How much does hard drive recovery cost?

[tombo12345]

I just broke another hard drive, and I didn't back stuff up! :bang head:bang head:bang head:bang head:bang head:bang head

I had some rather importan stuff on it, and I know it's my own fault for not backing up, but how much do hard drive recovery places generally charge? It's nothing like it got burned in a fire or anything. I had accidentally banged my PC (No I didn't have sex with it) and the screen started ****ing up and giving strange patterns. I tried putting the HD in another computer, and nothing. At the windows loading screen it restarts. I am willing to pay money for the files to be recovered, but does anybody know how much it generally costs?

[thideras]

Don't boot from the hard drive, that is your problem. Drop it in another computer, boot to the normal hard drive and access it that way.

I doubt the drive is broken at all.

[tombo12345]

That's what i did. The computer won't boot whenever that drive is attached.

If I bought an external enlcosure, would that prevent any diagnostics from being run? Or would I be able to run diagnostics? What i mean by this is, I know for an enclosure to work, it reads data from SATA or IDE or whatever, and then sends through USB. Now if no data is being sent through USB, the computer probably won't even detect the thing, and thus no diagnostics could be run. Or am I wrong?

I would like to do whatever I can before spending the dough, but there were just a few files that I really needed.

[BoT]

i use file scanvanger. it's not free. the personal use lic is about $50.- bucks but it works wonders as long as the drive spins up

otherwise hiring a company to do it can be very costly. i have seen things from $2.50 - 100 bucks per Mb

[tombo12345]

Crap I didnt realise they did it by gigabyte or whatever. It's a 400 gig drive.

And I'm a self proclaimed idiot, I had the boot sequence set up wrong so right now the computer is doing a chkdsk on the hard drive, and now like a 1,000 lines of text a minute are flying through the screen saying "replacing invalid security id with default security id for file xxxx"

Crap I hope this works!

[tombo12345]

Oh ****, I just saw this article, http://www.technologyquestions.com/technology/vista-hardware/235039-chkdsk-vista-32-bit-sp1-corrupting-security-descriptors.html

I think I might have just made the problem a lot worse

[tombo12345]

Ok, I just made the problem worse! I tried plugging it back into the original computer and it looked like it was going to boot up, but then the mouse shows, and you can move the mouse, but it doesn't get past that! It's a black screen of death! Is there any known fix for this at all?

Leave it to microsoft to **** your **** up!

[thideras]

Again, put it in the other computer, skip the check disk (for now) and see if you can read it. DO NOT boot to it.

[tombo12345]

Ok, I did that, and now it says the drive is innacesible. When I click on properties it says there are 0 bytes. The people here http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.vista.har dware_devices&tid=32409fda-43c1-4800-ac2f-5a772f62c91f&cat=&lang=&cr=&sloc=&p=1 have the same problem, and it doesn't look like there's any known fix. I thought chkdsk would FIX my drive not break it, so I let it run for a while, and it did something crazy to my stuff, and now I can't access the drive!

I guess I'll try looking for some diagnostic software now

[xtkxhom3r]

sounds like your drive is dead man... you might have to send it a data recovery company do you really have 400gb of important data in there? or is it just 400gb of music and videos lol....

[tombo12345]

Ok, I bought file scavenger, and it seems to be working for now! I already recovered the most prized files! Thank you so much to whoever suggested that! I know I can always count on you guys when I do something stupid! I love you all!

This is still a huge pain the ass because of all the copying and reformatting about to take place, but thank you all!

[tombo12345]

sounds like your drive is dead man... you might have to send it a data recovery company do you really have 400gb of important data in there? or is it just 400gb of music and videos lol....

lol, no, I'm a musician and I had my music files (programs, music files, sound files) all very important.

[Rider200]

Two things-

Never write to a drive that has a problem and you want the data!

If the drive is new enough you could concevably take the electronics off another drive of the same make and model to get the data.

If the heads hit a platter when you banged the comptuer then that section of the plater is gone, the gouge in the metal and sub strata have destroyed any data that was there.

The only place I know of that will opne the drive, remove the platters and recover your data is Ontrack. They used to charget $100 per MEGA Byte for recovery.

Never do a check disk on a suspect drive!

My experance...

P.S.
Backups do work, maybe save yer a**
SSD's don't have platters or heads...

[SuperMiguel]

try using https://www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm it has recovered data from me on the past it works like a charm

[deathman20]

File Scanvanger... I'll have to remember that. Even does broken RAIDS?!? 0 and 5 wow... damn could of used that one a while ago.

[thideras]

File Scanvanger... I'll have to remember that. Even does broken RAIDS?!? 0 and 5 wow... damn could of used that one a while ago.That is deceptive. Since the RAID card does the striping/mirroring, the computers sees it as a normal disk. There is nothing special the program does for RAID.

[deathman20]

That is deceptive. Since the RAID card does the striping/mirroring, the computers sees it as a normal disk. There is nothing special the program does for RAID.

It handles it but couldn't a program be able to read the data on the drives and try splicing it back together?

I mean they do that in hard drive recovery scenarios. Would be an interesting test, but its not the easiest thing to break a raided drive sometimes.

[thideras]

It handles it but couldn't a program be able to read the data on the drives and try splicing it back together?

I mean they do that in hard drive recovery scenarios. Would be an interesting test, but its not the easiest thing to break a raided drive sometimes.It might be able to if it knows exactly how the RAID card worked. Also, from my understanding, they use the same RAID card when recovering data to make it easier. That is not my profession though, so I'm not sure how accurate that is.

