Re bad excuse but inquiry

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

Ouch! Sorry. But are you sure the hard drive itself, as opposed to the
mobo or the power supply or some other vital component, is shot? Because
if it is still operative, you might be able to get your data and XyWrite
setup back. (Make sure your replacement has some sort of high-density
removable medium for backup. Or else that it can be networked with a
desktop that does. Even a ZIP disk can handle a XyWrite installation.)
And if it's new, isn't it still under warranty? Of course, I wouldn't
want another of a machine that died that quickly, but...

There are devices (powered external cases) that let you take the hard
drive out of a laptop, put it in the case, connect the case to your PC
(nowadays usually with a USB cable) and copy the data. If you were
running XP, it was probably formatted using NTFS, which means it won't be
readible by a 9x system, which uses FAT16 or FAT32; see Robert's post (a
year or so ago) about the hassle he went through getting data off a
trashed laptop that was used as his Website server.

There are also services that will try to get data off a dead drive, but
they cost a pretty penny.

Good Luck.

Patricia

P.S. Sorry, I have no recommendations about laptops, since I only use
them for low-power things and so buy second-hand refurbs as needed.