Hard Disc Recovery?
 

Does anyone have any details of any reliable companies that try and recover data from defunct hard drives at a reasonable cost. Just had one fail and although most of it was backed up there were a few items I would like to recover.:(

I would suggest buying a good computing magazine, and trying the adverts, the cost may make it not worthwhile though -

there are many companies that will do the job for you. beware it aint cheap. hope your data is important?
bear in mind that the companies will usually be using the same SW that you can find on the net yourself. also they wont gaurantee to get 100% of your data back. so you may end paying a lot for nowt much.

see other threads re the knoppix cd disk. for example.

First thing to try. Stick it in a static bag, then a waterproof bag, and put it in the freezer for 4-6 hours. Not a joke, it revives drives up to 50-70% of the time. (loosens stuck heads, shrinks bearings to free them etc).

Reattach and, if it works, recover your data. Sometimes they´ll continue to work for months or years, other times they´ll fail again when they warm up.

Some recommend putting them inside an aluminium USB caddy and leaving it inside the freezer till the data is saved. Depends if you have one and a USB lead long enough...... :} :}

I've used this software quite successfully http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm and charged my clients an appropriate amount of money :E

Please be a little more specific about how it failed.

The solutions go from partition recovery programs, through ORAC's tried & tested freezer solution (I was doing that with a motherboard about 18 years ago) to a knock from a hammer and onto a proper recovery company with a clean room which should cost a grand.

BOFH

bear in mind that the freezer solution and the drop it on the floor method is a one time only, bite at the cherry.

better to try data recovery methods first. assuming the bios is still recognising the hdd?

Beg to differ, freezer method causes no damage whatsoever for later recovery attempts. := :=

sorry, i omitted the word, usually.

Have used the freezer method before and it usually works.

If the HD does work, do not play around with it but immediately copy the data to another drive or CD and then get a new one.

A colleague has used http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk/, it cost £400. The drives electronics had fried.

Thanks for the suggestions gents. I'll try the freezer tonight. What is a static bag please:) ?

Anti-static bag. The type of bag you get your motherboard, hard disk, video card in, Stops static building up which can ruin electronic components. ordinary plastic tends to build up a charge.

Dont worry if you haven't got one, just earth yourself first, touch a radiator or pipe, and wrap it in some newspaper instead.

Remember the grey bag that the electronic parts for a computer came in? Thats an anti-static bag.

Like ORAC says its not a big deal but if you have one around, use it. Otherwise just be careful and ground yourself before touching anything electronic, do not touch the circuit side of the hard drive and do not touch the terminals, both coming and going out of the freezer.

Then after walking back to the computer, touch something metal (like a desk frame) and the computer case before working on the unit. Those of us who work on computers from time to time have a wrist strap that clips onto the computer frame to ground ourselves.

This may be stating the obvious but often it isn't the HD that has packed up.

I have just had a PC die on me, with "classical" HD failure symptoms. In fact it was a duff motherboard. I bought another (exact same type) MB on Ebay, a new power supply (on Ebay too) for good measure, and replaced the MB and the PSU. Everything is now perfect.

HD data recovery firms are very expensive; a few hundred quid upwards.

A proper backup solution is the only way. I use a DDS4 tape drive; the tapes hold about 13GB each.

So what happened then..........

Sorry Orac,
got called out, just back so tomorrows the day. I'll post how I get on.

Well then, we're still waiting !

No joy unfortunately.

I put the damaged drive into a smartdrive, into the freezer for 24hrs, then connected by firewire to my laptop.
Message 'You have inserted a disk containing no volumes that Mac OS X can read."

Thanks for the ideas guys.

Rgds:oh:

I suggest you use Data Recovery Wizard, which is an easy and convenient tool to recover your lost data, files, folders, ect. And you can know more about this product at: www.easeus.com