mikec

sadly, this is the way most people learn to implement some type of backup routine...sorry it also happened to you. the investment in an external HD is so affordable now, please make sure you get one moving forward!

unless you have almost the exact same hardware setup in both machines, you'd have problems booting it anyway. try taking the affected hard drive and slaving it to another working machine, or using an external USB hard drive enclosure. make sure to switch the jumper appropriately for whichever method you choose....slave jumper if you're attaching it to the motherboard as a second drive, master if you use an external, which you could pick up for less than $40.

Good luck, and let us know what happens. I'm sorry to say, that if either of those don't work, it's possible the drive "died". How old is the drive? They pick the nastiest times to stop working.

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Until the 20th century, reality was everything humans could touch, smell, see, and hear. Since the initial publication of the charted electromagnetic spectrum, humans have learned that what they can touch, smell, see, and hear is less than one millionth of reality