Asking for help guys plz

I save all my Blitz3d code to a second hard drive in my computer,and the B----ard has decided to die on me (I forgot to save backups).Is there any software you guys know about that will help me retrieve the stuff thats on it.Without sending it off to a professional retrieval company.Hope you can help otherwise i have just wasted 4 years of my life.

Heers hoping?

all the best Mark.

Depends how its died, really. If the file allocation table is corrupted, there is software that might be able to get stuff off it. If its a mechanical failure, its going to be expensive.

If the board on the drive dies, you can usually take it off and replace it with one from a similar drive.

Nothing worse when it happens... I plugged a 20v adaptor into a 12v harddrive power socket.. Frazzled the lot, and everything I lived and breathed regarding programming went for a burton.

After the initial dismay, then guttedness and moving to feeling like a right pillock for doing it... I got over it! :)

Yeah, I could of sent off to get the data retrieved, but my general thinking is I'm a better programmer than I was when I first started backing up the bits and bobs, so anything that was on there... If I wished... I could code off the bat anyway, and probably better.

Now... If you've lost top quality, erm, gentlemans art of the female variety, and it cost a bob or two, then dont be ashamed, send the HD to me and I'l forward it to the data retrieval people! :P

*Dabz digs out 4 gig flash drive, just in case*

Dabz

If your harddrive says clack clack, you can still restore the data. It costs about 1000€, but it's usually worth it. Professional companies do it, there should be at least one of those around each city.

1000 loo rolls... Bloody hell... Do they want the shirts of peoples backs too! ;)

Dabz

Spinrite might be able to get something off of it

Dabhand: the main reason for the high price is that it's pretty specialistic work. Depending on the failure it's either replace the controller board of the HD with an identical one, or might involve physically opening up the HD inside a clean room, take out the individual platters and re-assemble them inside a similar harddrive unit so you can use it's motor & read/write heads to get the information off.

Few places have the required materials, plus the required cleanroom to do the work in. :-?

The safest option is to bring the drive into your local computer centre as those guys do that stuff a lot.

Um... that greatly varies from shop to shop, because at quite a few of them they won't know a PC from a hole in the ground.

The problem with half-dead drives is that it's also really easy to make the problem worse and completely kill any hopes of a recovery. Before you let them work on a machine, try to make sure that they know what they're doing, instead of just 'being willing to poke it a bit and see what happens'...

aye some pillock might just format it

true some can be salvaged by swapping the pcb with a match, its just finding one, else its the more expencive clean room option
if it was an external then perhps the drive might be safe and its the enclosure thats borked, then again im probably wrong

back up back up and back up thats al i can say like a stable hand bolting the fence as the last horse dissapears over the horizon

most of my digital camera pics and wav files are on my old pc the 1TB drive, my external and my 160gb ipod
ok all are in the same room so not guarantied theft proof anyone knicking the box will no doubt want the external sat ontop
same goes for house fires

platypus was saved due to the claymation files being on a demo disc round his mates house
without that we might never have seen cletus clay (even if it did seem like duke nukem forever for a fair while) as anthony lost EVERYTHING not just code but was left with just the clothes on his back

usb sticks with keyfobs are quite common now and you can also back up to web either via normal ftp or SVN

Not if it won't spin.

gfk: true

NO! the drive is knackered.Well if it wasn't it is now,because out of frustration i smashed it to bits with a hammer.Such is life i suppose.

Brilliant

Lol! Couldn't have held too much important data then :o) Sorry for your loss though.