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Hard disk troubles a reminder of the need to back up regularly

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I have a laptop computer that is acting up. I keep getting messages that there are 'bad sectors' on the hard disk. This sounds serious. I have asked some people to help, but so far nobody has been able to do much. Can you suggest something?

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I bought the laptop in the United States four years ago and it has the Windows 2000 operating system. I am not sure about the hard disk size or even how full it is. I think it can write CD-Rom discs.

Unfortunately, I must admit that it has been tampered with by quite a number of people already: my brother-in-law and some engineering students from Chinese University and a shop in Sham Shui Po. So far, nothing has been retrieved and they have given up.

A friend told me that if I have not done too much to the machine, it may be possible to restore the files. I am afraid it might be a lost cause.

Mary Tin Hau

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Let us first see what we can do and then talk about what should have been done. There are many tools out there that claim to rescue hard disks that have been damaged or even reformatted. I worked at a magazine once where an entire issue was about to be published when the designer's hard disk - with the only copy of everything on it - crashed. (We sent it to Australia and got everything back within a week).

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