Data Recovery

[magicman1358]

So my 750 Gb hard drive died with about 500 Gb on it. I'm looking for a company that can recover this data for as cheap as possible. I remember on a video that Linus did that referred to a data recovery specialist I think but I don't remember. If anyone knows some fair pricing for data recovery that'll be great. I know data recovery isn't cheap so I'm just looking for the cheapest.

[dalekphalm]

So my 750 Gb hard drive died with about 500 Gb on it. I'm looking for a company that can recover this data for as cheap as possible. I remember on a video that Linus did that referred to a data recovery specialist I think but I don't remember. If anyone knows some fair pricing for data recovery that'll be great. I know data recovery isn't cheap so I'm just looking for the cheapest.

What is on the drive? How much is that data worth to you?

 

Basically any professional data recovery service will cost you a MINIMUM of $2-300. More likely you're looking at $500-1000+.

 

It really depends on the nature of the failure. What failed (controller, port, internal mechanism, physical damage such as shock or fire, etc). If it is just the chipset (Eg: one day it went from fully working to randomly fully dead) then you could attempt a self repair by ordering a replacement chipset board (with matching firmware, revision, etc) from somewhere like eBay, however there is no guarantee that this would even work. *NOTE* this repair is ONLY for the purposes of transferring the data to a new drive.

 

If it's internal physical damage, then it'll be very expensive, as it'll need to be disassembled in a clean room, and then have the magnetic disk physically read using a specialized machine.

 

As for places that do this, where are you located? Would you like to deal with a business with a local office or just through an online vendor?

 

BTW, where is your backup copy?

[magicman1358]

Yea I know I know I should have a back up. Its just I'm a high school student and I don't really have much resources to create a backup. I really want to make a home server with gobs of Tb to back up all the computers but for now. I can't do much. 

[magicman1358]

Another thing I'm trying to transfer everything to another hard drive that I bought. I can hear the disk spinning still but it just won't boot windows for some reason. I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this but I installed windows on the new drive and installed the trial version of Acronis Data Migrator. I have both drives plugged in to separate SATA ports on the motherboard and when I go and turn on the computer it boots off the "dead" drive even though in the bios I have it set so that the new drive is the 1st drive that the system should be booting off of.

 

Any suggestions?

[dalekphalm]

Another thing I'm trying to transfer everything to another hard drive that I bought. I can hear the disk spinning still but it just won't boot windows for some reason. I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this but I installed windows on the new drive and installed the trial version of Acronis Data Migrator. I have both drives plugged in to separate SATA ports on the motherboard and when I go and turn on the computer it boots off the "dead" drive even though in the bios I have it set so that the new drive is the 1st drive that the system should be booting off of.

 

Any suggestions?

In this case, your best chance is to (this is assuming you have access to another computer, the internet, and a burner/usb drive) download a Linux Live CD ISO image and either copy it to a USB drive or burn it to a CD/DVD. Pretty much any Live CD will do (I think the last one I used was Knoppix because it had a lot of good utilities included). Then just boot off of the CD/USB drive and use the included file explorer to see if the old HDD is still accessible. If so then you have two choices:

 

1) Clone the HDD to the new one - I recommend using Clonezilla since it's a bootable Linux LiveCD and doesn't require an OS to run. It has a GUI (though it's pretty rudimentary and ugly), but just make sure you're 100% sure about which drive you select as the source.

 

OR

 

2) Use the File Explorer in the Knoppix LiveCD (Or LiveCD of choice) to just copy whatever documents, pictures, videos, game saves, etc, that you need. If using this method, you'll want to make sure that Windows is ALREADY installed on the New HDD. This is because if you install Windows after copying the files, there is a chance Windows will format the drive upon install, and thus wipe the freshly copied files.

 

As far as backups go, you really don't need a server to do them (Although that's probably the best way if you have multiple computers). I understand being a student means you have limited income, but your files are important. I recommend buying an external USB drive (Something like a Western Digital Mybook or Passport - Whatever's the best price really). Most of them come with bundled backup software to save all your files automatically. Just get a 1TB or 2TB drive, and it'll save you a LOT of hassle and pain in the long run.

 

Maybe ask your parents to buy one and explain that it's needed to backup your computer in case of a crash. In fact, assuming they have computers either, you could convince them to buy it based on the fact that THEIR computers should be getting backed up too. If they won't buy it, then save up your money and buy one yourself ASAP.

[magicman1358]

Yea I get you. Thanks for the tips. One last question. I went to Geek Squad and they said they couldn't read the drive so the only option left is to send it into a data recovery center (which I can't afford at the moment) but the question is if I just leave the drive in a closet or something would a data recovery center be able to still recover the data say like 6 months or so? or would the data somehow deteriorate?

[dalekphalm]

Yea I get you. Thanks for the tips. One last question. I went to Geek Squad and they said they couldn't read the drive so the only option left is to send it into a data recovery center (which I can't afford at the moment) but the question is if I just leave the drive in a closet or something would a data recovery center be able to still recover the data say like 6 months or so? or would the data somehow deteriorate?

Yeah the drive should still be in the same condition in 6 months if it's stored in a dry dark place.

[magicman1358]

Yeah the drive should still be in the same condition in 6 months if it's stored in a dry dark place.

Ok awesome. I'll just leave my hard drive somewhere then and save up to recover the data later. Thanks for all the help dalek!

[swifty7]

boy!!! that must be some pr0n that you need to recover so badly!