jamieslittleracer

ok.. so ill start at the beginning...

on saturday night my comptuer crashes... and wont do anything, so i take it to a computer shop, they say its pretty much had it, check the hard drive, say i cant get stuff unless i take it to a specialist (im still working on this bit)...

...anyway... this means that ive lost 2 huge essays that count towards a large part of my degree.... and they took a ridiculous amount of hours... these essays were due in yesterday. so im pretty much devistated, but think the ok speak to uni they will give me an extension...

drive all the way up to birmingham yesterday, speak to my tutor, the course leader, the module leader... basically there is a significant possiblity these essays will get 0 as in the guidelines of mitigating circumstances it seems unless the whole of the uni computer network fails, the fact my computer crashed is only seen as a 'minor incident' no nothing was backed up, big lesson learnt.

anyway. so i now find out i have to rewrite these essays, with no lap top, no references and no guidance. so then i have to take the week off my placement as a physio so all my patients have to be cancelled as i have to get them done in 7 days...

....soooo have to drive all the way back to kent to use this home computer, which has decided it too wants to spontaneously swich off at incovenient times. so im driving along the m40, and my orange warning light comes on, so i pull over, switch the engine off, switch it back on, and it goes off but it idles at 500 and lots of almost stalling... so i switch it off again, switch it back on and it wont turn over. so i call my breakdown please...

bearing in mind its 0 degrees outside, its dark, im a 20 year old girl by myself in a little car...

they tell me 2 hours!!! im less than an hour from london and birmingham, 20 mins from oxford. so i ring up my insurance, the breakdown people etc.. and they say thats the best they can do but tell me to get out the car. although there is nowhere to go as the other side of the hard shoulder is a really steep bank then a ditch and its dark. so i have to stand by my car with huge lorries whizzing past in the dark and freezing cold for 2 hours... then as its so long my battery dies so my hazard lights dont work on my black car...

anyway now im home and praying that i dont have to spend a fortune on getting my car fixed or a new laptop

not a happy bunny...

katie xx

Mr S1

iTrader: (2)

CossieRich

iTrader: (1)

Not a good time for you is it. Feel for you having lost all your work. tell the uni that a computer crash may be a minor incident but when it turns out your hard disk is corrupt and work cant be retreived that is a MAJOR incident. twats

Graceland

before you commit your hard drive to formatting, take it out of the laptop, and put it in a desktop pc a a slave unit - you will have to buy a 3.5" to 2.5" cable adaptor to do this.

boot up the desktop pc, and it will be able to see the harddrive, go into the hard drive, and pull out the information you need, and save it to a cd or other removeable media

its a long shot, but 9 times out of 10, it works, had to do this a few times for my brother when his pc has died with all his uni work on

jamieslittleracer

hey guys.. thanks for the advice, the harddrive is definitely corrupt, they tried what u jsut said graceland...

just rang dell, silly scottish woman just kept repeating herself, each time more slowly as if i was stupid, basically saying theres bugger all they can do as my warrenty has expired...

basically, i can try and retrieve some data, but i need a new hard drive... which are Ł180 on the dell website... i know this is cheeky but do u think if i rang up dell and pretened i was my sister and it was her computer, which is the same but still under warrenty and they carry out the same test and it comes up with the same error code, when i do it then is there any way of them telling its not her computer and do u think i can get a new hard drive under her warrenty??

katie xx

silky16v

iTrader: (1)

failing that use a linux based computer or a bootable linux O/S CD that how i recovery peeps work

If u get really stuck send me a pm and i'll try give u some advice to what 2 do

silky16v

iTrader: (1)

can i ask who said HDD was corrupt? if it dell they talk aload of bollox as for there prices

u won't be able to cheat them outta warranty cause they record the numbers on the hard drive and will probs require u send it to them, but u can always give it ago

jamieslittleracer

basically, pc world and dell both said its corrupt. they both did the check where u press f12 and then check and it straigth away brings up error and starts beeping at u and flashing fail... and when u take the hard drive out u can hear that something is lose...

at the end of the day if its the hard drive then at least that is only Ł180 gone not a new laptop.. just hope the car is cheap!!

Graceland

PC world technicians aint worth a toss

do it yourself and you will find that its the boot sector that is corrupt, but the rest of the data is still there and recoverable easily

Physio

That aint good Katie
Hope you get everything sorted & as always if you need help with anything just call

silky16v

iTrader: (1)

Gracey know the dance

And a new hard drive ain't Ł180 i could supply u 1 for around Ł75 posted brand new

Phil

iTrader: (1)

Take it to the police and say you think there is some child porn on there, they will recover the data in a matter of minutes

Failing that, try local computer shops and ask about recovery specialists, it may cost a bit but I guess your degree is worth it! They may have to remove the plates from the drive and rebuild them into a new unit if all else fails!

When I was at uni before every coursework/project they used to remind us constantly time and time agian that even if your completer completely melted and blew up we would only be given 24 hours of mitigating circumstances as thats how often we should back our work up!

User 32922

you sure you they could not see the drive once it was attached to a desktop PC?

their is a lot of software out there to retrieve corrupt/deleted data

eg Badcopy Pro

Does the drive make "clonking noises"? what screen did you get when you turned it on?

Paul

St3V3_C

I'm sure it will all work itself out in the end

Is the car OK now?

Redkop

Next time you do any coursework or important essay Katie, save it straight to a CD-RW or even a floppy disk.

St3V3_C

LOL, and would you mind shutting that stable door too...

Redkop

The thing is - I've been in Katies situ before and lost loads of stuff.

RichardPON

I feel sorry for you.

I lost over 3000 words of my final dissertation at university when the whole system crashed. In my anger, I swung the door open to go outside, smashed the glass in the door, and was promptly billed Ł140 for it to be fixed

St3V3_C

Yea, I think we probably all have And I still don't make proper, regular, backups either

jamieslittleracer

i know, and im kicking myself now, about to email my whole physio year and warn them as we all assumed the uni would understand and say u have an extension, but they are marking me as a 0 for failing to hand them in and then i have to go through a mitigation in may/june, but have to rewrite these essays now..

in answer to the questions...

the harddrive makes a very distinct rattling noise as if something is loose, and its been confirmed by dell and the other pc world guy that its a mechanical fault...

ranj as really kindly said i can drop it off to him to see if he can get anything which is so nice...

now i need to buy a new hard drive, which u say isnt as much as on the dell website, with hard drives, do they need to be specific, or are they the same size for laptops? like usbs if u see what i mean.

no news about the car, ive been told it may be to do with the air..... something something... valve. but have to wait till 4 for them to look at it so dont think its going anywhere for a few days!!

thanks for all the advice guys katie x