Although it isn't helpful for Gary, this situation is a reminder and warning for all of us. If you have valuable information or data on your computer - BACK IT UP! Nowadays, you can copy your music, photos, documents onto USB drives - for around $20 or less or you can get a huge hard drive for under $100 and that could back up almost everything. Compare those dollar amounts to the numbers that are bandied about: $1500, $1700 to retrieve your old drive data or even the low figure of $200 to maybe reclaim a single document. I've heard members say that they didn't have anything worthwhile to bother backing up...only vacation photos and music. In the case of photos, they could never be replaced! Letters and written documents can often be recreated, but photos? Never! What a super insurance plan an extra hard drive is! But like insurance, buying it - even 1 second after a disaster - nets you nothing! And remember, once you back up your valuable data, verify that it is there and retrievable. Maybe store it away from your computer in case of fire, flood or theft. We've had posts by a member who went to their backup drive after a catastrophe, only to find that there wasn't anything there. In Gary's case, it is doubly ironic because he was indeed trying to back up his data when disaster struck. Sorry that it happened. Could Disk Warrior possibly help in this case? Barry On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 4:37 PM, Gary Vanniere <recpros@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > ....recovery just as I was about to backup my data with a cloud I have a > total hard drive failure. > > It seems that the arm has either been "disarmed" or not reading the > disk...any recovery experts in the London area that won't cost $1,700 like > the service in Toronto??? > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Barry Takayesu Prestige Print & Graphics (519) 631-8800 10592 Wellington Rd barry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx St.Thomas, ON N5P 3T1