Hard disc failure: data recovery services??

[Dr. Strangelove]

my secondary drive failed yesterday evening--the one with photos and music and some minor business stuff.

I contacted drivesavers.com (recommended by dell) and they want $500-$2700 to do the job, probably being over $2000 for 30 gb of pictures and music!

There are other services that offer a flat fee of $279 and there are others that work on contingency--no success, no pay.

Anyone have any experience with theses services? The drive is a WD 80gb and it started clicking last night, continuously, and it is invisible to the computer. I put it in a ext housing and connected it to my mac laptop and no go.

any advice appreciated

John

[stilldking]

I've never used an HDD recovery service, but what they'd be undertaking would be a MAJOR task!
If it started "ticking", that sounds like a head slap. That usually means the read/write heads have been damaged beyond repair (or are certainly on their way to being unusable). I don't see how they could recover the data unless they take the case apart and rebuild it, and that would require a dust and static free environment.

JC

[sweatmark]

I've had a hard disk crash (or inadvertant formatting, or similar) and used the following with good results:

http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

You might give them a call with the symptoms you've described to see what options are worth pursuing.

Good luck!

[Dr. Strangelove]

unfortunately it's a hardware thing, not software, so a software solution won't help. It is not even seen by the computer... like it's not there.

[Biff's R]

I hope you are able to get your info back.

Look into carbonite.com when you get your info back, or you get a new computer.

[rdsmith3]

I have no experience with this, but I wish you luck.

I had a hard drive go on my laptop computer. I have been very anal about backups ever since. I back up my hard drive to two different external hard drives on a regular basis (automatically with Acronis).

Also, for my photos, I write them to DVD and store a set off site (at work).

[Dr. Strangelove]

Look into carbonite.com when you get your info back, or you get a new computer.

Yeah, my brother tells me the same thing. I signed up for it this afternoon.

I found a couple of services that are cheaper--one <$700.

My other brother has his IT guy from work that he rec's, but I suspect a clean room will be necessary.

oh well...