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Data Recovery Services
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Person Man
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Sep 19, 2007, 02:18 PM
 
Not sure where to post this, so I'm putting it here. If any of the moderators feel this should go somewhere else, please let me know.

My brother's MacBook hard drive died last night. It was a mechanical failure, and it happened about two weeks out of warranty. He's not one to back up much (unlike me, as I have my data stored on two computers and on several external hard drives, some in different locations), and he lost the pictures he took in Greece last year, having never copied them to his desktop machine.

The drive failed catastrophically, and it will NOT mount. Indeed, it doesn't even show up in Disk Utility, so things like Data Rescue are totally useless. The drive will spin up, make three grinding noises, and then settle into a rhythmic "thunking" sound.

Anyone know of a decent data recovery service that is affordable? As in, not costing $3000? These are not corporate files where $3000 is chump change compared to lost revenue. He would like to get his ~100 MB of Greece pictures back. No more, no less, as everything else is on his desktop machine.

I found one service that seems legit for $289 flat fee, but is there anything else out there? Remember, it has to be a REASONABLE price.
     
Paco500
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Sep 19, 2007, 05:40 PM
 
I can tell you that in over 10 years of IT work, I sent 5 or 6 drives off for damned expensive recovery attempts.

After spending several thousand dollars of company money, we got exactly zero useable files.

YMMV, but personally I wouldn't waste my money.
     
macroy
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Location: Ellicott City, MD
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Sep 19, 2007, 05:46 PM
 
I've used Ontrack in the past. They usually give you a printout of what they can "potentially" retrieve. But since all this was for businesses, cost was not a big factor. Thus, it may go against the very requirement you have for your brother. But giving them a look shouldn't hurt.
.
     
nonhuman
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Sep 19, 2007, 05:53 PM
 
I'm an authorized DriveSavers partner, so if you use my ID# (DS17492) you get a 10% discount on their services (I also get some money out of the deal).

Hard drive data recovery & file recovery, RAID & disk recovery-DriveSavers
     
Person Man  (op)
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Sep 19, 2007, 05:54 PM
 
Originally Posted by Paco500 View Post
YMMV, but personally I wouldn't waste my money.
I have noticed that many places now only charge you if they actually recover data. I wouldn't go with a place that charged tons only to find out the money was spent in vain.
     
nonhuman
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Sep 19, 2007, 05:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by Person Man View Post
I have noticed that many places now only charge you if they actually recover data. I wouldn't go with a place that charged tons only to find out the money was spent in vain.
As far as I know most places do it that way nowadays. I know DriveSavers definitely does, haven't bothered with anyone else.
     
Laminar
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Sep 19, 2007, 06:00 PM
 
I've had drives that won't show up in Disk Utility still partially recover with Diskwarrior or Data Rescue, but it doesn't look likely. It appears that this is a very painful lesson to learn to back up.
     
Doofy
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Sep 19, 2007, 06:04 PM
 
Tech Tool Pro on the USB dongle thingy? Worked for me in the past.
Been inclined to wander... off the beaten track.
That's where there's thunder... and the wind shouts back.
     
   
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