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So i decided today to buy some HDDs to start properly backing up everything i do (Photos), bought two new 500gb hdds and an external enclosure to go with my current EC, got home removed the current 250gb seagate hdd from the EC and put the two new 500GBs in the 2 ECs then decided i wanted to put the old 250gb (which has all my stuff) in to a bay in the tower, longer story short the 250gb doesnt power up, tried it on all ECs and in the desktop and nothing, i have taken to http://www.datarecovery.com.au/ who quoted anywhere from 900 - 2000

so anyone know anywhere who can recover the data?

any help would be so appreciated as everything to do with my business (which i just started) was on the drive i know i know but thats why i got the HDDs today to prevent this.

Doesn't power up or doesn't spin up?

You can always give it the technical slap (I mean tap) whilst applying power to see if you can get it kickstarted. Has happened to me on more than one occasion other than that you would be looking at a hefty bill to get the data recovered no matter where you went.

This is the reason that all of my stuff is set up in RAID 1, and I use multiple RAID 1 devices (i.e. pair of disks for photos, another pair in a separate RAID 1 for financial data, and so on, I run six disks in total) to hold different things and run tape backup of our finance stuff.

Best of luck Michael.

the guy i took it to is a motorspor nut so i am hoping he will either come back with a reasonable quote or i can do some bartering with photos last resort ill do as you suggested and another site suggested (similar suggestion) but i really need the data i just cant believe i didnt back it up before i started moving it all around

thanks brett

900 to 2000 is pretty cheap for decent data recovery.

If the drive just has a motor or board problem it's usually pretty cheap. (sounds like your problem)

Platter damage is when the costs really start racking up.

dviv wrote:900 to 2000 is pretty cheap for decent data recovery.

If the drive just has a motor or board problem it's usually pretty cheap. (sounds like your problem)

Platter damage is when the costs really start racking up.

im hoping so, any idea as to what that would cost?

How long is a piece of string?

If it's a motor or board you'd be up for the cost of an identical drive (to get replacement parts) plus the labour to replace them and then put the data onto another drive/DVD's. Labour could be anywhere between $100 and $500 an hour.

They don't normally break it down like that though - usually you just get a total that makes you choke then cry.

yeah thats what im not looking forward to

I still have a 120Gb drive here from about 2005 that I was quoted $2,800 to recover the data from... (that was no guarantee of recovery, but you still have to pay...) stuff that..

I am waiting until the costs comes down DRAMATICALLY..

I valued the photos on the drive at about $2,000 in lost sales - so until it REALLY becomes viable - it's makes a great paperweight...

problem is it had more than just photos, had all my business docs, again my stupidity for not backing it up on the fly

Why oh why do people only start doing backups AFTER they have been burnt badly?

I have been out of the game too long to offer specific suggestions but this process is and always will be expensive as it is very labour intensive

The most common failure on a HDD is a head crash. This destroys the structure that reads the data, and it must be replaced, then aligned to match the existing data. No easy task, and it needs to be done in a clean room. The crash site itself will create turbulence that may then produce a subsequent head crash as the heads actually fly over the surface of the platter and turbulence will create oscillations in the motion which...

When they crash, the heads often skip over the surface creating multiple damage sites on the platter.

So we now have a rebuilt drive. Now we need to find the data. If you're lucky, the directory structure will be intact, so it will be s simple process from there, except of course for the places where the crash happened. That's gone forever. If you're unlucky, the crash wiped out the directory structure and you need to sift through the entire drive looking for fragment you can piece together. Imagine a giant jigsaw where all the pieces are just random squiggles.

The only crash I was personally involved in recovering data was a "price is no object" situation. There were 5 years design data on the disk and no backup was taken in the period. It was only a 50Mb drive (it was a long time ago!), but the directory was creamed. we had one person working on it full time for 3 months, with others assisting at times. We eventually recovered around 70% of the data on the disk. We charged the customer around $100,000, and they were over the moon with the price and the results. If they had a backup, they would have had the data back in minutes, and at virtually no cost.

MSF wrote:I am waiting until the costs comes down DRAMATICALLY..

Unfortunately, not gonna happen. As 90% or more of the cost is labour, if anything it's going to get more expensive.

Assuming the drive still spins up and reads the platters, it might be worth trying a software solution.

Have you tried the freezer trick? sometimes with a dead/dying hard drive you stick it in the freezer for a while and plug it in it'll spin up and give you enough time to copy the data off before it dies.

Worth a shot...data recovery is not cheap. A work's laptop drive died and I was quoted $500 to inspect and recovery charges would be on top of that. Data wasn't really worth the effort so didn't bother.

I rest easy knowing that if my many drives fail I don't care too much as most of the data is not super critical (although i will cry).

mickey wrote:Have you tried the freezer trick? sometimes with a dead/dying hard drive you stick it in the freezer for a while and plug it in it'll spin up and give you enough time to copy the data off before it dies.

Worth a shot...data recovery is not cheap. A work's laptop drive died and I was quoted $500 to inspect and recovery charges would be on top of that. Data wasn't really worth the effort so didn't bother.

I rest easy knowing that if my many drives fail I don't care too much as most of the data is not super critical (although i will cry).

I've done the freezer trick several times, and as crazy as it sounds, it's worked for me!! It's given me enough time(only just at times) to fire up the drive and copy all of the data off before it's crashed into a heap and died a rather nasty death... but I was able to recover the users data!!

Disk space is soooooooooo cheap at the moment!! If you don't already have a backup system in place, you will regret it later because it's a matter of when, not if!!

Shorty

the circuit board had blown and also needed a firmware install, all up $600 + a photo of the guys car and a new HDD, live and learn

thx for all the advise