Hey guys,

I'm wondering if anyone has any experience dealing with any HDD data recovery companies.  I just experienced mechanical failure on 3 HDD's in the past 2 weeks (2 laptop HDD's and 1 desktop HDD, 4 years of modding data).  I've tested all of the drives, and even had another experienced PC repair friend double check my work, and no luck getting any data off of them using a number of different techniques.  

I'm specifically wondering if anyone has any dealings with the flat rate companies (low flat rate for your data or you don't pay).  I know you have reliability, often times 99% of your data, by going with a well established HDD data recovery company with certified lab, etc., but the prices (generally $500-$2500) aren't exactly something I'm excited about.  If I can get a similar end result for going with one of the smaller (and far cheaper) companies that are still in the process of growing, but are experienced in HDD data recovery I would be much happier going in that direction.  

If anyone has direct experience, or indirect experience (maybe through family or a friend), I'd love to hear about that experience before I make a decision.  Worse case scenario I choose a flat rate company and they can't pull any data off the drive (or data that I don't really need) and damage the drive in the process where another company can no longer work their magic on it and thus I can no longer retrieve that important data OR pay way too much for the same service that another competitor can do it for.  Thanks guys!

-Ridgerunner

Do the drives still spin up? If they do, often times a Linux boot CD can recover/read data from a drive deemed unusable by Windows.

I attempted recovery via Ubuntu as directed on hdd recovery sites, no luck.  I couldn't even force mount the drives.  The seagate has already started to go to making "clicking noises".

Hi ,

Data recovery services become little cheaper these days (due to heavy competition) but I'd recommend you to go with expert services like Stellar or Kroll on Track. My company (we are in USA) used to send drive to Stellar Data Recovery services (Indian data recovery firm) that gives free evaluation to mechanically failed drives and then quote. Based on your budget, you could choose weather to give your hard drive or not. 

The total time taken from sending drives for recovery to receiving another drive with all of our recovered files is somewhere between one to two weeks. They have support as well so you can get in touch with them directly and have your issue discussed. They are pretty good at remote recovery (if that's a possible scenario).

 

Good luck!! 

If you're really ballsy, you could order HDD or the exact same model and replace everything but the platters, generally the platters don't fail and that's where the data is stored. However, that is very advanced and should be done extremely carefully with clean and precise equipment. 

For those that may experience this "situation" in the future, I ended up going with $300 Data Recovery out in Los Angeles, California and they recovered all my files for a flat rate of, you guessed it $300.  Which for those shopping around is a good bargain, normal costs run anywhere from $500-$2,500 for data recovery.  It's always better to backup your data and save the headache, but who would have thought 2 hdd's would fail at the same time?  I plan on backing up 3 or 4 ways from now on instead of backing up hdd to hdd.  Now I can get back to my GTA V mods!

Glad to hear it!

For those that may experience this "situation" in the future, I ended up going with $300 Data Recovery out in Los Angeles, California and they recovered all my files for a flat rate of, you guessed it $300.  Which for those shopping around is a good bargain, normal costs run anywhere from $500-$2,500 for data recovery.  It's always better to backup your data and save the headache, but who would have thought 2 hdd's would fail at the same time?  I plan on backing up 3 or 4 ways from now on instead of backing up hdd to hdd.  Now I can get back to my GTA V mods!

You might want to invest in an SSD and back up from SSD to HDD.  Although you can't really recover an SSD if something goes wrong with it, the chances of anything going wrong have to be so much lower.  If you take scheduled back ups of it onto a HDD, you would hopefully eliminate most of the risk.

For those that may experience this "situation" in the future, I ended up going with $300 Data Recovery out in Los Angeles, California and they recovered all my files for a flat rate of, you guessed it $300.  Which for those shopping around is a good bargain, normal costs run anywhere from $500-$2,500 for data recovery.  It's always better to backup your data and save the headache, but who would have thought 2 hdd's would fail at the same time?  I plan on backing up 3 or 4 ways from now on instead of backing up hdd to hdd.  Now I can get back to my GTA V mods!

You know what my suggestion will be lol DROPBOX!

You might want to invest in an SSD and back up from SSD to HDD.  Although you can't really recover an SSD if something goes wrong with it, the chances of anything going wrong have to be so much lower.  If you take scheduled back ups of it onto a HDD, you would hopefully eliminate most of the risk.

This, plus an online solution like Crashplan or Backblaze. That is all.