Data recovery question

[rbyham]

OK... I am a completely non-technical non-IT kind of person. Use a T61 for my personnel office work. Was re-registering fingerprint reader a few weeks back and locked the whole machine. End of story is my IT dept had to order new motherboard, HD, etc. and do a complete rebuild. Got me in major office trouble. Thanks Lenovo.

Anyway, the orig HD had lots of personal data on it including 1200 photos from a once in a lifetime trip to Alaska last summer. My IT guys tried but could not get into the orig HD to get any data off. But they did give me the HD in case I want to pursue other avenues. So can anyone here point me in a direction? Are there sneaky ways to get into these HDs? Or are there reasonablly priced services that can get the data off for me? I have called around and can't pay the $400 minimum that I am hearing about from most recovery companies. And I guess even that is cheap for a pro job. But are there alternative (cheaper) ways to get at this. The data I need is all personal rather than business in nature. On the business side we were all backed up on Exchange server. So the crash was not devastating from a work perspective. Thanks for any guideance that is suggested...

Rick

[RealBlackStuff]

Did you use any password to lock the machine and/or the hard disk?
If you know that, you should be able to put the old HD back in your T61, enter that password and access that disk.
If it was anly a password, you could also get an external SATA/USB case or adapter, connect that to your laptop or other PC/laptop, enter the password, and access your data.
If you had a passphrase, only putting it back in your T61 with the old motherboard could unlock it.
If no password/passphrase, a professional recovery service is your last option.
Try these guys in San Francisco for hard disk recovery: http://www.sfbayarealowcostdatarecovery.com/

[rbyham]

Thanks RBS... my IT guys tried every password/phrase I could think of prior to the rebiuold. No luck. Either I had forggoten it or something deeper got locked up in the security stuff. Guess I shold not have been in trying to re-register fingerprints. Oh well. So I guess any option to reconnect with macine like you suggest wont work for me. Thats whay I was on here hoping there is an affordable (under $200) way to get personal data off drive. I will check into the folks you mention but having already called a few of these shops find them priced way above that...

Rick

[RealBlackStuff]

If you know the password/passphrase, you could stick that HD in any other T61/R61.
Without it, only a forensics lab would be able to recover data.