Our computer did this kind of thing a few months ago. We did have to trash the hard drive, but were moaning about all the info apparently lost because we never could keep it on long enough to get the info copied from it. So I looked in the yellow pages. Easier for you guys - there's enough computer expertise on here to float a battleship!!! I happened to hit on one the first try. A nice little guy that works out of his home. Charged me $70. Came to the house, said - yep I see what's wrong - you need a new hard drive.
So I tearfully told him I just couldn't part with the info on it. He said he'd take care of it. He took our hard drive out and home with him. He put the damned thing in his freezer. While it was frozen, he could get all the files off. When it thawed, it began to act up again. So back in the freezer it went for a while. Took him 3 or 4 tries, but he did get all the files and downloaded them into a new hard drive for us.
You just never know......freezing it might work for a while. But ya prolly need to replace it in the long run.
