Hard drive crash

[Doug Mc]

My son's computer will not boot up.
He took it to a repair shop and they told him that the hard drive crashed.

I've heard of people that can recover HD data.
Do you know how much of this is successful?
Do you know how much the cost would be?
How do they go about recovering the data anyway?

Thanks,
Doug

 

[DL]

Just google for data recovery, phone and ask eg ontrack data recovery
Usually you only pay if data is recovered.
This is usually successfull, and expensive, but only you know whether the
cost is proportionate
How do they do it? - dont ask, its like asking how do you 'write' winxp
Presumably lesson learnt and we will now backup data, preferably to two
types of media/locations?

 

[Doug Mc]

Thanks.

Just google for data recovery, phone and ask eg ontrack data recovery
Usually you only pay if data is recovered.
This is usually successfull, and expensive, but only you know whether the
cost is proportionate
How do they do it? - dont ask, its like asking how do you 'write' winxp
Presumably lesson learnt and we will now backup data, preferably to two
types of media/locations?

 

[Patrick Keenan]

My son's computer will not boot up.
He took it to a repair shop and they told him that the hard drive crashed.

I've heard of people that can recover HD data.

Yes, there are a number of businesses that do this.

Do you know how much of this is successful?

That depends on the damage to the drive. For me, it's been completely
successful, even from a laptop drive whose electronics fried.

Do you know how much the cost would be?

When I have used these services, prices have ranged (Canadian) from $1000 to
$5000.

How do they go about recovering the data anyway?

This depends on how, exactly, the drive crashed. In some cases, the
platters are removed and placed on new electronics. It's pretty
specialized work.

This is who I have used:
http://www.actionfront.com/

If the drive actually spins up, you *may* be able to use data recovery
software such as r-studio:
http://www.data-recovery-software.net/

You can download and the demo against the crashed drive, which will tell you
what data can be recovered (if any). If the drive cannot spin long enough,
and you can't cool it (I have used ice packs around them for this) to keep
it running just a bit longer, stop. You'll only make things worse.

If it will spin, let r-studio create its list of files (this can take hours)
and save that. If the list of files looks acceptable to you, you can buy
the software, and use the list to get going on recovery right away.

HTH
-pk