Using UBCD to recover hard drive files?

[Sora57]

I got the whole "No bootable devices found" message. Diagnostics revealed that my hard drive needs to be "reseated." I took the drive out...put it back in. No dice.

Tech support says it needs a Factory Reboot, and they're charging me 120 dollars to recover data.

I'm pretty clueless about computers, but I learn quick...so for the past hour or so I've been on the Internet trying to find out exactly what happened and if there's a cheaper way to fix it. Don't have my laptop with me so I haven't been able to check if my harddrive was actually detectable under the BIOS...since I just learned what a BIOS was 5 minutes ago.

Just learned what UBCD was 5 minutes ago, too. Wondering if I can save it onto a flashdrive, change BIOS so computer boots from flash drive, and use some sort of program (it comes with PC inspector, right?) on UBCD to save hard drive files.

Any flaws in this brilliant plan of mine? And if you have any other ideas, shoot.

Oh, btw, I have an Inspiron 1545 from Dell, running Windows 7.

Answers in PLAIN English please.

[milindck]

Did you download UBCD?
Did u burn it to a CD?