Hi all, last wednesday my computer was hit by lightning, notghing was good anymore. Is there a way to repair the HD or take of all data? A test computer doesn't see the harddrive anymore. Tamtam

OOO sounds bad... didnt your mother ever teach you to unplug everything in a storm? lol You may be able to get your data back if you get a specialist to look at it. Before you dive in though just check all the cable connections are in properly and that the correct jumper settings are used. Matt matt@bbcomputing.co.uk www.bbcomputing.co.uk

Sorry to hear about the lightning strike, what happened to your surge protector ?. Now a couple of questions. 0. Is the drive listed in the test PC's BIOS ? 1. What OS is on the test PC ? BTW. You need to post this in the hardware forum and not here next time for better assistance. Do not type anything in this space.

Hi Tautitan and Sabertooth, thanks for yuor answers. The guy from the computershop checked my hard drive on a computer they have to test different things, so i suppose he knows what he's doing. I believe the test pc had XP on it and there's Win 98 SE on my hard drive. I hope to find someone who can take my dat off especially all pics of my twins grandchildren. Sorry Sabertooth to have posted in the wrong forum, guess i didn't looked so well. Tamtam

The lightning only destroyed your harddrive or was there more damage done? XP is able to read Win98 partitions so there shouldn't be a problem. The problem is if the drive will not work at all the only way to get to the data might be to give it to a specialized data recovery firm and they will have to take it apart to recover whatever is left on the drive. I think there is a good chance the data is still there but the power surge may have destroyed something. If you really want to try that ask about the price first because normally that is really costly and may cost a couple hundred dollars!!! I know it's a little late but in the future you should make backups on CD or DVD of all important data. As long as they are only on the harddrive there are a lot of way they could get lost!