I have a Dell Dimension 4700 that is less than a year old. Last week I got the error "Unmountable Boot Volume" and after calling Dell tech support I was told my hard drive was dead.

A Dell tech came and put a new hard drive in my computer Monday and left the old hard drive with me so I could attempt some kind of data recovery (I have limited time to keep the old hard drive before I have to send it to Dell, but could ask for an extension if needed).

Some questions (please note I'm very much a novice):

1) What exactly are my options? A Dell tech suggested places that do data recovery such as; "Drive Savers" (drivesavers.com) or Best Buy ($149 unlimited recovery). Are there any other options for recovery (again I'm a novice)?

2) The hard drive I want to recover files from is 160 GB. I'm not sure how much of that I want to recover. If I give the hard drive to a data recovery place, how will I be able to tell them which files I want to recover? Do I have to remember everything I want them to look for and recover or will they somehow be able to provide me with a list of data that can be recovered?


Thank you in advance for any help and advice you can offer!
Colin

If you give the drive to a recovery place, they will give you CDs or something of all files they could recover. So you don't need to worry about knowing what to recover. Another place to look at is ontrack.com.

I have recovered a lot of information from dead hard drives using RecoverSoft's Data Rescue PC software, they have a free download that you can use to see if it can recover your files, if ti can see the files it will tell you if they are recoverable or not. If they are then pay for it online and they will email you a registration key to use.

Keep in mind you need a hard drive that is partitioned as FAT32 to restore the files to, I would suggest unplugging your current working hard drive before attempting the restore so you don't accidentally have the software fromat the drive as FAT32.

If you are not at all competent with this type of hardware changing I would suggest you have someone that knows what they are doing do it for you.

http://www.recoversoft.com/data_rescue_pc_info.htm is info and free download link

On the other if you happen to live in the vicinity of Sydney Australia I can do the recovery for $80.00, no charge if I can't recover your files.

I just fixed a friends PC that had the same error. I placed the dell xp install disk in the drive booted from the cd and ran through the repair built into the xp installation disks. I then was able to log onto the PC. If this does not work I would set the hard drive as a slave on another PC and see if I could get my data if not run as slave and use bad copy pro to retrieve the data. I have used this program many times and has never let me down. Hope this helps you out.