<div>On Fri, Nov 12, 2010 at 1:30 PM, Thomas Rieff <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:trieff@greencaremankato.com">trieff@greencaremankato.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>TCLUG,<br>Been a while since I have had hard drive failures.<br>
This is on a windows xp machine in our office.<br>Blue Screen Of Death with a Unmountable Boot Drive error.<br></div>
<div>Hopefully, yes.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>
<div>Is the drive spinning?</div>
<div>Did a cable get knocked loose?</div>
<div>Any funny sounds (excessive clicking or strange new spinning noises)?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Step 1:</div>
<div>Shut down and unplug</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Step 2:</div>
<div>Take drive out and give it a light (light!) smack on the table</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Step 3:</div>
<div>Reassemble, check those cables, any change?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Step 4 (uh oh, you got this far)</div>
<div>Throw the drive in a freezer bag, give it a few hours</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Step 5:</div>
<div>QUICKLY re-assemble while drive is still cold, any change?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Step 6 (you have backups, right??)</div>
<div>Grab a USB adapter and attach the drive to another machine. Since you mentioned a non-linux OS, I recommend using a PC that is also non-linux and grab a copy of On-track easyrecovery (free to download, only have to pay if you actually have something to recover). Scan and see if anything is even present. ~$150 or so if you're lucky enough to find something (contact me off list if you're here, I have some alternative tools that sometimes work if you don't want to pay, but they're not nearly as good as Ontrack).</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Step 7 (no backups? Oh....)</div>
<div>Remove credit card from wallet. Make sure you have a good $K or two on there. Ontrack is very good, their price tag says so.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Hopefully you get no further than step 5, but hard drives can be nasty buggers when they go bad. Best of luck!</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Brian</div></div>