data recovery service??

[Locals Find!]

What programs did you use? Thanks

The ones that worked best were Recuva & Restoration those were both Freely available I was told. Salvage data was another program suggested but ended up not needing to use. Its designed for recovering drives wiped by viruses etc.. here is a link I was given to their site to purchase http://www.salvagedata.com/recovery-software/salvage-windows-fat-ntfs/

 

[RJ California]

I use Carbonite Premium on 3 computers for offsite constant backup, plus I have a server in the office which backs up those 3 computers every night automatically, plus 2 of those computers are ghosting to external drives on a constant basis. And I still worry! Data loss can be the most debilitating occurrence for any business. Before my overkill I had two separate crashes that cost me several months of lost work.

Look into Carbonite and Mozy as a few options for offsite continuous backup. Hopefully you get your data back and this will be nothing more than a good lesson.

 

[ruckusman]

Here's a good reason to be nice to Linux Gurus, there's a program that can recover data from damaged drives - dd_rescue

It can take several days to recover all recoverable data, but it'll get it if possible
Next stage is the hardware level recovery which can get expensive as you've discovered

peace out

 

[TresL]

+1, I use a Linux boot disc that has several programs for issues like this.

 

[visual800]

3-4 backups of the backups lol...if one crashes just toss it and go on! I have been where oyu are sir and its sickening and gut wrenching but one hell of a lesson

 

[signswi]

DO NOT PUT IT INTO THE FREEZER

That is a LAST RESORT for a specific type of error and will make any further recovery impossible! The platters will get condensation on them and corrode as they thaw and you'll be done.

Recuva is a nice program (for a free offering it's great), but I'm a fan of R-Studio personally and it has variants for every filesystem type. Prefer it to dd_rescue.

Glad you got most of your data back. Get an account at crashplan.com immediately and remember that external drives are the absolute worst place you can keep originals.

 

[Malkin]

I think the freezer trick is usually reserved for drives that are nearly dead due to overheating. I would heed the advice above ↑↑

 

[signswi]

The cold can change the magnetic properties of the platter a bit and sometimes let you past troublesome sectors but don't do it, ever.

 

[Techman]

DO NOT PUT IT INTO THE FREEZER

The cold freezer is used for the drive with stuck bearings.
The freezer is Not for lost format or head damage or any other recovery attempts.

All other ideas about the freezer tricks are pure speculation.

The linux trick is a good one. In fact it is one used by a number of recovery programs wher you boot using a recovery disk. But good old DOS works very well too.

I just used an old DOS technique to get a dead lappy into the restore mode by setting a path to the restore partition..

 

[David Wright]

Just last month my 1 and half year old Dell system's drive just went cold. No warning signs, clicking ever. System couldn't even see it anymore, no more spinning up to even tell me I had a bad drive. Consequentially there was no way to even try to read it.

Dell did replace it with no charge so that was good. It did get me thinking that they knew there are issues with these drives. I am told that the larger drives do not last like previous ones.

 

[phototec]

I thought I had them. I had copied over the data the old fashioned way of opening both drives and moving the files over using copy and paste.

I don't have any backup software I do everything myself painstakingly and now I really wish I had used a backup software also.

Yes, when you get the bill for recovering your data, it will be over $1000 at least.

Live an learn, but with all the info on this site, you should have already known this.

Also, the recovery topics has been covered many times on here, try the SEARCH function.

http://www.signs101.com/forums/showthread.php?t=56096


http://www.datarecoverylabs.com/index.aspx?agent=google&k=DR


http://data-recovery-software-review.toptenreviews.com/

 

[round man]

the fall and resultant crash to the floor may have just damaged the enclosure,...first thing I would do it take the enclosure apart and test the drive itself with a usb cable adapter. the one I use has two ide pin arrays and a slot for a sata plug,...when used on full size drives I have to use a separate power supply with a molex/sata plug to power the drive,...it also works by it self on smaller laptop low voltage drives, it is a great tool for checking out harddrives,...my bet here is damage to the enclosure and not the drive,...

edited to add ,...many times I have had a drive clicking like a bag of popcorn and still usable long enough to recover most of the data,..I've seen the clicking caused by a bad connection also,....

