Alright, today I noticed a bunch of problems with my laptop. And decided that the smart thing to do was to reboot. Hm... not so sure if it was smart anymore as upon reboot, I got the infamous blue screen of death -- some general protection fault.

So, I used the boot disk and ran chkdsk to recover XP and information on the hard drive, and rebooted. Now, there are a bunch of errors (incorrect file images, corrupt files, etc.) and most problematic for me, my outlook.pst file now says 0 bytes.

Now I am running chkdsk using the boot disk again hoping that it will recover some more information.

But I don't think this is good enough. The question I have is, what tools are available for me to recover the hard drive? I can't live without my outlook file -- it has all my e-mails and my entire contact list -- both are golden information to me.

Unfortunately, I have no backups as I didn't get around to making it recently.

Any advice and suggestions are greatly appreciated. I'm panicking quite a bit and well... yeah. Thanks in advance!

While I can't offer any help I am curious as to how you are posting on FT right now?

Let me guess - nature's first wireless network - prayer

This happened to me a couple of years ago, and I was not able to recover anything myself. There are companies such as CBL who will do it for you if this occurs -- they got all of my data back, including my very large Outlook folders.

Simon

Luckily in my household, there are about four computers that are regularly used... So I'm using my desktop instead of my laptop...

But had this happened to me while abroad, I would be even more screwed.

CBL?

I assume these folks are expensive?

Simon's advice is good.

Before you do anything more, stop using that computer(!) - so you don't potentially overwrite your PST or other important files which are likely still living on your hard-drive but temporarily orphaned while they can't be found.

Next, I recommend you also go out and get a $99 copy of Symantec (or insert your favorite vendor here) UnErase software. You'd may as well look for a bundled Anti-Virus or Anti-SpyWare package since that could have been the root cause based on the symptoms you describe.

Try and boot from the CD of the software you buy so that you don't overwrite any more data during the boot process.

Lots of other good advice on the web for this situation.

Good luck YOWkid. Hope you get that data back! ^

This has happened to me as well. A couple of rules - do not use your computer for anything at the moment. Any new hard disk activity will potentially overwrite existing information. As far as recovery, there are a number of programs available for purchase or download, but I've found they require a fair bit of knowledge. If the stuff is really valuable-go for one of the companies.

Don't panic.
Total HD failures are thankfully quite rare events.

If you can boot into windows (even in safe mode), try to choose a safe recent system restore point to go back to.

MCM.

On the second time I ran chkdsk, I noticed I lost another 1GB of information. So i guess it's time to call the professionals. I don't trust myself enough to do this properly and there is too much valuable information that I can lose.

Anyone know of anybody in the Ottawa area?

I'm in YYZ, but PM me, we can arrage for you to ship me your system and I can do a recovery and reinstall for you.

I can't promise to get all your data recovered, but i'm sure I can get a good chunk of it.

I do this for a lot of my clients...

Abroad...like in Poland?? Why one would need a computer to get screwed?

*sigh* Speaking of which, did you hear the story about the guy who burned himself in a certain while using a laptop? He's suing apparently. I think it was Compaq, but not sure. Maybe it's one of those made-up stories...

lcohen, YGPM.

Perhaps it was a Dell

Michael Dell's son using daddy?