Thread: Anybody know a good data recovery company?

The hard drive on my old laptop conked out a few months ago, and like an idiot I didn't back it up, even though I had a feeling it was coming.

I don't want to get most of the stuff back, but unfortunately there were a few files that I really need to get to.

Does anyone have any data recovery services that they'd recommend, based on price and reliability? I don't want to pay top dollar, but I don't want to end up with some fly-by-night company, either.

Suggestions?

Josh

Nothing in the US. Sorry.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but...

A former colleague of mine had the same thing with his media center PC. He and his wife used it for holiday fotos, reports, documents, ...
And they didn't back up anything because new computers don't crash, right?

A data recovery lab charged 80 euros for making a list of retrievable files.
It cost him another 800 euros to actually get the files he wanted to have.
We made fun of him for some time.

I realize that this is not what you want to hear, but for what this might cost you, you could have bought 1 or 2 fancy high end razors.

Of course it depends on how many files you want back, and how much the recovery lab charges. Maybe it will not be 800 euros but it will definitely not be cheap.

Will the drive spin up at all? You might be able to recover some of the files by using an external USB adapter if the drive spins but wasn't able to boot the machine anymore.

Dave,

Can you describe this a little more? Are you saying that sometimes you can plug into a drive with another computer and pull data off? The computer won't boot, but the drive does seem to spin. It makes a clicking noise, which I know isn't good...

Bruno, I know I'm going to pay through the nose for this... I think I know someone else who had this done for around $500 US, which is a lot less than your poor friend had to pay.

Josh

Originally Posted by JoshEarl

Can you describe this a little more? Are you saying that sometimes you can plug into a drive with another computer and pull data off? The computer won't boot, but the drive does seem to spin. It makes a clicking noise, which I know isn't good...

One of these adapters can be very handy for that type of work as well as imaging a replacement HDD when you need to upgrade to a larger one. If your bad drive will spin up well enough to mount, you should be able to read the directory tree and might even be able to repair it somewhat with the standard windows utilities.

I've heard some people say they had good luck with freezing a bad HDD before attempting a recovery when all else failed. Can't remember why that helps sometimes but it's commonly mentioned on the PC forums.

Good luck

In lieu of using a recovery company, I suggest the following.

1. Burn a copy of one of the many 'Live' Linux distributions, Ubuntu, Knoppix etc... onto a CD (If you don't want to, or can't do this for whatever reason, I'll be happy to make one for you). In a nutshell, Live Linux distros boot the entire OS off the CD, without any installation required. Almost all of them can then read the other drives on the machine, including the drive with the hosed copy of windoze.
2. Next, insert a USB drive (just a bit larger than what you figure you have in files that you need to recover). Let Linux recognize the USB drive.
3. Last, copy the files you want to save from the windows drive to the USB drive.

You shouldn't have to worry about further data corruption since most live CDs will only read NTFS (a common windows file system, and the one most normal users have), BUT it won't write to them. Voila, you're even safe there.

Give it a try, or let me know if you need a CD (Linux Live CDs are available as free downloads from all the major linux distribution houses).

Good luck Josh,
John

First of all, STOP everything.

There is a program, spinrite, by GIBSON that will go thru your drive and recover whatever CAN be recovered. It may TAKE 36 HOURS to run, but it is VERY good. Look it up on internet.

As an aside, there used to be a recovery program called DISKFIX or something like that. I renamed it DISKF*** because when I ran it it would continue to only recover part of the disk, then if I ran it again, it would recover less and less.

Good luck

Jerry.

http://www.grc.com/spinrite.htm