Hi there,
New here, not extremely tech savvy, but also not an idiot. Here is a short summary of what is happening: I have an Asus laptop, I bought it about 3-4 years ago and it got through my last year of college plus a few more years afterward. It holds important files including only copies of original writings and some photos.
A few weeks ago, my laptop was attempting over and over again to update itself to Windows 10. It would go through a whole process (updating and installing, took a very long time) and after each attempt it would say that it failed. Each time it did this, my computer would start to freeze more and run slowly. I don't use my laptop very often anymore at all, since I graduated college I use it sparingly. After a while, it just stopped booting and started coming up with an automatic repair screen. After doing some research, I realized the issue was my hard drive.
At this point, I tried a few different ways to get the files off my hard drive and possibly reformat it and reinstall it in my laptop. I tried plugging in an external hard drive for the automatic repair, but it didn't seem to recognize or be able to access it. I tried removing the hard drive and putting it into another PC to transfer the files that way, but it wouldn't open. I tried using the cords to plug the hard drive directly into another PC, and it wouldn't open that way either.
After all of this, I decided to take it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy to see if they could help. After about 30-45 minutes of the associate at Best Buy trying to sell me a membership for $349.99, I finally got my laptop checked in and I paid $100. After a few days, they called me and said that they basically did the same exact thing that I did, plugged the hard drive into several different PC's and found that they couldn't open it. I essentially paid them $100 to do what I had already done. They told me my hard drive was failing, which is something I had already known. They said that they could send it out to a facility where they would take the hard drive apart and try to recover the files this way, but that this would cost anywhere from $250-over $1,000. I said no, and I will be picking the hard drive up today.
My question is: is there a way I can take the hard drive apart and recover the files myself? Or is there a better way to recover files from a failing hard drive? Any advice would be helpful.
New here, not extremely tech savvy, but also not an idiot. Here is a short summary of what is happening: I have an Asus laptop, I bought it about 3-4 years ago and it got through my last year of college plus a few more years afterward. It holds important files including only copies of original writings and some photos.
A few weeks ago, my laptop was attempting over and over again to update itself to Windows 10. It would go through a whole process (updating and installing, took a very long time) and after each attempt it would say that it failed. Each time it did this, my computer would start to freeze more and run slowly. I don't use my laptop very often anymore at all, since I graduated college I use it sparingly. After a while, it just stopped booting and started coming up with an automatic repair screen. After doing some research, I realized the issue was my hard drive.
At this point, I tried a few different ways to get the files off my hard drive and possibly reformat it and reinstall it in my laptop. I tried plugging in an external hard drive for the automatic repair, but it didn't seem to recognize or be able to access it. I tried removing the hard drive and putting it into another PC to transfer the files that way, but it wouldn't open. I tried using the cords to plug the hard drive directly into another PC, and it wouldn't open that way either.
After all of this, I decided to take it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy to see if they could help. After about 30-45 minutes of the associate at Best Buy trying to sell me a membership for $349.99, I finally got my laptop checked in and I paid $100. After a few days, they called me and said that they basically did the same exact thing that I did, plugged the hard drive into several different PC's and found that they couldn't open it. I essentially paid them $100 to do what I had already done. They told me my hard drive was failing, which is something I had already known. They said that they could send it out to a facility where they would take the hard drive apart and try to recover the files this way, but that this would cost anywhere from $250-over $1,000. I said no, and I will be picking the hard drive up today.
My question is: is there a way I can take the hard drive apart and recover the files myself? Or is there a better way to recover files from a failing hard drive? Any advice would be helpful.