Laptop "repair"?!

[MorrisWoodman12]

I recently took my laptop in for repair, all my work was stored there, the problem was with the cooler, but they changed the disk and all the files were erased.

Did they give you the drive back? If so you may be able to recover them from it.
Years ago I had a drive fail. I took it into what I thought was a reputable local computer shop to recover my files. Two weeks later they said the drive was totally trashed. I had already installed Windows 95 (shows how long ago it was) on a new drive. I downloaded a drive checking and recovery app and recovered 90% of my files. They obviously hadn't even tried but then I don't remember paying anything.
Have fun
Martin

 

[throbscottle]

Far too much work!

I believe all modern drives are made of glass or aluminium platters so pop the things on the ground in the parking lot and a few good whacks with a hammer, job done, and you're de-stressed for the day.

More fun maybe, but the hard drive fixers are located within a secure room in a larger workshop. They have their own press drill...

 

[nickds1]

More fun maybe, but the hard drive fixers are located within a secure room in a larger workshop. They have their own press drill...

No disrespect, but I've spend my career in security and technology for banks and hedge funds. In those environments, data on a drive can be worth millions to the right/wrong person. Not only that, but as a CTO I was responsible for the security of that data and were it to fall into the wrong hands, at the least I'd lose my job and also possibly be criminally liable if the data was market sensitive.

It all depends on the value of the data. If the value is high enough, drilling holes in disks or hitting them with a hammer might make you feel good but will not protect the data.

I have spent time in state run forensic labs, and data can be recovered from bits of hard drive platters that had been supposedly zeroed/patterned multiple times, then chopped up and from crushed flash chips etc. even from SDRAM from a switched off computer. Fragments of platters can be scanned and damaged chips de-encapsulated and read.

The technology that can be employed to recover data is impressive.

Everything depends on the value of the data and how deep your pockets are.

 

[throbscottle]

That's really quite amazing - but I doubt if retail sales figures are worth that much!