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Looks like I had a HD failure tonight, this time it was the C: drive. Oh well, looks like I'll get to do that HD upgrade sooner than I thought. Gonna replace the dead 60G with either a 120 or 160 gig drive. Yes, this sucks, and I'll have to reinstall ALL of my programs and games, but at least I'll have a fresh install. Thank GOD I just finished backing up all my personal photos to DVD, what timing. I lost a bunch of other photos, music that I downloaded, and all my email, teh suck.

I probably won't be on tomorrow night, unless by some miracle I get the new HD installed and everything back up and running again.

I have this new computer I am typing from, I COULD use it, but I really would rather get the old one back up and running.

yes - that really sucks. i am going to be building a new pc and don't even look forward to that!

So you might be down two weeks in a row then?? That blows.

Have to say I see a new system looming in the distance too. But was thinking about an interim set-up for now too. Thing is, everything ends up waiting on something else and you never get to it. So, my thinking is simply to go for an Athlon 64 (maybe even the FX55, but not the FX57), would need a new mobo for that though. And simply leave the RAM & Grafix card as is for now, along with pretty much everything else. I could be tempted to pick-up one of these 10,000rpm S-ATA drives for playing games with, and keep my old second drive (120GB) for storage of images and such.
By the way, I have an old hard drive - 6.4GB, it has some images on there I would dearly love to get back, but the drive is knackered, does anyone have or know of someon who has a facility for that sort of thing? I really would love to be able to get those images back.

There are many places that will do it, but you will pay a TON of cash to get it done.

HDD recovery is big bucks business - it requires a clean room, proper skills/knowledge, etc.

I know of a good place I have used here in SD, but just to open the drive and look will cost you $250 or so...maybe more by now.

I can get my hands on a level 4 clean room, and probably the spare unit to cross the drive over with. Dealing wth this sort of clean environment is what we do on ATE facilities. Normally we're talking about playing with thermal imaging equipment, but the principal is the same. I mean it only has to work once, to extract the data and then done. Just wonder what the chances are of it working that once!

well then give it a try...and let us know how you come out.

Yeah, I think the cost of having it done for me versus the risk of losing the data altogether makes it worth a blast. Guess I best get looking for a similar spec and make hard drive on ebay. None of the firmware or electronics should have an affect on the drive data should it?

It could. I'm not familiar with the hardware-level activities drives undertake, but things like how far the heads should move and whatnot would make me want to use an identical drive to minimize risk.

That's an old one, though, so I don't know if you'll be able to.

needs top be an identical model - not similar. even firmware levels can make a difference.

Understood, I suppose I best have a good browse for the right one. I hope it's nothing more than the drive motor, that would solve most problems really