seeing as it crashed on the day before I had a backup scheduled.
Soooooo... I am looking for a reasonably priced place that could recover my data, or at least tell me the problem of what went wrong. I also need to figure out what type of drive my mac needs, seeing as I found IDE and Ultra ATA/100, what is the difference?
For a new drive I need a 2.5 inch laptop drive, preferably 100 - 160GB in size. The crashed drive was 80GB, now I am stuck with a temporary 20GB backup drive... 
Thanks for any help,
C.Moyer Learning Webmaster
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
~Attributed to Harry S. Truman~
pr0gr4mm3r posted this at 23:33 — 5th February 2009.
He has: 1,421 posts
Joined: Sep 2006
If you send the drive off for data recovery, it will cost thousands.
There are some tools that might be able to help you. I have used tools from the Ultimate Boot CD to recover data.
Edit - and about finding a replacement: ATA/100 is a type of drive that uses the IDE interface.
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cmoyer posted this at 23:45 — 5th February 2009.
He has: 132 posts
Joined: Jun 2008
If it will cost thousands I guess it is better to just keep my most recent backup. I emailed one company and they said it would cost between $300 and $1400. I'll see what that cd can do.
C.Moyer Learning Webmaster
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
~Attributed to Harry S. Truman~
pr0gr4mm3r posted this at 00:22 — 6th February 2009.
He has: 1,421 posts
Joined: Sep 2006
Actually "will" should be "could". I had a client with a crashed HDD, and I couldn't rescue it. The company charged $1200 I think if they could recover data.
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Greg K posted this at 03:22 — 6th February 2009.
He has: 1,911 posts
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Last time I checked into this for a local place, best price was $75/hour, 2 hour minimum, and that minimum was even if they found they could not do anything with it, and was told that it could take 2hours to several days depending on how damaged the drive was physically. Now granted this was years ago, and on drives under 1gig.
As for buying a new drive, my personal recommendation is a a Hitachi/IBM Travel Star, and make sure you get 7200rpm over 5400rpm (how fast the disks spin).
Now I was just about to go recommend a link to some for you, because I need to replace a drive in a friend's laptop, and surprise to me, my topy two places to buy parts NewEgg.com and mWave.com do not have any IDE drives! TigerDirect.com only has 5400RPMS! What the crap!
While you are buying drives, spend a little ## on a large external hard drive and do backups a more often!
-Greg
[This space intentionally left blank]
Cool Geek Supplies: www.ThinkGeek.com
cmoyer posted this at 22:19 — 6th February 2009.
He has: 132 posts
Joined: Jun 2008
I guess I will not be getting a hard drive recovery, that boot cd above would work if I had a pc laptop, however it is a mac ppc so it didn't work...
I had an external 20GB that I used and it was too small it is full now and that is what I am using now. I planned on getting a networkable drive for our house so we could backup all of our computers to it seeing as our pc's don't have fire wire.
I was looking all over Google, yahoo, and ask for a compatible ATA drive and none were 7200RPM only 4200 and 5400. I am thinking about getting This one. It is 160GB 5400RPM and 8mb cache, it is refurbished though.
The only things that I could find on the old drive to help me figure out what to base the new one after was 80GB, nothing says about RPMS or cache! Google told me in several spots that it is 4200RPMs. Amazon wants over $125 for a similar one!
What size would you recommend for an external drive?
C.Moyer Learning Webmaster
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
~Attributed to Harry S. Truman~
pr0gr4mm3r posted this at 23:20 — 6th February 2009.
He has: 1,421 posts
Joined: Sep 2006
I don't know how much money you have to spend, but I would not by a HDD that already failed once (refurbished). You technically could get a slower one if you want to save money, and it should work...only a bit slower access time. You don't have to match the buffer size as well.
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cmoyer posted this at 23:21 — 9th February 2009.
He has: 132 posts
Joined: Jun 2008
I'm more concerned with the amount of storage space on the drive, the old one was 80GB, and that got full when I did a video project for school. So I am thinking about a 120Gig or 160Gig, but I know I don't need 200 or more... yet. By the time I need 200GB it's time to upgrade my computer.
C.Moyer Learning Webmaster
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.
~Attributed to Harry S. Truman~
tekkiegurl posted this at 08:18 — 11th March 2009.
They have: 7 posts
Joined: Mar 2009
well you can look on the internet for a file recovery program. it can able to recover most of the data.
wen_wedinfo posted this at 02:26 — 18th March 2009.
They have: 13 posts
Joined: Mar 2009
my problem is the same to cmoyer... and thank u all guys for helping us... more power to you guys
trade-show-bill posted this at 17:40 — 18th March 2009.
They have: 17 posts
Joined: Feb 2009
I've had two hard drives crash over the years. I learned the painful way that one should do regular backups. I now use Acronis TrueImage and love it. I highly recommend it. Better safe that sorry!
Research trade show displays. Find trade show displays. Buy trade show displays. If you want to know anything about trade show displays, ask Bill.
pasoom posted this at 05:16 — 4th June 2009.
They have: 1 posts
Joined: Jun 2009
Well i would suggest using the best and professional recovery tool like Stellar Phoenix Hard Drive Recovery Software which is the ultimate solution for your problem and due to its GUI interface and efficient recovery technique you can recover your data with no time.give a try
andr2008 posted this at 10:22 — 5th June 2009.
They have: 42 posts
Joined: Mar 2009
You can try to boot Windows PE and recover all your data. It can really help. I had such a problem when computer didn't detect HDD at all.
davecoventry posted this at 20:47 — 21st June 2009.
He has: 114 posts
Joined: Jun 2009
I've had a lot of success using this CD http://sysresccd.org/
In my view its a tool no IT professional should be without.
It is a linux boot disk based on Gentoo with plenty of utility programs, freedos, virus scanners, undelete tools, Partition cloning tools, Archiving tools, Photo and document recovery tools, Partition Managers and Hard Drive Diagnostic reporters.
Also includes this: http://hddguru.com/content/en/software/2005.10.02-MHDD/
Might help you (although I notice I'm 4 months too late)
I'm not recommending my hosts anymore until they sort out my hacked sites