OT Anyone know of a service to recover data off crashed harddrive

craftytony

craftytony

OT Godfather
So, yeah, my piece of shizzle hard drive crashed over the weekend. (physical crash, i heard the heads as they scratched across the plates) Does anyone know of a service/company that will recover the data?

I've heard this is VERY expensive...
Geek Squad at Best Buy is telling me they can send it to one of their sites in michigan i believe and looks like it would cost 3 hundo......anyone have any other options for me?????
 
I think you are talikng thousands not hundreds here. I don't know what Bestbuys can do, but I would want pros doing it if I was spending big bucks. ;)
 
I have seen have ads for this type of service in the back of PCworld magazine. I'll have to look tonight and see if I can find it
 
What sucks is that I had all my photos backed up on my iPOD and that crapped out on me about a month ago. And I knew I should have backed everything up to DVD.....

Colinadam ...thanks, if you find anything please let me know...

SA057 yeah I spoke with our desktop team and he mentioned it cost them like 5,800 to recover a 40gig drive...
 
Tony, No its not necessarily huge dollars!!! :)

My most recent desktop crash cost me $300 for a brand new 60gb hard drive with all of the data and software on it. It depends on the ituation, so I'd recommend getting it checked out. The place I went is around the corner from Coral Paradise. Let me know if you want their contact info.......

Good luck!

Boyd
 
Yea, I have done some forensic computer work in the past and we had the same issues quite often. If you have a contact with the FBI, CIA or DOD they can do it for free. Don't that suck? :rolleyes:
 
If you have a 2nd computer you should be able slave the damaged HD to retrieve any files from parts that haven't been physically damaged.

I've had this done this once in the past (by a tech at work), and it worked just fine, only lost a few files. I was surprised at how much we actually retrieved.

Good luck. Data loss sucks.
 
THEY MAKE SOFTWARE FOR THIS....i have some if you need it.
of course you'll need another PC to put your drive in to do the recovery, but it works well!

couple frags and i can do it for ya......yet you need to come to my place or UPS the drive to me.

RK
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8778576#post8778576 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by PSam
If you have a 2nd computer you should be able slave the damaged HD to retrieve any files from parts that haven't been physically damaged.

I've had this done this once in the past (by a tech at work), and it worked just fine, only lost a few files. I was surprised at how much we actually retrieved.

Good luck. Data loss sucks.
Click to expand...

Data recovery is easy and requires no extra software of hardware, but he said "physical crash, i heard the heads as they scratched across the plates" that will require someone taking the HD apart and rebuilding the drive. That will cost big bucks. If the drive is spinning, without excessive noise you may recover some of the data yourself. If not then check out the Pros.
 
Thanks everyone....tonight I am going to try and hook it up as a slave drive and see if I can access anything...if not i'll be checking into all these services....

I am wondering if the drive can still be readable, I can boot from CD and it brings me to the C:\ prompt, but when i do a "dir" it won't bring anything up :( so that leads me to believe the drive isn't spinning? But maybe it is just the boot sector that is damaged and if I hook it up as a slave, then maybe I can access some files???
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8778380#post8778380 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SA057
Yea, I have done some forensic computer work in the past and we had the same issues quite often. If you have a contact with the FBI, CIA or DOD they can do it for free. Don't that suck? :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Tony, this is GREAT news! Since the DEA and FBI are already looking for you, you can have them do it for free!!! :D

Boyd
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8778646#post8778646 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by FiberLux
Tony, this is GREAT news! Since the DEA and FBI are already looking for you, you can have them do it for free!!! :D

Boyd
Click to expand...

I've already been arrested twice boyd....once on my friggin lunch break over a speeding ticket in NEVADA!!!! lol.....i don't like the feeling of cuffs!

I'm wondering if i can get a hookup somehow from the DOD from some of my buds from my military days......
AIR FORCE!!! ;)
 
DOD "claims" that if it has ever been on the HD to start with then they can retrieve it. No matter what it's condition, but they want tell you how they do it!
 
Tony, my brother is kinda into that sort of thing. PM if you want his info, he just moved to Plano, and will travel. Carl
 
Well, this is my field so I'll help out a little. From your description it sounds like the hd platters are scratched. There is a good chance that you are just jacked. There are ways to recover data from a drive that has physical damage but it is insanely time intensive. Basically what has to be done is to remove the platters from the drive in a clean room and install them in an otherwise functional drive. Then you need to copy the bits one at a time, sector by sector to a perfect drive. This can take upward of 14+ hours for an average 80GB hd. Then you have to make some sense of the mess. Depending on how much damage is actually done you will most likely just have a big pile of files that you'll have to sort through and determine what is still good. That is why it can take thousands of dollars to do it, it is hard, time consuming and the equipment to do it is expensive. What I would do is see if you can recover anything at all with a free program, and if you can't then it is probably not worth pursuing.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=8778780#post8778780 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by SA057
DOD "claims" that if it has ever been on the HD to start with then they can retrieve it. No matter what it's condition, but they want tell you how they do it!
Click to expand...

Yes, they would love you to think that but I work at a financial institution in the IT dept. and we have to clean our drives before we can dispose of them to government standards. I have a program that writes random bits to the ENTIRE hard drive three times, called Killdisk. When complete it is totally unrecoverable.
 
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