Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeanzb1
I am totally computer-illiterate, but this thread has got me thinking about my previous laptop that died three years ago. And I'm embarrassed to tell you that I never backed up a single thing -- DUMB. We were living in Florida at the time, so I took it to Best Buy's Geek Squad, paid them $100 to try to resurrect it, and they couldn't get it to even turn on. Then we took it to a local computer store for a second opinion, and got the same answer. They said the only answer would be to send it out to a dust-free place, pay at least $1,500, and then "maybe" they could get it going. So, instead, we put it in the closet and bought a new one, but I'm always HOPING that newer technology can get it going again because I have five years' worth of photos that I would love to get back. Does anyone have any suggestions at this point? THANK YOU!!!!  |
Just going by the suggestions you were given, it sounds like the disk crashed and is not functional. Retrieving data from a crashed disk is very expensive and there are no guarantees about what you can get back. Sometimes the returned files are generically named, not what they were originally named so figuring out what you get back can be very time consuming.
I had this happen once and did not have a complete backup. For thousands of dollars I decided to live without the couple weeks of files I lost.
The original problem on this thread did not involve a disk crash, something else caused the failure. In that case it is a matter of taking out the disk and hooking it up to a different system or as suggested to something like the Black Widow.
There are so many backup possibilities (local and network or cloud) and they are so cheap that there is no excuse not to back up. I have a weekly complete system backup to a USB drive and a continuous backup of my data files to another USB drive. Every time I change a data file it is backed up. If I am on the road, backup is paused. As soon as I dock at home, the files are backed up.