Help with blue scorpio drive not working...

[tthdoc]

I need help and suggestions.  I have an ASUS notebook that was bought 8 months ago.  Recently booted up and got the message:

Reboot and Select Proper Boot Device or Insert Boot Media in Selected Boot Device and Press Any Key

I first tried F8 and was able to get to advanced boot options.  Tried repair disk and it came up with no errors. 

Next tried command prompt- chkdsk /f /r .  Got to stage 4 and just hung there. 

Rebooted and it actually booted into windows.  So decided to check for viruses and ran malwarebytes.  Part way through the scan it blue screened.  So went to reboot and same message as above.  But this time could not get F8 to work at all.  So since under warranty, went to best buy (where bought) to look at it.  They said the drive was dead and could replace it under warranty.  But this does not help with the data, and unfortunately my son has his senior project on there and is not backed up.  So I took it to a local computer shop and they tried various things to get it to work but no luck.  They say there is vibration in the drive which they say indicates it is spinning.    I took the drive out and connected it as a second drive to my desktop computer.  The computer will not boot at all, and can't even get into the bios when the laptop drive is connected.  There are no noises coming from the drive, but I noticed while hooked up to the desktop and it was trying to boot up, the drive momentarily made a sound that sounded like the sound the metal cover on a floppy use to make  when it opened in a drive.   My question is this.  Could it be the board at fault?  Is it worth trying to swap the board out?  Or am I stuck having to go the expensive route with data recovery?  Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Here is a link to the specs on the drive:  http://i1261.photobucket.com/albums/ii599/tthdoc/b001.jpg

Thanks

Doc

[Awopero]

For you to replace the circuit board, you will need to get the same drive as donor with the same firmware. To be honest the possibilities of that happening are kind of low.

You might need to contact a data recovery company to retrieve your data.....

[FreddyRob]

Same thing happened to me.

I downloaded Ubuntu and burned it to a CD.  have to burn it properly or it won't work.  The website has directions on how to do that.

Booted the computer using the CD/Drive.  Don't install it.  "Try" it.  It should open up your operating system as an option.  Connect an external hard drive and move your stuff over from the Operating system to the external hard drive.

It worked for me.  Took about 12 hours and I copied over Users folder(about 50 GB), but it worked.

See links below:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windo...

http://www.tech-forums.net/pc/f9/copying-files-dos-c-drive-usb-hard-drive-182896/

[HDDRS]

Doc, swapping the board on a modern drive like this isn't going to do anything good. Let me tell you more, board is not gonna cut your access to the data in 99.9%. If your drive spins up - its not the board.

Another important thing is to understand that all the blind fold methods and tips you are using to gain access to the drive can actually be harming your data even further. Without proper data recovery diagnostic equipment your symptoms could be related to many problems. From something as simple as bad sectors to something like head damage or even worst platter damage. There is no magic to data recovery, you simply need to understand how things break and what are the steps to fix them. And important things need to be backed up.