Thanks. That is vital information. If you had started by clearly saying that you had dropped the laptop while it contained both drives, you would likely have received different responses.

That new information means that it is very risky to power-on the drives (even more risky to have them spinning for a long time trying to read the data during cloning), since the drop has caused internal mechanical damage to the drives. No point in discussing DIY further unless you don't care about the data, and are prepared for a one-time "recovering nothing and potentially losing all data permanently is OK" attempt.

Considering the cause of the problem, looking for a "cheaper" DR company might be false economy. Anyway, I've reached the limits of what I can sensibly add here, due to the risks which have now become clear.

Ok, thanks for your help, so far!

As I have stated to LCoughey in a "Personal Message", I am currently "researching" any contacts I may have, and, if, anyone in these "contacts" has any kind of expertise in this!

If not, then, I guess, I will have to see if, when I have enough $$, a data recovery lab would be able to do some "recovery" (partial, or full, if possible), even given that, the drives have had to "suffer" the dropping, from about a meter, or, something like, 3 ft, I think , within the laptop, that may, or may not have, "cushioned" the drop a bit, if you can say so.

Again, thanks to Vulcan, LCoughey, Jerovsek, Loki, fzabkar, and Mr_spokk for all your input! If anyone has ANY further ideas, I will be glad to take a look at them, although, as it has been stated already, it does seem STRONGLY that, if ANYTHING can be done, it should PROBABLY be done by "someone" with "professional" experience and know-how!


Thanks!

C!