Recommend a good harddrive data recovery tool (software)?

[jclose]

Does anyone have some experience with some good data recovery software? I am in need of a program to recover some data (if you couldn't have guessed). Nothing new has been written to the partition, but the drive was repartitioned.

I hadn't initially intended to do more that reformat the first partition, I swear. I did back up the first one for that very reason, but then things just kept spiraling downard and I forgot that I really had stuff on the other partition that I wanted. It wasn't used for much, mostly just a spare. But there were a few things of importance there. Enough for a minor software purchase, but not enough to spend hundereds on a recovery service.

Ah, but for my other drive...anyone know a good inexpensive recovery service? They seem to want $1500+ to recover a drive. I saw one for $400...


Thanks!
J

 

[SVT Cobra]

do a search....there are a lot of threads on this that can give you some good info....GL!

 

[shoRunner]

getdataback

 

[corkyg]

Data

 

[jkresh]

spinright 6 from grc

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

 

[Zepper]

. Spinrite isn't going to do much for the OP's problem - something like R-Studio from http://www.r-tt.com is what's needed. Now if it was a bad sector or some-such keeping him from getting to his data then SR would likely "get 'er done"...

.bh.

 

[jclose]

Well, I have tried two programs so far. Recover My Files (only recommendation for it was that it showed up first on my Google search) and GetDataBack from Runtime software (link provided above). Both programs have the same problem, though: when I actually start to run the scan XP crashes. I get a BSOD with this error: Machine_Check_exception. I have tried each program multiple times with different settings and end up with the same result.

Does this ring a bell with anyone?

 

[shoRunner]

never gotten an error running getdataback, and i use it quite often. you are running it from a different computer with the HD hooked up in it correct.

 

[Zepper]

Most data recovery programs I've tried don't run within Windows for that very reason. They run in a neutral OS that doesn't put its pinkies into the hardware. If the ones you've tried have to run within windows, try running it in safe mode and see if that helps.

.bh.

 

[Arcanedeath]

Ontracks Easy recovery lite software should do exactly what you need and its under $100, I've used it to recover from the exact issue you had and it got all my data back except some raw image files, that it brought back as jpegs that didn't work.

 

[jclose]

Well, I think that I figured out what was causing the crash issue with the harddrive, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

I swapped the problem harddrive back to the original motherboard that it had been attached to. (I got a new motherboard when a different harddrive crashed.) The new motherboard has RAID SATA, but the PATA ports are also RAID enabled. Hooking up the drive to the old MB (without RAID) made each of the software packages run without a hitch. (I think that this RAID issue maybe what I was running into in the first place as well, and is why I couldn't boot from this drive on the new motherbard, which subsequently caused me to go down the path of reformatting/partitioning the drive. Something in that RAID controller...)

What is it with these data recovery outfits? They seem to be price gouging. Each of the software packages I tried cost about $80 to get the registered version. That seems a bit excessive for what the program is. A new game only costs $50 and that is something that took a year or more to develope. These data recovery programs MAY have taken that long to develope in the first place (although I kind of doubt it - they are just some disk scanning engines with a GUI slapped on top) but afterward they just need to update it periodically. It just doesn't seem that the price befits the difficulty or effort of the task. I feel like I am being taken advantage of in a way. Not that these aren't valuable tools or that they don't provide a good service, but the price doesn't seem justified by the effort put into providing the service. I realize that that isn't the way economies work all the time, they maybe pricing what the market will bear and all that. I am just venting.

Thanks for the tips and help, folks.