Q: I want to recover my photos from a 2-terabyte (2,000 gigabyte) PC hard drive that isn't working properly. I can't do it myself because of a mechanical problem with the drive, but a repair shop wants to charge me $1,000. Is that the average price for a drive of this capacity?
Tom Kent, St. Augustine, Fla.
A: That's within the range of what others charge for a drive that's physically damaged, which adds to the cost of retrieving its data.
Best Buy's Geek Squad would charge you $1,450 or more to recover data from a drive that's physically damaged (see tinyurl.com/kcouuac). Some repair shops charge $1 per gigabyte to retrieve stored data, regardless of the drive's condition, which would cost you $2,000. A few online shops charge $300 to $400 plus drive shipping costs (see tinyurl.com/mnvg8mw).
The high cost of retrieving your photos is why PC hard drives should be backed up often.
Q: After I installed some Windows Vista updates in mid-October, I couldn't connect to Facebook using Internet Explorer, and a couple of other programs quit working. What can I do?
Philip Berglund, Minneapolis
A: Your problem may be related to some security updates Microsoft made to Windows and Internet Explorer in mid-October. The updates followed news reports that Russian hackers had tapped into Windows to spy on Western governments (see the New York Times story at tinyurl.com/ozak9av). Here are some things you can try: