Can anyone recommend a place where I can take a dropped hard drive for data recovery in the GTA? There are all kinds of data recovery sites out there, but I'd like to know if anyone has personal experience/recommendations to share

....thewird I'm looking at you.....

 

Does it not spin up? What is wrong with it?

thewird

 

Darryl, I am having a company called Mojeaix do some IT work for me on Monday. They are setting me up with some RAID type backup system. I am sure they do data recovery, or refer to someone reputable. I will ask them for you on Monday.

Charn

 

It's just not your month man

How did you drop it exactly?

 

Certainly not my month and yesterday especially wasn't my day....a few of you know why

It starts spinning and makes the typical clicking sound and after a while it stops spinning altogether....needless to say it's not recognized by the PC that I'm trying to connect it to. It's an old 80 Gb drive that I had in my old desktop and I'd been using it to transfer files via one of these USB setups.

It was right at the end of the day on Friday. I grabbed it by the cable when I picked it up and it unplugged and dropped. Gravity has no mercy.

Thanks for the tips.

 

Was it still powered (running) when you dropped it? If it was, then the heads weren't parked and the platters were spinning, there may be significant physical damage to the platters, and recovery may be only partial, and expensive. If the drive was powered down, it's likely the platters are ok, which will mean less expensive recovery (not to be confused with cheap - low hundreds of dollars vs. high hundreds).

In either case, STOP trying to use the drive immediately to have the best chance of avoiding further damage to the platters, and best chance of recovering your data.

 

It's basically as rx7racerca said, if it was on when you dropped it, the recovery bill is going to be in the $x.xxx range. If it was off you just really need someone to take out the disk and put it in a new drive and it *should* work.

I don't know any company that does recovery since I've never needed to recover a drive. Sorry Daryl.

thewird

 

I think Aaroncake may have posted on having done this in the past. I haven't done it myself, but it you're handy, and have another drive of the same model, it should just involve taking the platters out of the damaged drive and putting them into the good one. It's critical not to get dust or lint on the heads or platters while it's apart, and to not fingerprint, or otherwise touch the platter surfaces.

http://www.wikihow.com/Swap-Hard-Disk-Drive-Platters

Again, this is if the drive was powered down when it dropped. Otherwise, like the referenced site says, the platters likely have physical damage and you're done for do-it-yourself.

 

Thanks guys. Luckily, the drive was off when I dropped it. I think I'll let a professional take care of it.

 

I've had to send drives out for recovery few times. We have had 100% success with Action Front Recovery. They are now owned by Seagate.

Since there is physical damage to the disc, heads or voice coil, it's going to cost some money. $1200 will probably be the minimum unless it is something very simple like a cracked controller board.

Swapping the platters won't recover the data. Since the physical drive is basically valueless, don't touch it if you intend to send it out for recovery.

 

The personal stuff on there is worth every penny and then some....thanks Aaron