dead oem drive, warranty question

[akinsey]

Ok,
Got two questions regarding warranty replacement/repair for a client:
1. Seagate 80gb ST380020A, OEM from a Sony Vaio, detected in bios, but booting yields 'operating system not found'. Disk utilities cannot find the drive, so I can't zero it out or sys it or anything. Now. I believe the Vaio is a little over a year old,and out of warranty; Seagate's warranty site just says contact your OEM, bla bla. Is my client totally up a creek with this drive? Or is there anyone/place that can get this replaced/repaired?
2. Data on above said drive. Can anyone recommend any data recovery people/businesses that are reasonable and reliable? My experience with data recovery is that its prohibitively expensive, in the several hundred dollar and UP range, but just checking again. (And no, the client did NOT do any sort of backup prior to the drive dying. )

TIA

[RicheemxX]

detected in bios, but booting yields 'operating system not found'. Disk utilities cannot find the drive

what disk utilities are you trying? have you tried just a plan old win98 start-up? if its detecting in bios is smart enabled does it say if the drive is ok? have you tried another ide cable?

just because it says os not found doesn't mean the drive is neccasarily bad it might be that the user messed something up with a partion or something happend to the os

as for the second part hdd recovery would be more for if the user had very valuable info on the drive. its usually more expensive than just doing a replacement

[TOAD6147]

You should be using a utility called SeaTools for your diagnostic and you can get it here .There are data recovery utilities out there that you might try. Just Google for some and take your pick. I use Lost and Found but it's not supported anymore.

[sechs]

1. It's Sony that you need to talk to. If they won't do anything, then you're done.

2. Your experience is correct. Unless the data is worth hundreds of dollars to the client, then there's no point.

I'd suggest spending a bit trying to revive the drive. If you haven't already, you should try poping it into another system, just to see if you can get to it. Else, congratulate the client on poor luck and no backup plan (lilterally).

[akinsey]

Thanks for the replies.
Ritchee, I will try all your suggestions and post back here; I was using EZ Drive version 9.x--somthing.
Toad, thanks for the linkage. I'll give it a try.
sechs, Sony already said its outta warranty, besides, all they would do is replace the drive if it WAS under warranty.

I figure I'm outta luck for the most part but am just going to give it the ol' college try (so to speak).