Professional Data Recovery

[TimG]

I have a HD that decided to crap out. got a local place to look at it and they said that there is platter marring and estimated $2500 for data recovery.

Is there any other place in town or out of town where i can get a 2nd estimate on the recovery charges? this is important work-related stuff (i know it should have been backed up... :facepalm: )

[dr_jared88]

Try these guys. Not sure if they would be any cheaper though. http://www.essentialrecovery.com/

[TimG]

those are the guys who gave us the first quote.

[adam c]

it all depends what is wrong with it

did you send the HD for recovery already or was it over the phone type thing? if they tried to recover and they couldn't, then sending it off to Toronto for their $2500+ recovery is pretty much your only hope

you can always try the freezer trick that grog always boasts about

[TimG]

the HD was already sent in for an estimate. the guys who sign the cheques want at least one more quote before they send out $2500 for data recovery.

The initial evaluation said that the platters had some marring on them. not sure how they determined this unless they opened it. Basically, when the HD is plugged in (not the bootable drive) windows would freeze up completely and not even boot.

[SpireTECH]

Virtually all data recovery companies have the same basic breakdown. You're looking at $300-$700 for recovering any drive that doesn't require mechanical repair. Eg. Corrupted file system tables, fried PCB, failed firmware, et cetera.

For anything involving mechanical repair you jump to the $1000 mark and it goes up to about $2500.

Also keep in mind, that even with a class 100 clean room, ISO certified technicians and every possible advantage, the chance of recovery from a hardware failure is only slightly better than 50%.

Most companies indicate high success rates, but that always includes hard drives which had no mechanical problems. If your hard drive has a head stack failure (commonly causes the infamous clicking noise), then it's possible the platters are irreversibly damaged.