Microbytes

My laptop wouldn't dual boot anymore. GRUB loaded, but on OS choice: takes me straight to initramfs. Their diagnosis: "we ran tests for more than 10 hours and hit bad sectors all the way, managing to get through only 1% of the hard drive"... they made it seem like there was no hope for recovering the data. If this were true, GRUB/initramf wouldn't even load in the first place. It took my friend < 5 min to retrieve the data by connecting the HD through sata cable to his PC in Linux.