Data rescue HELP! & ADVICE

[safetynut]

Can an experts here help me please.

I'm running a PC with windows 7 but i understand the operating system has failed and will not boot into windows and I have some very important data on the machine which i need.[FONT=&quot]
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Will I be able to rescue the data?
Is there a chance that the data rescue will fail?[/FONT]
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What cost would i expect to pay for a data rescue service.

any help greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance.[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot]

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[Posilan]

What error do you get at boot? Have you tried putting a Windows 7 CD/Using a recovery partition and running startup repair?

Steve

 

[safetynut]

when i turn the PC on the alert is "windows system cannot be found" also at times the VAIO logo appears but neither go any further than that..

 

[Posilan]

Sounds like OS system file corruption rather than hard drive failure (if it wasn't finding the hard drive, the BIOS would not refer to "windows" in the error message).

Get a Windows 7 CD and boot to that and choose "startup repair" - that should hopefully sort it out for you.

Steve

 

[francsutherland]

If that doesn't work, you could take out the hard drive and connect it via a cradle and USB to another computer and get at your files that way. I have done this in the past with a VAIO that went wrong.

 

[Scalloway]

Make sure you have a backup in future.

 

[smo]

Firstly do as little as possible to prevent (potential) further damage to your data.

If it says no OS can be found, boot the laptop and see if the drive is recognised in the BIOS, this will help to determine how bad the problem is.

If the drive is visible then a windows repair might work, the machine can do this on its own if you can get it to boot.

If you have no joy, or the drive is not seen in the bios then turn the machine off and leave it off. DO NOT keep turning it on and off, and trying to boot.

I had an almost identical problem with my VAIO recently, in the end I sent the drive to Xytron data recovery services in herefordshire, they did a free assesment on my drive and then quoted me to recover the data. I paid £700 all in including a replacement drive for the recovery but mine was more complex as the whole lot had AES-256 bit encryption on the entire drive which has become damaged during the crash. Typical recovery from them is £350-400 for a simple thing like this. I have no affiliation to them, I googled and found them when I had problems and spoke to them about it, they are knowledgable and helpful so they got my business and I'm incredibly happy with the service, speed and cost!

I would wholly recommend that you dont mess with it too much, the more you play the more damage can be done and certainly dont go the route of home recovery software and that malarky, you could do irreversable damage to your data.

Good luck!