Laptop HD repair/recovery question

[Ben Scott]

On Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 10:38 AM, Ed lawson <elawson at grizzy.com> wrote:
> Running a live Linux CD results in a indication the HD is dead...
> maybe hosed partition table.

  Be warned that if the hardware is faulty, simply powering it up may
be doing additional damage.  Unfortunately, making the determination
as to "hardware vs software" is often itself difficult.

  Depending on value of the data, you may want to just go right to a
first tier data-recovery service.  These are the places that have a
clean room to open the drive up, and equipment to read the data off
the platters independent of the drive electronics.  On the down side,
cost for a recovery will often be > $1000.  I've used CBL Data
Recovery (http://www.cbltech.com/) in the past with good results.
They offer a free quote, and you don't pay if they don't get data.
Mail-in service.

  Good luck!

-- Ben