HD fail PC will not boot with HD in?

[ssmacc]

A friend of mine has had a hard drive fail, when I put the hard drive in another machine the PC will not boot, so I guess it’s a serious error. However, there are photos that my friend would really like to get back (it’s a girl and tears have been shed…) is there somewhere I can send the hard drive to get looked at or is there anything else I can try?

Any advice appreciated.

 

[rpstewart]

How far through the boot is the other PC getting? Are you sure it's not just a case of the boot priority being wrong?

There's always the option of putting the drive into an external caddy since you can connect the suspect drive after the system has booted. Failing that then you're looking at commercial data recovery companies but with that comes a hefty bill, certainly three figures and possibly four.

This is why backups are important!

 

[ssmacc]

Could not agree more on the back up point! Apparently the machine doesn’t power up when the hard drive is connected…although a friend tried the faulty hard drive when I wasn’t there, I’ll try the external option as you say its post boot.

Cheers