Can anyone recommend a good place to recover data off of a dead HardDrive?

[RU482]

Today at work, we had harddrive die (western digital, I think) that had ALOT of important data on it. It looks like their are a variety of data recovery sites out there, just wondering if there is one that anyone can recommed? How is their pricing?

OT...how do they do it? do they disassemble the drive and put couple the platters with other know good components? Curious, seems like a lucrative business

 

[kranky]

First, fire your sysadmin for not having backups. No excuse for that.

We used Ontrack (ontrack.com) once, got back everything from some double-sided MO disks that got hosed by bad hardware. They let you request a quote on line. I don't know what it costs (but it is expensive - because they know what they charge is a lot less than it costs the company to recreate the data).

They have clean rooms and specialized software so it probably costs quite a bit to set something like that up. Plus they handle just about any operating system or type of disk ever made.

 

[TNTrulez]

Originally posted by: kranky
First, fire your sysadmin for not having backups. No excuse for that.

We used Ontrack (ontrack.com) once, got back everything from some double-sided MO disks that got hosed by bad hardware. They let you request a quote on line. I don't know what it costs (but it is expensive - because they know what they charge is a lot less than it costs the company to recreate the data).

They have clean rooms and specialized software so it probably costs quite a bit to set something like that up. Plus they handle just about any operating system or type of disk ever made.

Yes, fire him for not having a backup.

 

[rahvin]

Last time I saw a quote it was around $800, or was that $1800, can't remember right now. Either way it is still cheaper to buy a tape backup.

 

[dude]

How 'bad" is this drive?

First, does the drive still spin up? If it does spin, you have a few options.

Did you try it on a different system yet?
Did you try to see if you got other similar drives in the office? Try swapping the board on the drive.

If it is a head crash (scratching or screetching noises), unplug that drive immediately and send it for data recovery! You can damage it more by having the drive head scratching on the platters.

 

[RU482]

I did not personally get a chance to work on the problem. I talked to the tech that did and the tech who's computer it is. I never heard if it will still spin up, but they did try putting it into a different, same model Compaq (maybe that's the problem) as both slave and master, no go.

 

[amnesiac]

These guys sent me a free coaster when I requested a quote. That might be worth something.

Yeah, and what kranky said. Fire your stupid ass sysadmin for not backing stuff up. Que Idiota.

 

[Sketcher]

Ontrack's Excellent. Price quote depends on specific interest.

Ontrack

You don't always have the option of backing up HD's - especially if mobile users aren't responsible.
And then there are those diehard "save everything to the desktop" rebels.


Ontrack is local for me, so it was a no-brainer for a first try. They're fast, reliable and definitely do everything they say they can. Plus, they have software available, for the situations that aren't absolutely critical. Depending on your needs - they pretty much cover everything.

Ran us $300 for one drive (just sector corruption and data lifting) to $2400 for dual burnout mirrored drive reconstruction. Worth every penny for the data that was recovered. Then again, I've since padded the budget a little more for better backup equipment and learned more reliable backup practices. You can't cover everything though

FBI uses them - they've been featured in quite a few IT publications for their expertise.

-Sketcher

 

[Danman]

We paid 1 thousand dollars for a POS Western Digital drive to be recovered......

 

[normajean]

these guys were on a local computer show a couple years ago, they apparently saved 12 episodes of the Simpsons, so they are A1 in my book!!They are actually in the next town over, cool didn't know they were so close.

Drive Savers newstory

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[geoff2k]

I've used Ontrack in the past both for work and personal HDs and recommend them.

Once they've run an initial diagnostic, they'll give you some idea of which files on the drive are salvageable, and give you a price for recovering the ones that are.

When the first non-backed up non-RAIDed IDE drive I put in my main home file server crashed, and unfortunately for me, everything was toast EXCEPT FOR THE MP3 COLLECTION. I didn't pay them to recover them, and I have a DLT drive at home now...