[Max Taxable]

Originally Posted by K4GAP

After doing a bunch of research online, I'm junking the possibility of any recovery. Live and learn. Thanks for the suggestions and ideas.

I had the same thing happen to me early last week, where my HD was basically just a humming hot plate inside the case. Giving off alot of heat, but no other action. And no longer even detected by the system.

Most everything though, I did have backed up. BUT, there was a major silver lining you should look into. It's a new day for drives.

Long story short, I took my PC tower to a computer repair shop owner friend of mine, and saw on his counter something I had been reading about but had forgotten - Solid State Hard Drives.

Sandisk 120GB SSHD - 60 bucks. I popped for it, had him install Windows XP Pro on it, and ain't looking back at all. (I will NEVER give up my XP Pro - they will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.)

Quick review of the SSHD - wonderful. I have never seen a computer boot up this fast. It boots up completely and is ready to work, faster even than my monitors. But then after the bootup, it also operates greasy fast. Everything happens NOW with it... Everything runs blazingly fast, every program without exception. Even processor intensive ones like video editing and audio production, (Samplitude) run faster now.

Ya bring up Firefox? POP - it's there immediately with all tabs already loaded and ready to go in a eyeblink. How about Windows Media Player? BAM - there in less than a second with all your media already populated.

Because, the computer now doesn't have to "hunt" through the hard drive to find all the files it needs. I was able to back up my files and folders from the server I save everything on, in just a few minutes and we're talking ALOT of data.

There's no heat generated by this and it is immune to shock or vibration - so you don't even have to mount it, in your tower. (I did though, anyway) It's also of course, completely silent.

My only regret is I should have shopped online and got the bigger drive - they make these with capacity up to 2TB now - that's Terabytes.... I WILL do that, when my other HD takes a powder. It's a Western Digital 1TB drive that's only a couple of years old at this point. The one that locked up was about 8 years old.

So, take heart when your HD crashes - and yes eventually it will - and get yourself a SSHD to replace it. You'll be glad you did. Say goodbye to 7,200 RPM spinning platters - they're SO 20th Century...