whelp, i actually fried my pc guys and i called tech support through hp. they didn't help me at all, in the end i had to reformat my computer and lose all my files, school homework, pages and everything. HP refused to honor their warranty with me, even though i purchased the extended warranty. they wanted me to go through a bunch of unecessary steps that i already had taken to no avail. i hate it when the customer support just says 'mhmm' and then puts you on hold. I asked him politely to speak to his manager, he responded the usual 'its not an escelated issue he's not interested in speaking with you' and then i played my last card and said i was going to the bbb, they shrugged it off saying its my fault for not listening and walking through the steps, i also had told him i had no professional experience with computers and he then replied that he was going to walk me through the steps. blah blah, dont buy HP guys their support has gone to crap. I'm a college student, i need my files, i need that help i payed for to get support. people need to treat customers as you guys do, i love coffeecup they actually listen to you. I just wanted to vent, and i ended up here, sorry if this offends you but HP really has gone to waste.

If there's anything left on your hard drive, you might give this a try (you'll need a cable to connect with):
http://techtips.salon.com/transfer-info … 13014.html

I have 2 old hard drives containing several years worth of info and photos. They make great door stops.
(it would be a few thousand $$$ to recover the data)


For the future... become a back-up fanatic! External hard drives, Drop Box, flash drives... Get something in place and use it!

Good point PB. UnclePlusMax, you MIGHT want to consider taking the laptop to a computer shop (perhaps even your local Staples). Might be that your HDD is okay and survived the crash in which case the files may be recoverable.

Dropbox has been my favorite. the cloud is the future! haha