Hard Drive Recovery

[robertwatcher]

I am asking if anyone here from Canada has successfully had a crashed hard drive recovered from any of the companies available in Canada - and who that company was and what the experience dealing with them was like?

I have critical data on a hard drive that fell off of the top of my computer recently  (about 1 1/2 foot drop) and can no longer be accessed. I know that it is very expensive to have done - but that is not an issue as what will be lost is worth far more - - - I just want to have confidence in the company that I will send the drive to as there are so many and different promises and guarantees.

[DarkPenguin]

I don't have an answer to your question.  But if it failed due to trauma that could be an extremely expensive recovery.  Head crashes are a nightmare.  (At least they were 17 years ago when I worked in the recovery field and everything has just gotten smaller since.)

[robertwatcher]

Yes, I was aware that I would probably be looking at $1000 to $3000 for the recovery.

The update is - that I was VERY VERY VERY fortunate to have found out that the hard drive case electronics got damaged in the fall - not the hard drive. A friend of mine (3D animator for gaming and computer techie with tons of networked PC and Mac computer farms running all the time) came to my assistance and suggested that I bring the drive over and have him look at it before I send it away and spend the money. The case appeared to be fine from the look of it - but when he put the bare SATA drive in one of his towers, my data was there. I was one happy guy last night. I ended up buying him a nice little gift of a Raid server box last night for saving my bacon (of I course I bought one for myself too).

Thanks for responding.  

[francois]

Yes, I was aware that I would probably be looking at $1000 to $3000 for the recovery.

The update is - that I was VERY VERY VERY fortunate to have found out that the hard drive case electronics got damaged in the fall - not the hard drive. A friend of mine (3D animator for gaming and computer techie with tons of networked PC and Mac computer farms running all the time) came to my assistance and suggested that I bring the drive over and have him look at it before I send it away and spend the money. The case appeared to be fine from the look of it - but when he put the bare SATA drive in one of his towers, my data was there. I was one happy guy last night. I ended up buying him a nice little gift of a Raid server box last night for saving my bacon (of I course I bought one for myself too).

Thanks for responding.  

Glad to hear that your data is safe now. I only sent an iPod to Drive Savers and they did a great job. It was very expensive (aorund $1500 IIRC) but worth it as the owner of the iPod had all his photos from his 3 month trip to Tibet/China stored on it.

[mbalensiefer]

I would use DIY Datarecovery SOFTWARE in the future (~40.00 for the full version). I have "saved" no less than the contents of five drives with this.  I'll bet you dinner that a drive is 100% recoverable with this if one doesn't hear the grating sound associated with a defunct drive arm.

[MikeKeyW]

Glad to hear you didn't lose your data. Here is a resource I've used that has saved me a few times, I administer 300+ computers for my day job. This comes from Tech Republic:
200 ways to revive a hard drive

[Plekto]

There's also the last resort fix to it sticking...  (and this is a last resort)

I once fixed a drive long enough to get the data off (small drive mind you) by literally opening it up and nudging the drive spindle to get it moving.  Obviously you'd want a dust free room or close to it and do this very quickly as you can only have a typical drive's lid off for a few seconds before dust starts to get on the platters.

the other issue that usually happens in a drop, since all modern drives park their heads when the power is off is to find an identical drive and swap the controller board.  These usually die from excessive heat and the drive bricks itself.  Most modern cases now have a rack of drives in the bottom section with the intake fan blowing air over them for this reason.  Another dirty trick is to remove one of the 3.5" drive bay covers above or below the drive(the side where the controller board faces, not the top of the drive).  this uses the negative pressure in a typical case to pull air over the drive itself.  I've had 300 gig drives that were way too hot to touch end up running at barely over room temperature this way.