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Has anybody here heard of these guys before? (West Coast Data Recovery)

WillOfTheLand

So I've experienced what can be considered a very unfortunate series of events resulting in what I assume is physical damage to my drive and remembered the video linus did with drivesavers, only to realise after some googling they are way outside my price range since I'm unemployed right now and literally everything from legal docs, to my resumes, work from the past (which I will need if I want to find work again), photos of people I wont ever see again, projects I had been working on, everything is on the drive, so I did some posting on reddit and was actually contacted by one of the staff from west coast data recovery on reddit, who told me to check out their site and give em a call so I did. Now their prices are a bit more reasonable, 299 (US) for data recovery (they said this is more of a average it just depends on how long it takes them to recover the data but 299 is usually the case) and you pay for shipping. 

 

The guy on the phone seemed pretty knowledgeable on the subject, even going as far as to say the damage probably only resulted in a few bad sectors since the drive is still recognisable and given the chance even still tries to boot (if you want I can go more into detail of my drives problems later), but my only problem is I can't find any real information on these guys, their website looks as basic as stuff I did in highschool (I'll attach a image down below), their facebook shows a few images of some standard equipment (the facebook page was actually region locked to US only until I mentioned it on the phone and they changed it while we were speaking), but that's it. 

 

Essentially I'm wondering if anybody knows anything about them and if it's worth to go with them or if I should keep looking around to see if anybody similarly priced (and closer, I'm in Nova Scotia, they're in California) and more reputable is available. 

 

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4 minutes ago, WillOfTheLand said:

So I've experienced what can be considered a very unfortunate series of events resulting in what I assume is physical damage to my drive and remembered the video linus did with drivesavers, only to realise after some googling they are way outside my price range since I'm unemployed right now and literally everything from legal docs, to my resumes, work from the past, photos of people I wont ever see again, everything is on the drive, which I will need if I want to find work again, so I did some posting on reddit and was actually contacted by one of the staff from west coast data recovery on reddit, who told me to check out their site and give em a call so I did. Now their prices are a bit more reasonable, 299 (US) for data recovery (they said this is more of a average it just depends on how long it takes them to recover the data but 299 is usually the case) and you pay for shipping. 

 

The guy on the phone seemed pretty knowledgeable on the subject, even going as far as to say the damage probably only resulted in a few bad sectors since the drive is still recognisable and given the chance even still tries to boot (if you want I can go more into detail of my drives problems later), but my only problem is I can't find any real information on these guys, their website looks as basic as stuff I did in highschool (I'll attach a image down below), their facebook shows a few images of some standard equipment (the facebook page was actually region locked to US only until I mentioned it on the phone and they changed it while we were speaking), but that's it. 

 

Essentially I'm wondering if anybody knows anything about them and if it's worth to go with them or if I should keep looking around to see if anybody similarly priced (and closer, I'm in Nova Scotia, they're in California) and more reputable is available. 

I live a few hours away from them. 

https://www.yelp.com/biz/west-coast-data-recovery-long-beach

Here are some reviews about their services. I've never dealt with them but they seem to be trustworthy. 

Fine you want the PSU tier list? Have the PSU tier list: https://linustechtips.com/main/topic/1116640-psu-tier-list-40-rev-103/

 

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Hello Will, and fellow Linus tech tip peeps!

   

             A friend of mine saw your post here and let me know about it; I am the person who you spoke with on the phone.

 

              My name is Russell and I am the owner / technician of West Coast Data Recovery. The long story short is that I have been working in the Data Recovery industry for many years and have noticed a shift in the industry from larger more "cumbersome" labs with many employees, engineers and overhead to more localized specialists. Some personal events in my life found me returning to Southern California (Long Beach, specifically) where I am from, and I really wanted to continue doing Data Recovery because it is my passion. So I started up West Coast Data Recovery several months ago and have been trying to breathe life into it since then.

 

              My mission is to try to provide skillful, honest service at the most fair prices possible. I know the website is not 100% optimal, but I needed to focus more of my startup budget on the equipment in order to properly recover peoples data then on smoke, mirrors and shiny buttons. I am certainly no graphics designer by trade, but I am happy that my work is at least high school level! (At least it isn't elementary! lol!) I am sure if I end up growing in success that you will see improvements to the website in the future. I am also working on more content for the businesses social media pages, but as I am just starting up time is a commodity and it can be more difficult then you would expect to find "interesting" recoveries that I can film and document.

 

Thanks again for giving me a call and considering my services, and for bringing that issue with the FB page to my attention. I did not expect for my reach to extend out to other countries so swiftly.

 

Best Regards,

 

Russell Winters

West Coast Data Recovery

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