hbgal

This appears to be my model. I have the manual downloaded to that machine.

I am pretty much on my own when it comes to computer stuff. My husband knows a whole lot less than I do. Ufortunately my computer savy son lives 400+ miles away!

So are you suggesting adding the bad drive as a second drive in order to attempt recovery? To access a 2nd drive would I do that the same way as I access my portable USB drive, etc. via Windows Explorer? Would doing this essentially be the same process that Best Buy would use to try to recover data? In other words, if I can install this as a 2nd or slave drive, would I have the same chance of recovery as Best Buy in-store service? They told me if they cannot get the data, they can send it out for data recovery but that is much more expensive. I have the critical data already on my portable drive but there are some things that I will have to recreate which will take time but not impossible.

Thanks for your advise. I need to figure out what I am going to do this weekend before the Dell tech comes here on Monday.