They Erased My Hard Drive!?!?

I got my Emachines M2352 at Best Buy just over a year ago and developed the notorious cracked hinges. So I took it in August 6 and they said it would be 2 weeks. They sent it Ontario, California. I finally got it back today September 7. They for some reason re-formatted my hard drive. You see I'm a photographer, and I had around 10 Gigs of photos plus another 10 gigs of music on my laptop. They had no reason to re-format the HD for hinge replacement right? I didn't back it up because A) I didn't have a pile of CDs and B) I had no idea they would take it uopn themselves to perform this unnecessary action! I called up Best Buy and they said I can bring it in for $90 and they will "try" to recover the lost data. If I knew it would work I'd do it but I'm so skeptical and upset right now. Next time I'm getting a Dell so they can come fix it at my house...

 

Did they reformat your HD or did they just take the path of least resistance and send you a brand-new machine instead of repairing your old one?

 

This is the second or third report of such activity. I can't tell people enough, you really need to back up or remove your drive for service.

 

A lot of manufacturers reformat the hard drive when you send it in for repairs. I had to send in my hp one time, and they told me that they were going to re-image the hard drive when they got it, and that I should back up all my data.

Did emachines give you any prior warning?

 

well Dell use to tell me to remove the HD.

 

people at best buy will try to suck every single penny from you so sending it in for 90 dollars might not even be worth it. they might have given you a new computer since they are not the manufacturer.

 

i feel bad for ya man...but u should also read some of the other stories of some other ppl that it has happened to as well ..that just sucks

 

When you send it in they had sign you a form that there is a possibility that they would erase your harddrive. You took a chance and you lost. Nobody to blame but yourself.

Learux

 

If it IS the same hard drive, you should be able to recover at least some of the files - and you might be able to do it yourself. There are some free data recovery programs out there. Do a google search for it. If you plan to try it, do not add any more files or programs to the drive.

 

Whatever you do don't you dare try to give it to Best Buy to fix it for $90. As a former Sears employee I can tell you there's a 0% chance of your data being recovered unless they spend it to a specialist who actually has training with computers (and they won't do that since that's expensive). Sears ripped countless people off with their computer problems and electronics that were obviously broken beyond repair. And when Kmart took over it got even worse, which is why I quit despite being there over 4 years. Best buy does things along the same way so there's no chance they would be successful, unless you get that one smart employee who hasn't been driven away from the company yet.

 

Hi,

IMHO Active@ Undelete can help you in data recover. This tool has the best recover algorithm I've met before. It is really powerful utility.
http://www.active-undelete.com

 

You signed a contract at Best Buy, and right at the bottom it stated that they would reformat the hard drive. Trust me, i just had my gateway sent in, and inspected the contract carefully (I can scan it if you like). I hate to sound rude, but next time read before you sign.

 

Not to sound rude either, but..

Now, your HDD didn't crash, but it may as well have.

Maybe now you've learned to backup, backup, backup.
Now after the advice about what to do in the future, ( ) all you can do is TRY to use a data recovery utilty, athough I HIGHLY doubt you'll get everything back.

One last note to everyone:
BACKUP

 

I've found a recover tool named Easeus DataRecoveryWizard on Google. It worked great for me so I thnik you will find it worth trying.