[megamind5005]

Ok, am slightly ... no very worried about my 10-12 GB of files on my 80GB hard drive which has been recently starting to sound like a helicopter.
The noise has been going on for quite a bit now but the comp was working so i ignored and waited (dont ask why #shoots self#) even tho it crashed often, but i jst thought that much was expected (it's been a bit annoying for a while now). then when i turned it on yesterday, the BIOS came up with the message "SMART Hard disk failure for this drive [insert garble] is imminent. Backup immediately" or something to that effect so i freaked out and havent touched it since.
I went and asked a couple of shops what they could do, one of them said they could salvage my files or even take ghost images of it and then put them on either DVD's or another hard drive and this would cost somewhere between £30-£60 (UK). another one was a bit more posh and with service and new win XP installation and blah blah would cost me £90+. now, i dont have that much money, so is there i can Do It mYself? my friend sed i could take my drive to his and stick a new one (which i will buy) into his machine and hopefully it'll back it up without dying.
Now, my questions are:
1. Shud i do it myself or leave it to "experts" so i can also them blame them if they screw it up? and how likely are they to screw it up?
2. How bad is my situation? shud i turn the computer on? how volatile is it? i cud just invest in a DVD-writer and use my current windows installation to back stuff up on my own ... is that advisable?
3. ANY OTHER SUGGESTION, PLEASE? i have 3 years' worth of college and school projects AND my music in danger here! :sayno:
4. for a new hdd, if i get one, what things shud i consider in terms of make and anything else?

phew. ok there it is. thnx guys

 

[Terrister]

It is bad you waited this long to back up your data. By the time you get the message you got, it has gone from bad to worse. I would have the computer shop fix this for you. This is your best choice for saving your data. If this is the primary hard drive, you will have to buy another one. If they can copy your old drive to the new one, you will not have to reinstall Windows or your programs.

 

[megamind5005]

So you're saying I shudnt even try to do anything with it e.g. like my DVD suggestion? would it get worse if i put it into my friend's computer as a slave so i can copy from it?

 

[Barry_R]

It depends on how much you value the data on the drive. If during the copy process the drive fails completely you may lose more or all of the data. If you go the professional recovery route you stand the best chance of recovering all or most of it.

 

[megamind5005]

right, ok thanks for that guys.
I think what i'll do is probably get the shop to burn images of my faulty drive to DVD's so i can put them on a new drive, how does that sound to u?

now going a bit off topic here, but i'm looking to buy a new HDD and i wanna get a new mobo at the same time too. now when a HDD is UDMA 133 but the mobo specs doesnt specifically mention UDMA133 (only SATA, UDMA 100/66) will the drive still work (at 100 or 133)? (specifically i'm talking about the Abit AI7 uGuru) and if not, shud i bother looking for a UDMA133 mobo or jst get a normal 100 HDD? or even SATA