So i had been experiancing HD errors for a few months now but being quite broke; i did nothing about it. I managed to get a good laptop for cheap and have been running off it mostly.
Today it finally crapped out.
I had some stuff, mostly garbage; but also about 3 months of work related to my site in my HD and now I must get it out. So how do i go about doing this? Its actually pretty simple.
First you must have a program called LapLink (for dos), and a system disk for your machine to boot from. Also a parallel or serial cable.
Take the afflicted HD out of your machine. Place it in a corrugated cardboard box on top of a small heat source (top of fridge, screen...) for a few hours with a piece of paper towel as a cover. This is to removed any possible humidity in the device.
Next, take that HD and put it in a sealable plastic bag, sucking -ALL- the air out. (vac-wrap is best) Now take that and wrap it in plastic wrap until it is VERY well sealed. Place that in another baggie.
Now take your whole package and place in a freezer for 48 hours. The colder the better.
Once the thing is nice and frosty, it is time to go to work. You have no time to spare, so have everything ready. Connect your PCs through the serial/parallel ports and even turn the working machine on.
Make sure you have LL3.exe copied on a floppy and get it started on the new machine.
Take that HD out and CAREFULLY cut away the plastic around connection points. Plug it in and QUICKLY copy your files out. Dont bother copying LL3 to the HD, it will only heat it up more and narrow your chances of an uncorupted retrieval.
You can try to ChkDisk (or win equiv) to help ensure the integrity of your files as well, but i would just get in and out.
You will likely only get one chance at this. It retracts the metals, heads and etc... in the drive, as well as cuts out some magnetic interferance.
Good Luck!