Day +138

I am fine today.

My computer became unstable and slow a few days ago. It also reboots by itself once in a while. So I decided to reformat my hard disk and reinstall all the necessary software again on last Friday. I transferred all important data to an external USB hard drive first before reformatting the hard disk. The freshly installed Windows XP Professional failed to activate through the internet even though it is a Genuine Windows (OEM license comes with notebook). It failed to be activated through the telephone as well. Finally I was forced to call Microsoft representative to give them a 54 digit installation ID and they gave me 42 digit confirmation ID to activate the Windows. What a relief! But wait.

The USB hard disk could not be detected! I tried my very best to wake it up by fixing the cables firmly, shaking and finally comforting it. It just stay quietly there (无动于衷):-( The hard disk still works well before I powered off the computer for hard disk reformatting. I regretted for not backing the data.

It looks like the hard disk was facing some electronic problem. If this is the case, the platters of the hard disk that is used to keep the data should still be in good condition. If we can transfer the platters to other hard disk, it is possible to recover the data. I described my hard disk problem to a local data recovery company called MDR. The cost is: Diagnosis = FOC, Recovery = RM600-RM700. I felt it is too expensive, so I called another company. Do you know what the cost is? Diagnosis = RM150, and data recovery 1GB = RM150. I have 120GB of data on the hard disk, so it would cost me RM18150 to recover data. This amount almost made me ‘terpelanting’ (fell flat on the floor).

To be continued and see you next post :-)