[CHepler]

First time posting here, and by no means any kind of an authority on anything computer related so take it easy on me.

It seems the hard drive on my old Dell has died. The story of it's death is another post and would involve the mentioning of Comcast. I won't go in to it right now.

I am told that recovery of my data may be possible. A price of 400-1500 dollars was mentioned...depending on what it takes to get it, IF it can be retrieved. Evaluation is free. Anybody ever had to do this? If so, who did you use or who do you recommend? Any sugggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

 

[corey_freerider]

maybe try swapping the hard drive into a different computer... or maybe try a knoppix boot up disc. < that might not be very benifitial, but its worth a try. i had to do it once. otherwise im sure some one here will have some sort of advice for you. hope i was at least a tad bit helpful.

 

[SkaredShtles]

Spill it - how did Comcast cause your hard drive to die? I need to know...

Oh - and as far as your data on your disk drive: just restore your data from your backups.

 

[CHepler]

Didn't say they caused it. It just so happened that it died as he was installing Comcast software. Comcast tech- "I've never seen that happen before". Figures, just my luck. They accept no blame what-so-ever. The geeksquad says there is a possibility something he did could have caused it. I won't try to explain what I was told, as I mentioned, I'm no expert. Comcast did refund the $25.00 installation fee though. So I got that going for me.

Main thing now is my data.

[just restore your data from your backups/QUOTE] Backups, yeah that would have been a great idea. Unforntunately I didn't backup as often as I should have.
www.salvagedata.com looks like a possibility

 

[beglobal]

maybe try swapping the hard drive into a different computer... or maybe try a knoppix boot up disc. < that might not be very benifitial, but its worth a try. i had to do it once. otherwise im sure some one here will have some sort of advice for you. hope i was at least a tad bit helpful.

I´m sure it will help... I´ve done it once too... and worked out ok!!

 

[Transcend]

Data salvage houses cost LOTS of money, but depending what you have on the drive it can be worth it. I had a mission critical drive restored for work a few years ago, it was well worth the $1800 it cost.

The comcast software probably had nothing whatsoever to do with the drive dying, they die, it happens. with HDDs it isn't a question of if it will crash, but a question of when. There is a a half dozen or so thin platters in the drive spinning at 7200 rpm with a few hundred microns between it and the drive head. Things are bound to go wrong at some point.

 

[SkaredShtles]

<snip>
Main thing now is my data. Backups, yeah that would have been a great idea. Unforntunately I didn't backup as often as I should have.

Bummer dude. Are you mentally prepared to spend a bunch of money and have them tell you the data is inaccesible? Because that is a possibility at this point.

 

[CHepler]

If I send it to the guys in the link I posted above they will tell me whether the data is accessible or not for free.
The price is dependent on what has to be done to get it. That's where the $400.00-$1500.00 was mentioned. So if they can access it at all is when I have to start thinking of a value to put on my info.

Transcend, I realize drives die. Are you of the opinion that nothing the CC tech could have done would have caused that. Because I have heard differently. Not looking to suck any dollars from them on this, just don't like to hear someone divert blame towards everything under the sun and take no responsibility for their own actions.(Comcast tech) I was not at home for this install so I can't speak first hand. I do know my wife was on the computer an hour before he got here. I have been told a hard drive will show signs before crashing. (slow downs, excessive noise, even shut downs and restarts) Mine had not been showing any of these apparent symtoms. Like I say, not an expert nor do I play one on TV or the internet.

 

[Full Trucker]

I also just had a hard drive mechanically fail, like this morning, as a matter of fact. Less than 6 hours ago. My main laptop with all my client files and work on it. No backup. Yeah, I won't be doing THAT again, gonna pick up a FireWire external HD today and possibly some backup software. Boo to this, what a hassle.

Anyways, it was recommended to me that I check out www.drivesavers.com but after talking with both them and the folks at www.salvagedata.com I am inclined to go with Salvage Data. Why? Their pricing seemed to be more grounded in reality, actually. Drive Savers said they're pricing depends on how much of the data they would be able to recover, whereas Salvage Data bases their final pricing on how complex and involved the recovery ends up being. This makes more sense to me, rather than the Drive Savers scenario of "Heck yeah, we plugged it in to the most common machine we got here in the office, and in 30 minutes we had all of your data... that'll be $5,000". Boo to that.

Anyone else have any other suggestions of where to possible send this drive? I was given the number of a Denver local company called Digital Medix taht might be able to help as well. 1-866-344-6339 if anyone needs it.

 

[binary visions]

Transcend, I realize drives die. Are you of the opinion that nothing the CC tech could have done would have caused that. Because I have heard differently. Not looking to suck any dollars from them on this, just don't like to hear someone divert blame towards everything under the sun and take no responsibility for their own actions.

I've done a lot of helpdesk work, been in the industry for a while, and know a lot about systems. Frankly, your "geek squad" guy might have been an idiot or a highly knowledgable person - places like Best Buy don't exactly have rigerous hiring guidelines and a lot of the people that work there are morons. I applied there when I was kinda desperate for a job last year. Didn't take the position they offered me, but I saw enough of the employees and their hiring guidelines to know that you're not talking to geniuses.

I highly doubt the Comcast tech had anything to do with your drive failure. There is extremely little that he could have done to cause it to fail short of physically damaging the drive itself by kicking it or something. The installation of software doesn't just cause drives to roll over dead.

So.. In all of this, you've never mentioned if you've actually tried to plug this drive in as a secondary drive and see if all your data is still there. I assume it was your primary drive that died (the one with the operating system on it), and by "died" you mean "it won't boot"? Have you plugged it into a friend's machine or another computer at home to see if it will boot as a secondary drive?

 

[11johnp]

I had a failed drive with a ton of pictures and videos on it. I sent it to www.filesaversdatarecovery.com and they recovered everything. I went with them because their price was the best and found out that they also had great service. I highly recommend them.