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We've got an old Advent computer (10-12 years old) where the hard drive's knackered (can't connect to BIOS or something similar). PC World tried to recover the data but failed.

Can anyone recommend a geek or firm in Swindon who might be clever enough to recover data from a seemingly dead drive? I just hope PC World didn't damage it beyond repair.

I'm really keen to recover the photos we have on there of the kids etc. Any help/advice appreciated.

Does the hard drive spin if powered on? If you switch the computer on and put your finger on the drive you should feel it vibrate.

Have you tried plugging it into another computer as a secondary drive? Can this computer see the drive in windows?

What did PC World try and what were their conclusions?

Old trick with knacked IDE drives is to stick them in the fridge for 24 hours. Shouldn't work, doesn't work every time, but I've got several running long enough to get data off of them, worth a last resort.

Thanks both for your help. Yes it's spinning, however that's as much as I know. This computer is so old that it doesn't even have a USB port!

PC World just said that they couldn't communicate with the hard drive and that was that. They did offer to charge me £700 to rebuild it!

If all else fails I'll try to work out how to take off the hard drive (I can just about set up a computer but not much else) and stick it in the fridge. Otherwise I'll have to try a local firm as I don't really have a clue about the workings of a computer!

A mate of mine does this. It's not cheap though. PM if you're interested.

Personally I'd remove the drive from the case and get an external hard drive caddy (with a USB interface) and try it on another machine first. I'm sure you know someone who can help you with that.

Did PC World even remove the hard drive I wonder?!

I doubt PC World even looked at it, they are spanner monkeys nothing more.

I expect that the disk is an DMA/ATA IDE or EIDE and not a sata as its too old so make sure you have an adapter to fit a USB caddy.

I bet that AT LEAST one person has paid that just to recover their Football manager game save file.

700 quid?? Fuck me.

Depends how knackered it is. Unless its been passed through an industrial magnet, most if not all of the data is recoverable.
There are programs you can buy some might even be free but your best bet is to try and find someone with access to forensic recovery tools for the best results. As jayo says, its not cheap.

If you don't know what you're doing, don't fuck about with it yourself as you're more likely to cause harm than good. Either find a friend who knows what they're doing or take it down a local PC repair shop. Shouldn't cost much.

Before you do that though, what exactly is happening? You're turning the PC on and it's giving an error message? If so, what are the exact messages you're getting? If you're getting a BIOS error message, probably more likely to be the motherboard than the hard drive.

Thanks for all the great advice. I need to find the cables etc again to start it up, but yes it came up with a BIOS error. I don't think I have the expertise to touch the thing but it's good to know there are more professional outfits than PC World out there, who probably charged me £80 and did nothing.

By not cheap, I take it we're not talking the stupid amounts PC World were asking for? Don't get me wrong, I love the kids but any more than £200 and I think I'll leave it!

£80? I'd be asking for an itemised invoice/receipt of what they did for that £80. At least then you can 'rule out' some things (really I mean you can kick up a shit storm when they can't tell you).

You'll be looking at £120 minimum I expect. Ask someone with a spare computer to plug it into their IDE port and see if they can recover anything first.

Thanks Si Pie, my brother might be able to help, I'll try him first.

I just received a letter saying unfortunately, we couldn't recover your data. That was it!

Request a refund. Don't let them sucker you in to taking it back in for no additional fee.

I have an external hard drive reader for sata drives and more than happy to see if I can read it for you foc.

I think I've got an old IDE->USB adapter kicking around I could dig out if you want. Also (as per Sippo) happy to have a look if I can find it.

Gnasher - if you can get the PC up to me (old town) I will take a look for you - I work in the PC industry and if I cannot sort I can usually find someone to have a look ?

I don't want any dosh -- I know what it's like to lose photos and that sucks big time !

Wow, thanks so much everyone, my faith in humanity has been restored!

Let's hope your hard drive is too  :)

Indeed   :D:clap: