So, I'm pretty sure my hard drive bit it in the laptop today... it will not go past the BIOS screen, and running diagnostic tests from that point gave error codes that when Googled say that it's definitely a bad HDD.

Anyone have any recommendations on how to try to get data off of it without paying someone a shitload? I have some thesis stuff I'd like... I have most of it backed up, but I had been compiling a lot of it into spreadsheets lately and I haven't backed them up yet.

The only thing I have tried was running straight off of a boot CD (Linux) and mounting the HDD in there to be able to look around in it. The "Documents and Settings" folder (which should have led me to my documents) was EMPTY, so the one part of the drive I need may be totally corrupt. Also, the "Users" folder had nothing useful. Even if I just could locate a damn temp folder with older saves of the spreadsheets would work.

Any other ideas from anyone who has dealt with it?

Make sure you are looking at the Documents folder for your profile, do you have any other accounts on that computer? Maybe a built in administrator account you are looking in? C:\Documents and Settings \ username

The times I have done this I never saw an empty folder if it was corrupt. I would see the files and folders, just not able to access them. Same with getting into the root of the profile, I could see the different profiles just not able to open them.

Lately I have had much better luck using an adapter that plugs into your hard drive using the SATA or IDE connector and then has a USB on the other end. Plug that into a working laptop and it mounts like any other USB drive. Not sure why I have had better luck this way than using the Linux boot method. That adapter was like $20.

The only account I had was the main one (which is why I am perplexed). I changed the settings even to make sure it showed hidden folders in case something goofy changed its attributes.

My buddy has one of those adpaters, I just hadn't got to him yet.

When you boot up to LInux, does it mount your hard drive as one drive or multiple drives? I have had some be between 2 and 3 different drives when mounted that I had to search.

Just trying to throw out some ideas.

joe.hackett wrote: When you boot up to LInux, does it mount your hard drive as one drive or multiple drives? I have had some be between 2 and 3 different drives when mounted that I had to search.

Just trying to throw out some ideas.

I appreciate it.

It shows it as three partitions... one is about 4G and is the Dell Partition that comes with it from the factory, one is like 100M and is another Dell one I believe, the other is 88.5G and is the Windows Partition. I was obviously playing in the Windows one.

I took it to our tech guy here on campus, and the USB connector thing can't even recognize the Windows partition, only the Dell Recovery one.

It be FUCKED.

Coming soon to the Buy/Sell Forum: Dell Inspiron 6000 available for parts!

Doesn't sound good.

I have sent drives out and the cost is anywhere between $300 and $2,000 for what I had done.

Stick it in the freezer.

Seriously,
http://lifehacker.com/170133/how-to-revive-a-hard-drive

I saw the freezer thing before

Booting into linux and salvaging from there is the only experience I've had with dead drives.