Help!

[waynehartwig]

My hard drive died tonight on my laptop. This is my business computer. It contains everything to do with my business - records, address book, etc...etc..etc...

Does anyone know anyone that can recover data from a dead drive? Any reputable companies?

This was supposed to back up everything everynight automatically to a RAID setup. Imagine my dismay when I realized it hasn't been! Soooo..... This stuff is priceless to me and I _have_ to get the information at whatever cost! And ASAP, like yesterday....

 

[XT Utah]

Does the computer turn on at all or is this a deal where Windows won't load?

 

[spencurai]

how about doing a google search for Hard Drive Recovery services...its gonna be pricey, like in the thousands of dollars...

 

[Rusted]

If you are lucky you may be able to put the drive into an external enclosure like this one and get a second computer to read the disk. If it is corrupt data (i.e. not a complete hardware failure) you have a chance. I have 4 gig laptop hard drive you are welcome to use to "practice" with. I would advise against throwing your critical data drive into an enclosure just to test it out

I have been able to recover some data that way before, and it is worth a shot. But I have never resorted to a disaster recovery type company to recover data, I looked into it a few times, but the price they charge was not worth the loss data in my cases. So I don't have anyone to refer you to.

Does the drive spin up at all? Can you hear or feel it move? Are you 100% sure it is bad hardware and not corrupt windows, or a bad power supply inside the laptop? I am shooting for the easy answers here first.

 

[XT Utah]

Yeah, if it's a situation where Windows won't load I have a program called Bart PE that just may do the trick. It saved my computer before.

 

[way2nosty]

get one of these, I use them all the time:
http://froogle.google.com/froogle_c...ogle&oi=froogler&lmode=&addr=&scoring=p&hl=en
siamese it to another box running windows as a slave - works better on the other IDE Master - then you don't have to switch jumpers.

go into your computer manager icon and assign the disk a letter thne

in a cmd window
"xcopy <driveletter you just assigned>:\*.* <hdd you want to save to>:\<path to save it in>\ /c /e /v /h /d" will copy everything from one drive to the other path

This is why backups are priceless

 

[Rusted]

.... This stuff is priceless to me and I _have_ to get the information at whatever cost!...

Thinking more about this.... The best advice maybe to not touch it and risk any more damage. Since this contains important data it may be best to leave it to the professionals. If data was not so important I would encourage you to try to recover yourself. That decision is ultimately up to you.

 

[Brad J]

get one of these, I use them all the time:
http://froogle.google.com/froogle_c...ogle&oi=froogler&lmode=&addr=&scoring=p&hl=en
siamese it to another box running windows as a slave - works better on the other IDE Master - then you don't have to switch jumpers.

I have used these 2.5" IDE to 3.5" IDE adapters then an IDE 40 pin to USB adapter and have been able to recover data using my desktop PC. It works a little more than half the time depending on the shape of the HD. I could let you borrow my cables and you could give it a try. If the HD is clicking, Good Luck, hope your pockets are deep, like what the others say.

Let me know, Brad J

 

[waynehartwig]

get one of these, I use them all the time:
http://froogle.google.com/froogle_c...ogle&oi=froogler&lmode=&addr=&scoring=p&hl=en
siamese it to another box running windows as a slave - works better on the other IDE Master - then you don't have to switch jumpers.

go into your computer manager icon and assign the disk a letter thne

in a cmd window
"xcopy <driveletter you just assigned>:\*.* <hdd you want to save to>:\<path to save it in>\ /c /e /v /h /d" will copy everything from one drive to the other path

This is why backups are priceless

This option works when the hard drive is still functional. If it was this easy, I wouldn't have asked.... The HDD is COMPLETELY dead.

 

[waynehartwig]

Thinking more about this.... The best advice maybe to not touch it and risk any more damage. Since this contains important data it may be best to leave it to the professionals. If data was not so important I would encourage you to try to recover yourself. That decision is ultimately up to you.

Word...
That's why I was asking who to send it to...This is going to be a clean room recovery effort....

 

[Medsker]

This happened to my boss, she had to send hers to California. Two weeks later and 3 grand she got all of her data back. She just called PC Laptops and they gave her the name of who to go to. The company goes through the disk in a clean room bit by bit taking the data off.

