WARNING: if you get blue screen(must be getting if you have y560) take backup of your data....

[gotoneelesh]

Today I lost all my data (including 300GB of photos n video's collected over last 8 mth of my 8 mth old daughter). I was repetately getting system freez, blue screen and abnoramal shutdown. I called customer care, surfed lenovo forum and found that almost every one gets same with ideapad y series. 2 month back my system;s 1 yr warranty expired.. and today its hard drive crashed.

I made every efforts so far to recover the photos back but could only retrieved 25% of the photos.  I cant tell you how important those photos are for me.. My wife is gonna kill me.. 

Please let me know if anyone can help me in recovering data. Its really very very important for me.

At the end, please backup your data if you are stucked with Lenovo.

[Kris237]

There are commercial firms that claim to recover data from HDs.  Google and see what you can find.  YMMV.

A harsh lesson!

I have Acronis TI2012 set to backup, and verify the backup, my primary spindle (whole thing) and another partition on another spindle, once a week.  I have it keep a month's worth. 

Randomly I backup the spindle and partition to one or both of my 2 external HDs, just to be sure.

I hope folks listen!

{ I swapped my optical for a HD early on so I have 2 internal HDs, one external optical (the slimline), and 2 pluggable external HDs.  I also randomly burn a backup.}

I hope you can get back most of your data!

[christopherlang]

Sorry to hear that your drive crashed. Did the issue begin today or has it been an ongoing problem? The type issues you report can be symptoms of many different problems, to include your drive crash. A hard drive can crash in any machine and it's a good idea to backup your data no matter what the hardware. There are data recovery services that may be able to recover your data even from a failed drive. Maybe expensive though. Your issue really is not exclusive to Ideapads or Lenovo.

[Kris237]

Agreed. This issue is liable on any computer, even RAID configurations or SSD.

[countrywise]

Hi gotoneelesh,

firstly sorry to hear about your loss,

however  since you got all of the above problems beforehand,

that should have warned you,that something like this was going to happen.

Now RECUVA is a good and FREE  software that you can try,

if your hard drive can be gotten back on it's feet.

howevet the first thing to do now,is to NOT DELETE ANYTHİNG on your laptop,

as doing so,will make it all the more difficult,to recover anything.

Data recovery is unfortunatelly an expensive business.System images are a must,

if you want to avoid such disasters in the future

http://www.piriform.com/recuva/download

[gotoneelesh]

Thx Countryside, I'll try this solution and will see if it helps.

I got an ubuntu linux in USB stick and using it to operate my laptop now. I also bought an 1TB external hard drive from staples to copy all data.. I observed that even while recovering I am loosing access on various folders.. so now I am creating image of damaged hard drive on external hard drive so that at least I have a copy of it.

Once I'l get image I'll run this utility on the image. thx 

[gotoneelesh]

It was an ongoing problem, Its my fault I noticed it but never acted on it { I was repetately getting system freez, blue screen and abnoramal shutdown. I called customer care, surfed lenovo forum and found that almost every one gets same with ideapad y series}. Its just that before I buy a external hard drive for backup it crashed..

[countrywise]

Good to hear you have a grib on it.

Let us know how you go.

By the way,it would be a good idea from now on to have at least

2 system images on an external hard drive,that would make restoring much easier

and  would prevent  losing anything of value ever again.

İ use LENOVO'S  OKR, occasionally

AND  Windows own  to create system images(keep 3 of them at anytime)

and keep both on 2 different external hard drives.

Windows doesn't like you keeping anything other then it's own,on the same space(ext.h.drive)

İt's funny that way,haha

.

[gotoneelesh]

Thx everyone. I got ard 70% of my photos (not sure though abt the % figure). Thx Ubuntu Linux.

There are nice utilities in Ubuntu that helps in getting your data back from the damaged hard drive. Beow are some useful material on that.

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15761/recover-data-like-a-forensics-expert-using-an-ubuntu-live-cd/
http://www.addictivetips.com/windows-tips/create-disk-image-clone-hard-disk-partition-with-ubuntu-li...
http://www.wikihow.com/Recover-a-Dead-Hard-Disk#Using_Linux_to_recover_your_Data
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DataRecovery

I would recomand everyone to downoad linux ubuntu and keep a copy in your harddrive and at least one bootable usb pendrive. This could be a life saver in crises situation. 

I am looking for another internal hard drive, Lenovo asking me $159 for Toshiba 500G (Lenovo spare parts), yeah that sounds too much.. well searched on other sites and found internal hard drive in around $60 - $70 but not sure about compatibility. Can any 2.5 inch drive will work or I need specific model. Some one pease help on this. Thx

[gotoneelesh]

Ohh God... These guys asking me $89 for re-imaging dvd. I dont want to give Lenovo a penny now.. Is there a way I get windows7 and other software back on my new hard drive?