i have a critical problem, need advice

Sean · 2011-02-23T09:43:51+00:00

Okay... Ilse had back to back weddings to shoot over the week-end, one on Saturday, one on Sunday (anyone guess where this is going?) Friday night she falls ill. Saturday she is away all day, 09H30 and gets back 22H00. She is in pretty bad shape but she managed to do the shoot, she needed to get into bed to try to recover a little for the wedding on Sunday. She downloads all the photos onto her laptop and in her state/haste does not back them up on her external ? (now you should know where this is going) She clears the cameras memory cards and goes to bed. Now after the second shoot she switches on the laptop and it starts making noises, then she starts getting messages "Boot device not found" "Hard disk (3FO)" etc etc, on subsequent start-ups, things like "Hard Disk does not exist" . It asks to run system diagnostics and to test the hard drive (Press F2), however nothing happens when she follows this. It sticks there, F2 does nothing, no other options, nothing else happens. I assume the Hard disc has crashed. The laptop is barely 3 months old, an HP Notebook i7 etc etc . The hard drive is 1 terrabyte. Is there anyway at all that data can be recovered from this thing if it has crashed (or whatever worst case scenario there is) Any company out there that can pull the drive apart and recover data that might be the first weddings photos? You can obviously imagine the fall-out if the client hears there are no wedding photos from the hired photographer. The laptop has a 5 year on-site warranty (although this will not have anything to do with data recovery, only hard drive replacement). I called the help-line this morning and I'm told the technician will come to us within 1 to 6 days. I tried all I could to speed this process up, but was unsuccessful. So I'll not be able to do anything it seems until this technician shows up. But when he does, and if he tells me the hard drive is terminal, what can I do with that hard drive once I have it in hand? Guys, advice is desperately needed. I have to be able to recover this data somehow. Anything I can try now that won't possibly damage the hard drive even further that would make data recovery later even more difficult?

Norman86

If the cards were used again, its unlikely that you will recover any of the photos unfortunately... maybe a few, depending of course how many were taken afterwards,but i doubt it unfortunately!
You can still try data recovery apps yourself though...

PC Inspector file recovery
Undelete my files

those are two free programs (the last time i checked) that can help with recovery!

Good luck and let us know!

Sean

Okay, just some feedback. Most of the data was recovered, more importantly the wedding photos. The courier just dropped off the hard drive and we've checked it, it's all there.
Thanks guys for the advice given, and I can add my voice to those who recommended Tecleo Data Recovery Lab. Received good service from them.

Warren

Sean wrote
Okay, just some feedback. Most of the data was recovered, more importantly the wedding photos. The courier just dropped off the hard drive and we've checked it, it's all there.
Thanks guys for the advice given, and I can add my voice to those who recommended Tecleo Data Recovery Lab. Received good service from them.
[/quote

Nice one!

Sure your customer will be ecstatic about this! ?

Sean

Warren wrote Nice one!

Sure your customer will be ecstatic about this! ?

Well, we did not let the customer know of the problem. I just did not see the point of worrying them as well. If things had turned out badly, the fall-out would have been the same, regardless.

Warren

Sean wrote
Well, we did not let the customer know of the problem. I just did not see the point of worrying them as well. If things had turned out badly, the fall-out would have been the same, regardless.

Yeah good thinking. I just imagined they would have been looking for their stuff upon returning from their honeymoon...

Sean

Warren wrote Yeah good thinking. I just imagined they would have been looking for their stuff upon returning from their honeymoon...

Ah okay, I see what you mean. Ordinarily, yes, but with Ilse's workload at the moment, they knew going in that there would be a substantial wait for the photos, which turned out a good thing in this case. Ilse's going to have to put some serious time into the editing this weekend to make the deadline though.

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