How much do profession data recovery companies charge?

  • Thread starter Thread starter BeeBop
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BeeBop

My IBM deskstar 40 gig primary master harddrive died. Weird things
began happening about a week ago. Mostly WinXP started up OK, but
occasionally it wouldn't and it never got past the drive checklist.

I thought it was a mobo problem since it was very old and my deskstar
though 2 years old (from sitting around on a shelf), had few miles on
it.

New memory & 2600 athlon chip was added to the mobo and things seemed
ok for a day or two. Then the problems returned. I did an advanced
check on the drive with the IBM drive check program I d/led, but that
showed the drive to be OK.

Well, it wasn't! Next day at work when I booted up the drive began
making noises, kind of a staccato 1-2-3-4 - - - - - (repeat every 1
second) scratchy sound.

Sometimes the drive wasn't even recognized. Sometimes it was. But
windows wouldn't start.

I had backed up much of my important data earlier. But just before all
this began happenening I was working on a project that was very time
intensive. I need the data back.

Some questions:

1) are there software programs that can help me recover my data? I put
in a new drive (non-IBM !!) and installed WinXP on it and put my IBM
in as primary slave, but windows won't read it (it wants to format it)

2) Is there any hope of recovering my work if I go with a professional
data recovery company?

3) How much do they charge for something like this? All I need is one
or two files, or is it a full recovery of the whole disk kind of
thing?

4) If the pros are the way to go, can anyone recommend any? This is
the first time for me with a problem like this. I don't know where to
begin.

Thanks.
 
Oh, forgot to add:

The bios DOES recognize the drive. IBM's check utility now says there
are errors and asks if I want to reformat the drive.
 
Answering my own question ... from Ontrack:

"An Ontrack Data Recovery Service specialist will be contacting you
shortly to provide you with a customized data recovery service
solution. As a general guideline, a typical price for a recovery
service based on the information you submitted would range from $700
US to $2300 US for our Standard (non-emergency) Service. Actual
pricing will vary based on the media capacity, system type, nature and
severity of the data loss, level of damage, service level and
resources required to recover the data."

Yikes! You can buy an awful lot of back-up software and external
harddrive space for $700-$2300.
 
Previously said:
Answering my own question ... from Ontrack:
Click to expand...
"An Ontrack Data Recovery Service specialist will be contacting you
shortly to provide you with a customized data recovery service
solution. As a general guideline, a typical price for a recovery
service based on the information you submitted would range from $700
US to $2300 US for our Standard (non-emergency) Service. Actual
pricing will vary based on the media capacity, system type, nature and
severity of the data loss, level of damage, service level and
resources required to recover the data."
Click to expand...
Yikes! You can buy an awful lot of back-up software and external
harddrive space for $700-$2300.
Click to expand...

Yes. But not that many recovery engineer hours. Maybe up to 20.

Arno
 
My laptop hard drive died and would not even be recognized in the bios. I
took it to a local computer shop. (you know the type that still has spec
sheets for Epson dot matrix printers in the wall displays.) They charged me
$225 for three hours (1 hour deposit in case they couldn't get anything.) I
brought in a Maxtor USB hard drive for them to put the recovered data on. I
understand they were able to hook the laptop drive to their server, but I
don't know what means they used to extract the files. Most of the documents
and other files came out ok, and the Outlook Express folders, too. Doesn't
look like program files made out as well, but they can be reloaded.

Note that it was not necessary to open the drive case; I would imagine that
would cost much more. You might try someone local first. Keep in mind that
even if they don't open the drive, simply running it could be destructive
and destroy data permanently. If you only need certain files you might ket
lucky, as I did.

Bill
 
4) If the pros are the way to go, can anyone recommend any? This is
the first time for me with a problem like this. I don't know where to
begin.
Click to expand...

Hmmm. Based on your symptoms, you need to ask if it might be more
valuable to repeat that time intensive task rather than spend upwards of
$1000. It sounds like you're dealing with a physical problem, which will
probably require an opening of the drive, with all that entails (white
room, etc.) That's expensive.

If it were a software issue, there are recovery programs and if it is a
simple hardware issue (power falure, control card failure), the
professionals can do it much cheaper. Your's doesn't sound like it will
be simple.


-Tim
 
Get it over to me in the UK and I'll do it for under £100.

You pay all delivery costs.

Odie

odie_ferrous on a hot mail account
 
I suppose you do brain surgery for £100 too.

| Get it over to me in the UK and I'll do it for under £100.
|
| You pay all delivery costs.
|
| Odie
|
| (e-mail address removed) wrote:
| >
| > My IBM deskstar 40 gig primary master harddrive died. Weird things
| > began happening about a week ago. Mostly WinXP started up OK, but
| > occasionally it wouldn't and it never got past the drive checklist.
 
I'd offer to undertake surgery on your brain, Eric - but there needs to
be at least two cells for this.

Odie
 
My IBM deskstar 40 gig primary master harddrive died. Weird things
began happening about a week ago. Mostly WinXP started up OK, but
occasionally it wouldn't and it never got past the drive checklist.

I thought it was a mobo problem since it was very old and my deskstar
though 2 years old (from sitting around on a shelf), had few miles on
it.

New memory & 2600 athlon chip was added to the mobo and things seemed
ok for a day or two. Then the problems returned. I did an advanced
check on the drive with the IBM drive check program I d/led, but that
showed the drive to be OK.

Well, it wasn't! Next day at work when I booted up the drive began
making noises, kind of a staccato 1-2-3-4 - - - - - (repeat every 1
second) scratchy sound.

Sometimes the drive wasn't even recognized. Sometimes it was. But
windows wouldn't start.

I had backed up much of my important data earlier. But just before all
this began happenening I was working on a project that was very time
intensive. I need the data back.

Some questions:

1) are there software programs that can help me recover my data? I put
in a new drive (non-IBM !!) and installed WinXP on it and put my IBM
in as primary slave, but windows won't read it (it wants to format it)

2) Is there any hope of recovering my work if I go with a professional
data recovery company?

3) How much do they charge for something like this? All I need is one
or two files, or is it a full recovery of the whole disk kind of
thing?

4) If the pros are the way to go, can anyone recommend any? This is
the first time for me with a problem like this. I don't know where to
begin.
Click to expand...

The drive is obviously dying, if it isn't dead already.

If the drive is still recognized in the BIOS, then your last chance to recover
the data on it is by cloning the drive and then recover your stuff of the clone.

Don't use the drive until ready for cloning as you are draining what's left of
it to death!

CloneDisk software is available from http://resq.co.il/resq.php and costs $25 to
license.

Regards, Zvi
 
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