[xtkxhom3r]

there is a program to recover raid arrays i just forgot the name!...

but im glad that program worked for you man now u know to make regular backups take this as your first and last warning :p

[Neuromancer]

I did not know that different raid chip manufacturers used different means of implementing raid. I could understand needing the drivers for the controller chip, but I thought there were standards on that stuff..

Explains quite a bit...

[RideZiLightning]

Ok, I did that, and now it says the drive is innacesible. When I click on properties it says there are 0 bytes. The people here http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.windows.vista.har dware_devices&tid=32409fda-43c1-4800-ac2f-5a772f62c91f&cat=&lang=&cr=&sloc=&p=1 have the same problem, and it doesn't look like there's any known fix. I thought chkdsk would FIX my drive not break it, so I let it run for a while, and it did something crazy to my stuff, and now I can't access the drive!

I guess I'll try looking for some diagnostic software now

What OS is on the PC you are putting it in?

I've run into it a couple times where the security/ownership denies access

It'll say 0 bytes and that the drive or files are inaccessible

I DIDNT WRITE THIS

For simple access problems, the easiest route to take is to take ownership of the files in question. You must be using an account with administrator privileges to do this! To do it, right click on the file/folder that you want to access - and select the "Sharing and Security" menu option. If there is no option for security in this, or the next tab - stop what you're doing and boot your system into Safe Mode (by pressing F8 the moment that Windows starts to load) - then follow these directions there (this has to do with how file sharing is setup on your system).

Once you're in the Security tab for the file/folder that you'd like to take ownership of, scroll down the list until you find the name of the account that you're currently using. Click on it once to highlight it, and then click on the "Advanced" button that's below the list of permissions.

Then, click on the "Owner" tab, click on the name of the account that you're currently in. Then ensure that the box labeled "Replace owner on sub-containers and objects" is checked. Then click on Apply, and then OK. You've now taken ownership of this file/folder and anything below it in the directory structure.

[Albaholic]

there is a program to recover raid arrays i just forgot the name!...

but im glad that program worked for you man now u know to make regular backups take this as your first and last warning :p

You're probably thinking of raid reconstructor . It's been mentioned here before

[UmHelp]

I am going to just throw this out there because to me it is the best solution if your computer still recognizes the drive in the bios.

Boot a linux live-cd that has ddrescue. http://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

After you have written all the data off your disk mount it and have fun with all your precious data. I have recovered lots and lots of data with this tool. It is rock solid and I it has saved my life many of times, plus it is FREE!!!

[I.M.O.G.]

You have good do it yourself options and it sounds like your pretty much set.

I've sent a drive into Ontrack Data recovery and my company paid about 1500 dollars for it. It couldn't be accessed at all, but Ontrack got EVERYTHING back.

[UmHelp]

In that situation you should transplant the platters from one drive to another of the same model then run ddrescue on it. :D I wonder if that would actually work?!?!?11 I would think that those data recovery places do something similar.

[I.M.O.G.]

In that situation you should transplant the platters from one drive to another of the same model then run ddrescue on it. :D I wonder if that would actually work?!?!?11 I would think that those data recovery places do something similar.

Right on.

They do that when necessary, although they have the tools to read the platters without placing them into another drive of the same model. They also have clean-rooms so that no debris gets on the drive and further destroys data.

I actually transfered the controller board on the drive from another good drive of the same model, but it still couldn't be accessed. So in this drive, the platters were good and the controller was good, but something else had mechanically gone wrong. I'm sure it's an easy thing for Ontrack to do since they have the tools and the clean environment, but chances of success for handling the bare platters without damaging them at home are slim to none I would think.

[Junglebizz]

I think I should bookmark this thread. Looks like a lot of good tools that could come in handy if I ever run into similar problems. :clap:

[deathman20]

Right on.

They do that when necessary, although they have the tools to read the platters without placing them into another drive of the same model. They also have clean-rooms so that no debris gets on the drive and further destroys data.

I actually transfered the controller board on the drive from another good drive of the same model, but it still couldn't be accessed. So in this drive, the platters were good and the controller was good, but something else had mechanically gone wrong. I'm sure it's an easy thing for Ontrack to do since they have the tools and the clean environment, but chances of success for handling the bare platters without damaging them at home are slim to none I would think.


I know when I did a window mod on a drive it took time. ALOT of time. Couse it worked for a little bit then failed. After I found out I realized I missed a step. But yes you can take apart the drive but you got to have your place in really nice condition, clean, to do so. Moving the platters from 1 drive to another I doubt it. Unless the spindle comes off in 1 piece which I can't remember if it does.

[I.M.O.G.]

I know when I did a window mod on a drive it took time. ALOT of time. Couse it worked for a little bit then failed. After I found out I realized I missed a step. But yes you can take apart the drive but you got to have your place in really nice condition, clean, to do so. Moving the platters from 1 drive to another I doubt it. Unless the spindle comes off in 1 piece which I can't remember if it does.

I've heard if your opening a drive up, a good place to do so is in your bathroom... Turn the shower on hot so it fogs up the room then let it cool back down. The dust attaches to the water particles then settles to the ground, then you can take your drive in and do the work intended with a minimal amount of particulate floating in the air. Never had a need to try it, but it makes logical sense.

[hitokiri_808]

I've had great success with R-Studio recovering data from working drives. I think it supports RAID recovery, but I never had the need to recover a RAID 0 since I always do backups.

[shawy14]

If you sent it to a company you are looking at a lot of money, we sent one off from work to get the data off somebodys home PC after they formatted over it and it cost the guy £500!!!