Data Recovery/Failed Hard Drive

J W Alexander · From: Reynoldsburg, Ohio, USA

I posted something similar a while back and have since discovered that a simple Western Digital 40gb HD would cost upwards of $3000 if someone like Seagate, etc is to attempt this process. I just have to believe there is someone somewhere doing this as reliabily and a whole lot less expensive too!

I'm convinced the HD discs need to be placed into a known working unit which bypasses all the diagnostic and attempts at recovery---basically a pre-emptive move in order to save time. If anyone was any ideas short of shelling out $3k for my data recovery I'd sure appreciate the advice. I KNOW it's all about how much is the data worth to me but geeesh----fair is fair!!

Thanks all---I appreciate your help or experience!

PS: Recovery via a professional organization is my only option--I've tried EVERY thing else here at home.

J W

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

The data companies "gotcha". If you must have data recovery you are going to pay for it. I don't know about 3K, I remember seeing an article about some companies at one time (I have no idea who or where they are)but they were generally under 1K.

But, the kicker is the data you want may still not be recoverable. Depending on where or how the drive failed some sectors may not be recoverable at all and that may be where the data or some of your data is.

Michael Barone · From: Downingtown, Pennsylvania

Does your BIOS recognize the drive? If so, try putting it in a computer as a slave, or secondary drive. Observe anti-static precautions, use a grounded wrist strap. Transport the drive in an anti-static bag. Once it boots up from it's normal boot drive, see if it appears and try to read the files.

If you can't get to this point, I have a suggestion, but it's a gamble. Research your local post-secondary technical schools.

Graduates from my high school program have reported to me that a particular local post-secondary school made a make-shift clean room by hanging plastic from the ceiling and sucking out the dust in a 8'x 8' area. I was told they routinely teach students there how to disassemble a HD carefully, replace the platters, power it up, and recover data. The success rate I am also told is about 60%. The platters and HD used in the experiment are no good after use, successful or not. You only get one shot, with 5-3 odds. After all it's a school.

There may be a school or college in your area equipped better than this. If you find one, I would guess that they would try to recover your data for a nominal donation.

A wild idea, but you never know.

Mike

J W Alexander · From: Reynoldsburg, Ohio, USA

I've considered this very thing myself and having dismantled more than a few other failed hard drives scavenged from old PC's I can see it's NOT an easy thing to do properly. I have a very good and long base in electronics as well as most things mechanical which has it's own problems with thinking "oh, it CAN'T be THAT difficult......".

I've not yet installed it as a slave unit in hopes of not further damaging the discs themselves. This might be something I will try--not sure when though.

What I have to recover is personal stories and photos along with technical drawings. Most of this could be re-constructed but it would be much more simple to have the existing data recovered. The student project sounds interesting but not for my data! Ha Ha

Michael Barone · From: Downingtown, Pennsylvania

Another thought. If the drive reads but fails soon after, put it in the refrigerator for about 4 hours. Then immediately cable it up and try it. It worked for us on 2 occasions. You have to hurry though, in copying the data!

Mike

J W Alexander · From: Reynoldsburg, Ohio, USA

Forgot this which might be pertinent: When the drive first failed I would get the "failed IDE device" on the boot up page. Funny thing is there was a second 13gb HD that also failed at the same time. A new HD was installed and is working fine now.

I don't know whether those events are co-incidental but it still puzzles me. The idea about cooling it makes sense but I'm hoping there is a less risky way to do this. Less expensive on the professional recovery, too!

Wiz Feinberg · From: Mid-Michigan, USA

J.W;
On 9 July, 2006 I replied to your original request for help with this information and link:

quote:

If you can't afford Ontrack or DriveSavers, you may want to check out http://www.gillware.com/ who advertise that they will recover data from a dead drive for only $389.00. If they are unable to recover your data there is no charge.

Did you followup on that info? How much do they ask to recover and burn data to a new drive?

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J W Alexander · From: Reynoldsburg, Ohio, USA

The saga continues.......

I've contacted a few of the recovery services and am somewhat narrowing my eventual choice to a few. My failed drive is a Western Digital (WD) so on a whim visited their site to see if they offered support or recovery. Two services are prominent so I contacted one, finding this:

Western Digital authorizes several companies to repair or attempt data recovery without affecting the warranty if that is still in effect. Recovered data is placed on an external hard drive unit that is included in the final cost of recovery. Additionally, there is a 10% savings applied to all services on a WD drive.

The preliminary diagnosis over the phone of my unit suggests it will require a trip to their clean room which is $300 additional to an approximate cost of $289 for most recovery work. They perform no acutual repair after in-house inspection and diagnosis until authorized. Turn around time is about one week from time of receipt which I didn't think unreasonable at all.

There is also a "cap" of $1800 on very complex drives or problems which is far less than the $3000 "approximate" cost Seagate quoted me for the same service.

I will add during my first post about this same failed drive there were a few "home remedies" which I discussed with the service technician. After laughing a bit he shared once a problem is detected shutting the drive down and returning it for recovery ASAP is the best way. Other remedies tend to make the problem worse, sometimes destroying information that would have otherwise been easily recoverable.

My initial thoughts that $300 was very expensive have been tempered by the staggering $2000-3000 quote from Seagate---now I'm thinking the estimate of "only $700" is looking pretty darned fair! Ha Ha

I'll post more to this if it interests anyone. It might be informative.

Thanks again

J W

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