 

[signswi]

the fall and resultant crash to the floor may have just damaged the enclosure,...first thing I would do it take the enclosure apart and test the drive itself with a usb cable adapter. the one I use has two ide pin arrays and a slot for a sata plug,...when used on full size drives I have to use a separate power supply with a molex/sata plug to power the drive,...it also works by it self on smaller laptop low voltage drives, it is a great tool for checking out harddrives,...my bet here is damage to the enclosure and not the drive,...

It was running, odds are good that the head crashed. Techman the cold CAN change the platter magnetically enough to skip past a few sectors beyond the stuck bearings issue but seriously I'm not sure why I'm bringing it up since I'm 100% against the technique .

Here are some good recovery CDs if anyone gets in this situation:

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
http://www.ubcd4win.com/

 

[Locals Find!]

Just wanted to update everyone I found a service to repair the drive and recover data for around $500.

Secondly I am looking into some portable hard drive options that are drop resistant up to 3 meters. (Will post the options I find and research)

Lastly, I am investing more into my offsite backups and purchasing some automatic backup software to feed into them. Mine were seriously outdated and basically useless.

I am also going to be searching for a small affordable server or building my own to handle to make my backups copy to 5 separate drives. I have an appointment later with my Computer Repair customer who says he has a few options for me from a now closed law firm. I need to do some research on this option. I have also heard something about RAID drive configurations. I have to admit I don't know much about any of this yet. If anyone can share that would be great.

I also found out some interesting information from a few of the repair services that there is insurance available for intellectual property damage. According to them hard drive recovery service may be covered under some home owners or renters policies. I am calling my agent to discuss this with her to see if I am covered or if I need to purchase additional insurance for the future.

As I find out more I will share here so everyone will have the information to help avoid my costly mistake.

 

[signswi]

Drop a few bills, buy a Synology NAS and stock it with big arse drives in RAID 5 or 6, backup everything to Amazon S3 on a constant drip basis. Boom, now you have no need to have that meeting with your computer guy. We've had a dozen threads on this recently full of good info.

 

[Locals Find!]

Drop a few bills, buy a Synology NAS and stock it with big arse drives in RAID 5 or 6, backup everything to Amazon S3 on a constant drip basis. Boom, now you have no need to have that meeting with your computer guy. We've had a dozen threads on this recently full of good info.

Thanks for info. I just forwarded this all over to him. He said he can put it all together for me. Which I like. Should have me up and running in couple of days. Thanks for the tip.

I also, just purchased an online file folder from Domainspricedright.com my host and registar and threw copies of my artwork files into my amazon cloud drive account. So pretty soon my backups will have backups and I will have redundant manual backups on the cloud.

Now all thats left is for me to find a few portable drives for traveling and I will never have to have that a$$hole puckering feeling again when a drive falls to the floor or have to deal with the not so good feeling of thinking I just lost everything. Ever Again.

 

[Techman]

As for freezing a drive,, That was a trick used long ago for a one time very quick attempt to get the drive re-spinning only for a stuck platter only. Not for any other reason. But most modern drive systems have fluid (is why we do not hear them running any more) bearings and they will freeze making a stuck drive even worse. I am surprised no one caught this little tidbit and mentioned it.

Another tidbit. It is said that a drive will lose its format and the magnetic particles to lose their orientation power. Mistaken. Using the drive actually reinforces the orientation.

 

[grafixemporium]

I have used Dataretrieval.com in the past. The last drive I sent was completely dead. No signs of life at all. They are located here in Houston, so that helped to speed up the process. Basically you send in your drive along with a list of the most important files extensions to retrieve and the time frame which you need it. The quicker you need it, the more it costs. The more data you have, the more it costs. Overall, the pricing was very fair. The total bill was just under $1500. Although it was only about 60gigs worth of data.

Contact Michael Dcruz (michael.d@dataretrieval.com) and he will take care of you.

Good luck!

Andrew