Hardware

It's possible, that whatever was the problem that made you think you needed to do a system restore, was actually a symptom of a failing hard drive.

It really does sound like the hard drive is tanked, but try the ole freezer trick before you start crying or calling for recovery.

Remove the hard drive from the computer and stick it in the freezer for a couple of hours. I'm serious. Then put it back in the machine and see if you can get it to boot, or slave it off of another workstation. If it will boot or if you can access it slaved on another workstation, back it up, QUICKLY; it may be your only chance.

cannot access hard drive at all

Does that mean that you Can Not perform a Repair Install or that so far you have not tried and just have been unable top read the HDD?

If you haven't tried a Repair Install follow the directions here and do a Repair Install which should get you working again

http://preview.tinyurl.com/g4bv8

unless you have been using Windows Encrypted File System then don't do a single thing!

You will need to remove the HDD from the computer fit it to a USB External Caddy and connect to a different computer or the same computer with a different HDD fitted and loaded whichever you have available and then try to recover your Data & Encryption Key to a different HDD. You can recover your data quite easily by just copying it across to the other HDD if there was no password in use. If you where using a Password you need to Take Ownership of your Files by following these directions

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3aw7

To recover the encryption Key follow the directions here

http://preview.tinyurl.com/3cd8hf

You may need to change the Computers way of showing files so open any Window click on Tools and then Folder Options the click on the Tab called View and add a mark in the Radio Button called Show Hidden File & Folders. Apply the change and then open the C Drive then the Documents & Settings then your User Account and directly there you will see My Favourites and My Documents which can be copied straight across. If you want to collect your Address Book it's in a Hidden Folder so after you have chosen to show these in the same folder click on Application Data then Microsoft and copy the Address Book across to the new HDD in a Temp Folder.

For your E-Mail go back to your Account Folder and click on Local Settings, Application Data, Identifies, a Alpha Numeric String, Microsoft then Outlook or Outlook Express and transfer the entire folder to the temp Folder on the other drive.

When this is complete you can open your Mail Client and Import the Address Book and E-Mail into your preferred Mail Client.

There may be some software that you are using that store Data in it's own Folder Accounting Applications and CAD are the most common but there are some others which do this so you may need to look at your installed Software and move it across to the same Temp Folder till you have everything and then move the Data File/s into their proper places.

The My Documents and Favourites can be directly copied into their equivalent folders on the New HDD and be available and if you where using EFS you'll need to remount the Encryption Key which is described in the link above about saving the Key.

If you can not read the drive at all then you need to start considering just how much that the data on the HDD was worth as even if the HDD is working you are up for at the very least some software and time to recover your data. If you need a list of Data Recovery software post back and I'll provide a list of the better ones available.

If the drive isn't even working your only alternative then is to take it to a data Recovery House where they can read directly off the platters inside the drive and recover all your data. But this is both time consuming and expensive.

Col