People out there that have owned computers at least 3 or 4 of them will have been horrified when the computers would no longer turn on or did turn on but couldn't get through the initial boot up or logon screens the first thing that goes through their head "what about the family pics" or " that's got 3 years of study notes" how do I retrieve my lost data.
Now those working in the industry will get from time to time a homer job (family, friends, seldom heard from friends, usually done for love not money) required to achieve the task of data retrieval from a "dead puter".
My workaround/fix for this was to get an empty external HDD case IDE or SATA and insert a HDD in to the casing connect it up plug into the USB we all love and know right click copy to destination. IT geeks usually have a broken external drive lying around available and with a screwdriver hey presto there is your data and remember broken external drives are a factor in the industry full of habitual copyright theft. Some out there will know what I mean.
I was surfing www.trademe.co.nz the other day and found listed a hot (swappable with out a reboot or reconnect via USB port) dock accommodating SATA and IDE HDDs plus of course being a mini USB 1 and 2 hub along with all the memory card slots as well for $30. Cool I thought I clicked buy now and paid immediate it went to tender to other watchers 20mins later, which worried me as I'd just forked out $30NZD for my new dock and wanted it yesterday. It was pointed out by a friend later who is better dated on trademe than me explained they have a warehouse full and they are simply posting yours anyway but trying to sell another without more trademe fees, oh I thought as the penny dropped.
Ok so 3 days later it showed up in the snail mail it had come via an Asian outfit all good I thought until I could not get the IDE port to detect any IDE HDD. I spent an afternoon trying their unheard of apps supplied on CD with dock. It just didn't work so disgruntled I emailed the company a complaint you know what 2 days later another showed via snail mail and with a self addressed courier envelope to return the first one.
Anyway I plugged the second one in and IDE detected HDD as it should have been was awesome a good $30 spent as its proved its self worthwhile since. Data recovery was a always an expensive service and still is but its great to see stuff like this more and more available cheaper and cheaper.
