Thanks for all the responses people. Useful information and a couple that really cracked me up (the gynaecologist one and the cyclotron one - my colleagues at work thought I had finally lost it)
I guess my options are:
return it to the manufacturer and hope that someone won’t go through my stuff (ok, there probably are a few risque pics in there but a lot of other stuff like letters to family and partners, passwords…)
1a) Degauss it first then do (1)
open the thing up (thereby voiding the warranty), and try to get “just one more boot” out of it to copy off the data.
I’m tending toward (1a) at the moment - I guess it comes down to, what is more valuable to me? The data on this drive, or the drive itself?
Re backups - see from my OP:
>Of course, I honestly cross my heart was going to back up >the data SOME day…let this be a lesson to others.
If you believe that, I have some ocean-front real estate in Arizona to sell you. I reckon that 90% of users never do a backup until something like this happens - I know I’m in that category.
I’m going to second the suggestions that you try to either boot from another drive, or a floppy first, before you give up the goat totally. I’ve had drive trouble in the past where I booted from floppy, and was able to still use the DOS prompt to access the hard drive. I was able to back up key files, and actualy use the DOS drivers for my CD drive to re-install the OS. While you’re problem sounds a bit more seriouse, I’d give it a shot before you send it in, or whipe it.
A few things from someone who has been repairing computers since before the PC came out…
[list=1]
[li]About the Gynacologist comment:Bullshit…If things are slow, and the tech is bored…well, one place I worked at used to keep a machine set up with a laplink cable just for the purpose of copying “intersting” stuff we found on computers that came in.[/li][li]What will happen to the hard drive, is it will be eventually sent overseas somewhere to be repaired by the original manufacturer. We used to buy reconditioned drives all the time, so they do repair them. It wont be repaired by the local shop, and more than likley the person repairing it will not even speak english, and it will then be wiped and re-low level formated. I wouldn’t sweat your data being read by anyone since it is a hardware problem with the drive, the local techs wont be able to read it.[/li][li]contrary to popular belief, opening a hard drive will not neccesarily ruin it. Sure a clean room is a good thing, but I used to buy broken hard drive, repair them, and then re-sell them at a local eletronics flea market(this was back in the 10 mb hard drive days, not much chance of fixing one now). You want to do it in a reasonably clean enviroment, but if its broken already…any port in a storm. This will, of course, void any warranty.[/li]De-gaussing a hard drive will void the warranty and make it un-repairable. I work for a defense contractor. We have to degauss hard drives that fail in certain deptments, so even if the drive is brand new, we get no warranty service on the old drive. This is NOT because of the grey code, that can be put back on the factory(wiping out the grey code will kill it for the home user, not for the factory). Low-level formatting some IDE drive will do this, unless done with the right software. I used to have software that would re-write the grey code on an IDE drive that had this problem, and I saved a few of them. But it will often magnatize the heads inside the drive. I once worked on a drive that this had been done to, and heads were actually stuck to the platter from the magnatisim so hard, the drive would not even spin up. That was one I couldnt fix.
A few things from someone who has been repairing computers since before the PC came out…
[list=1]
[li]About the Gynacologist comment:Bullshit…If things are slow, and the tech is bored…well, one place I worked at used to keep a machine set up with a laplink cable just for the purpose of copying “intersting” stuff we found on computers that came in.[/li][li]What will happen to the hard drive, is it will be eventually sent overseas somewhere to be repaired by the original manufacturer. We used to buy reconditioned drives all the time, so they do repair them. It wont be repaired by the local shop, and more than likley the person repairing it will not even speak english, and it will then be wiped and re-low level formated. I wouldn’t sweat your data being read by anyone since it is a hardware problem with the drive, the local techs wont be able to read it.[/li][li]contrary to popular belief, opening a hard drive will not neccesarily ruin it. Sure a clean room is a good thing, but I used to buy broken hard drive, repair them, and then re-sell them at a local eletronics flea market(this was back in the 10 mb hard drive days, not much chance of fixing one now). You want to do it in a reasonably clean enviroment, but if its broken already…any port in a storm. This will, of course, void any warranty.[/li]De-gaussing a hard drive will void the warranty and make it un-repairable. I work for a defense contractor. We have to degauss hard drives that fail in certain deptments, so even if the drive is brand new, we get no warranty service on the old drive. This is NOT because of the grey code, that can be put back on the factory(wiping out the grey code will kill it for the home user, not for the factory). Low-level formatting some IDE drive will do this, unless done with the right software. I used to have software that would re-write the grey code on an IDE drive that had this problem, and I saved a few of them. But it will often magnatize the heads inside the drive. I once worked on a drive that this had been done to, and heads were actually stuck to the platter from the magnatisim so hard, the drive would not even spin up. That was one I couldnt fix.
We owned a computer sales business for a while, and hired a technician to do the repairs. He’d been working in computer repairs for a number of years before he came to us, and we thought like you - seen it all before. But no - every chance he got, he’d be surfing through customer’s machines, snooping through the contents of their hard drives. He’d take copies of anything that interested him. We tried to break him of the habit - unprofessional, and so very wrong! - but he’d sneak in and do it when our backs were turned. When we sold the business, he was still up to his old tricks, and from what I’ve heard, his new employer hasn’t broken him of the habit.
He wasn’t an isolated case. A friend’s friend worked at another local computer shops as the sole technician, and he used to raid every machine that came through for any software (or anything else) he wanted. He would promise his friends that he would track down programs for them, through the machines that came in for repairs (that’s how I got my copy of Blockout).
You may think that a tchnician has better things to do, and has seen it all before, but let me tell you, your computer guy may be more interested in snooping through your files than you’d credit. However, I suspect your Quicken files don’t contain the kind of thrills he’s looking for…
If you can get the drive to spin up again, a program like drive2drive will not only save your data, but in the best circumstances make the new drive immediately useable without the need to install programs or an operating system. I recently used this handy little program and it saved me dozens of hours of recovering, installing, etc.
Like DarrenS, my replacement drive was under warranty and I had to eventually return the original. I used a program to overwrite it with ‘zeros’ because I didn’t like the idea of curious technicians browsing my MP3s, family photos [along with modest number blush of non-family photos], and personal documents. I’m know my SS#, credit card #, and other info was written on the drive. Would this step enough to make the drive unreadable?
but a lot of other stuff like letters to family and partners, passwords…)