Medsker

Let me know and I can probably get you the name and number of who they went through.

 

[Brad J]

This happened to my boss, she had to send hers to California. Two weeks later and 3 grand she got all of her data back.

I heard that there is someone in SLC w/ a shop on 1300 East or nearby who will do data recovery starting at $100 and goes up to several thousand depending on how involved it is.

 

[waynehartwig]

This happened to my boss, she had to send hers to California. Two weeks later and 3 grand she got all of her data back. She just called PC Laptops and they gave her the name of who to go to. The company goes through the disk in a clean room bit by bit taking the data off.

Medsker

Let me know and I can probably get you the name and number of who they went through.

This is what I'm looking at doing... ReWave said they will do it. I'm on my way out right now to overnight the drive to them. They said if they have the drive tomorrow morning, they can mostly have the data off by afternoon. Soo...We'll see how it goes! $800-1600 depending on what they find...

 

[Caleb]

Utah Disaster and Cleanup in Draper can do it, and are one of the best around. We had the exact same thing happen when the owner (of the company I admin for) was messing around where she shouldn't had been. She actually deleted the files and then the drive failed, they recovered all but a few .jpgs (40GB SCSI drive that was nearly completely full). If I remember right its about $175 an hour and it took them a couple days. I don't remember the final cost but it wasn't in the "thousands"...maybe $1000, but I can't remember.

 

[Caleb]

also, one more word of advice, DO NOTHING WITH THAT DRIVE. Each time you try to access it there is a chance you will loose more data.

Goodluck

(been there, done that )

 

[waynehartwig]

I sent the drive off to ReWave today. It will arrive in the morning and they said they should have the information off of it shortly after.

I tried to access it twice. The first time is when I discovered it was actually broken. Then I put it in the freezer for a few hours and tried it again. The drive tries to initialize but can't. It doesn't make banging noises or etc. ReWave thinks the logic board went bad, which makes it real easy to get the data off and at no data loss.

 

[Bone Down]

I sent the drive off to ReWave today. It will arrive in the morning and they said they should have the information off of it shortly after.

I tried to access it twice. The first time is when I discovered it was actually broken. Then I put it in the freezer for a few hours and tried it again. The drive tries to initialize but can't. It doesn't make banging noises or etc. ReWave thinks the logic board went bad, which makes it real easy to get the data off and at no data loss.

any update on this dilema? I would like to know the cost per gig and what not, as I have many clients and co workers that ask for this kind of service and it is always good to have options for them.

 

[Caleb]

as I posted above, its not a cost per gig but rather a cost per hour. I don't know what the current rate is but it was around $175/hr a few years ago.

 

[waynehartwig]

The couple places I looked at were flat rate fees and most have a "no data no fee" policy, so look for that as well.

They all have a per disk rate. This depends on how much data they have recovered and how many disks they fill with it. It's about $5-8 bucks per disc rather it's DVD or CD. Or, you can bypass all of that and just send them a HDD to put it on for free. Which is what I did...Optical media (CD/DVD) can burn incorrectly and lose data. My data is urgent enough that I'm willing to pay $1600 to have it retrieved. I'm not going to trust a $.30 disc to contain that data.

Some also charge you to erase the HDD after they finish and to send the drive/data back to you.

Some will keep your data on site for a predertimined amount of time to assure you received and were able to restore your data.

Some can have your data off as quickly as the same day they recieve the drive. Others can take up to two weeks.

I went with a company called ReWave Data Recovery Service in NC. They have free shipping to (even paid for my overnight priority Saturday morning delivery) and from them and this is all they do, data recovery. They have their own clean room, so no sending the drive to another location. They were kind of pricy, but out of three companies I spoke with, I fealt the most comfortable with them. If they don't have to order any parts to retrieve the data (heads, motor, etc.), then the cost will be $800.

 

[my4thjeep]

In my professional career I have used Drive Savers several times
http://www.drivesavers.com/

Cost $800-1200 range excellent service
PowerQuest used them and recommended their clients to Drive Savers.