[ILUG-BOM] Data recovery on a crashed drive with Linux FS

[Dinesh Joshi]

Hi peeps,

My Samsung SP1213C ( 120GB ) SATA disk has crashed. Its making horrible
clicking sounds. The disk is not reading much. Though GRUB does come up
and the kernel does start booting up but it finally panics after not
being able to find initrd ( Yes, I use Fedora Core 2 :P ). I had some
important family pictures and stuff in there.

I tried booting to Windows and using the EXT2FS reader but its of no
use. It cant read anything. It gives a bunch of read errors. I spoke to
my vendor and he said that none of the recovery guys he knows can
recover a disk with a Linux FS. Also, if I give it to some third party
who opens up the drive, my drives warranty will be void.

Samsung is of no help. They're pathetic :( I mean they'll just replace
the drive. They wont take any responsibility for the data! But I guess
thats normal, right?

I'm not sure what I should do at this point. Can anybody help out?? Any
suggestions???

-- 
Regards,

Dinesh A. Joshi