RE: Help A Friend In Need

I wish him the best. I wonder if his data can be recovered. I don't know how important the research paper is, but sometimes recovery is possible. Also, if he really trusts the shop he took it too, great. Otherwise, get a second opinion.

I am more of a software person, but, about a decade ago, I was restoring an old Dell for an acquaintance. I was not, at the time, aware that there was a recovery partition. I therefore, in formatting the drive, removed the partition. Reading about it, I understood my error, but was not sure how to back out from the mistake.

I phoned Dell support. They assured me that I had completely messed up and there was no hope. Fortunately, I had more experience and training than they did. That's not arrogance. That is just true. So, I thought about it more and consulted Google. I found someone on the other side of the planet who had had a similar issue. The fix was simple, but involved multiple steps. I was able to re-establish the partition, and, once I did, the recovery data was still intact, which I has suspected because I had not deleted it.

This is why I say to get a second opinion. The phone support staff, in my case, while well meaning, were completely wrong. Had I listened to them, my acquaintance would have had to purchase a new copy of Windows and he would have lost all his data. Lucky for him, I have a rebellious streak.

Nevertheless, in this case, maybe it really is toast. Or maybe there is a way to remove the hard drive, get it in an enclosure (I am not positive how this would work for a laptop hard drive), and read it.

Best of luck either way!

!PIZZA