Data recovery services... anyone know of one that doesn't cost an arm & a leg?

Heofz

Heofz

Heofz

Soldato
Joined
20 Oct 2002
Posts
3,469
Location
London, UK
Got a dead drive here and would like to have my data recovered but the data is not worth £400-£500 and was wondering if anyone knows someone/somewhere that offers a cheap alternative? E.g. does anyone have a 'clean room' in their basement? lol

fake edit: Any suggestions/advice would be very much appreciated, and don't bother with the "you should've backed up" comments, because I did back up, just not that recently :(
 
I assume you have already tried recovery products or the drive does not actually want to spin up on boot? If not, Stellar Phoenix should do the trick :)
 
thanks but sorry forgot to mention that my drive has a mechanical fault so software won't help much :(

when plugging in, the drive spins up once, makes a couple of clicky noises then spins down again.
 
you could do it manually, if you have ALL the tools, a clean room and an identical but working drive :)
 
Heofz said:
thanks but sorry forgot to mention that my drive has a mechanical fault so software won't help much :(
Click to expand...
If you're trying to slave the drive and getting that result, try something like PuppyOS and boot it from a CD with the drive in the PC.

Puppy loads into the RAM and sometimes will allow you to mount your seemingly knackered hard-drive for just long enough that you can recover your data. I've done it many times for people at work, but your mileage might vary.
 
Heofz said:
I'm not sure what you mean by that, can you plz elaborate?
Click to expand...
Of course.

When I get a drive that's failing to boot up (or not being seen by the PC it is attached to) I'll generally slave it to another system using a drive caddy of some sort. It rarely fixes those drives which have mechanical issues (i.e. a distinct knocking noise) but can be a nice easy fix for some problems.

If slaving the drive doesn't work I'll put it back where it came from and boot the PC using PuppyOS. This should then let me mount the drive for reading data off it and I'll then be able to copy said data to another source. This usually only leaves the really serious mechanical issues.
 
Pack it with silca gel in a jiffy bag when you do that if its valuable

If its working try http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm and spinrite is a decent util.

How did the damage occur, how old is it, etc



Ive had drives that clicked, I turned it on its side and it stopped long enough for me to get the info...
 
Last edited:
silversurfer said:
Pack it with silca gel in a jiffy bag when you do that if its valuable

If its working try http://www.runtime.org/gdb.htm and spinrite is a decent util.

How did the damage occur, how old is it, etc



Ive had drives that clicked, I turned it on its side and it stopped long enough for me to get the info...
Click to expand...
yeah i've used gdb before, tis an awesome little util. This drive is a raptor 150gb, only a couple of years old, must've died when i was away from the pc, cos one minute it was working fine (was my windows install & documents), when i came back to my pc it was stuck in POST trying to pick up the disk so it must've blue screened at some point. I should've tried saving the data right then but instead i tried booting into windows with it and it nearly did a few times but kept blue screening, so i left it trying to boot overnight (stupid decision) and in the morning it seemed to have just got worse. Now, when powering up, it spins up, clicks on, does a little hdd grind then clicks off again.
 
If you have the identical drive then you could try swaping the PCB. It may just be a board error and will allow you to get your stuff off the drive.
 
can recommend www.xirtek.com, they recovered our exchange mailstore when a SCSI drive failed on us a few weeks back, didnt cost a lot and only took them one day

(oh and dont even ask why the mailstore was on a single non backed up scsi drive :rolleyes: )
 
Sweet, just gave xirtek a ring, £95 sounds a helluva lot more appealing than £500 :D

Cheers mrbios :)
 
i stamped on my work hard drive after one day it failed to spin up at all

really nailed it with my foot


plugged in and it booted first time :cool: be working perfectly for a month since


freezer trick is worth a shot
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom