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Thread: Data Recovery

  1. #1

    Data Recovery

    Greetings all,

    I have an external hard disk which has developed problems and its data is no longer readable in windows. Does anyone know a good data recovery service that is not too expensive.

    Many thanks,
    Dominic Rouse

    "Almost everything is art. Almost nothing is fine art."


  2. #2

    Join Date
    Nov 2008
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    Atlanta, GA
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    669

    Re: Data Recovery

    The first thing to try is to move the hard drive to a different housing. Often it's the housing circuitry that's bad.

  3. #3
    Downstairs
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    Feb 2008
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    Italy
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    1,449

    Re: Data Recovery

    I've had that problem twice. The first time, a professional data recovery lab recovered 5 images out of 70 at a cost of 3000 Euro. The second time I got the 'Disk Doctors Data Recovery' program for $170.- and did it myself. I lost only 10 images out of 120.
    It took me two days to choose that program out of a clamour of greedy touters.
    It is an expensive one-shot remedy. By the time (touch wood) of the next crash, my OS and the program will be out of date.

  4. #4
    jp's Avatar
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    May 2009
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    Maine
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    Re: Data Recovery

    At my computer shop, they try accessing it with a linux computer to get the data off, and if that's not successful, they boot spinrite and use that to work around the bad parts. If that's not good, they put the drive in the freezer and try using it cold. Best prevention is to have important stuff backed up, and also to use quality hard drives (not lacie, hitachi, maxtor, etc..)

  5. #5
    Richard M. Coda
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    Re: Data Recovery

    Data Doctors (AZ) cost me $3000 a couple of years ago for 95% recovery. Hard disks are so cheap now that I always buy two identical units and back the main drive up every night. A couple of hundred dollars is much cheaper than $3k.
    Photographs by Richard M. Coda
    my blog
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  6. #6

    Join Date
    Jul 2007
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    Re: Data Recovery

    Just a year ago I had a similar problem. Now I back up the internal hard drive using two separately connected external drives about once a month. But I'm only up to about 300 GB of photo data so far. The long term accessibility of the data is more of a concern.

    Nate Potter, Austin TX.

  7. #7

    Re: Data Recovery

    Thanks for all the helpful replies.
    Dominic Rouse

    "Almost everything is art. Almost nothing is fine art."


  8. #8
    Camera Antipodea Richard Mahoney's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Oxford, New Zealand
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    281

    Re: Data Recovery

    Dear Dominic,

    Quote Originally Posted by digidom View Post
    Thanks for all the helpful replies.
    There's an old saying about all this -- `There are only two types of disk: those that are dead; and those about to die.'' This means that one has no option but to plan for disk failure. I simply cannot afford to loose material so have multiple copies -- local and remote -- of everything that matters. This starts with the main server -- RAID 1 with automatic failover and hot swap drives (decent HP SCSI), backed up to a local secondary `retired' server, backed up to a decent provider (Joyent), encrypted and backed up to Amazon S3. Server grade disks remain expensive, but I've found that they are only needed locally. For the rest, bandwidth and `cloud' storage are inexpensive.

    Kind regards,

    Richard
    Richard Mahoney
    M: +64-21-064-0216 T: +64-3-312-1699 E: contact@indica-et-buddhica.com

  9. #9

    Join Date
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    Re: Data Recovery

    Richard, I think you are pretty safe! Of course that assumes you don't change your operating system, lose your encryption software or die.

    Nate Potter, Austin TX.

  10. #10

    Join Date
    Dec 2001
    Location
    Chapel Hill NC
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    321

    Re: Data Recovery

    Dominic,

    I'll echo what Jim suggested. My 1.5 TGB external drive bit the dust. It was an OEM Western Digital drive and I installed it in a 3rd party housing. Before taking it to the computer shop I decided to just put in in a bay on the computer and test it on boot up. It worked just fine. Went our and bought a fan cooled case from NewEgg for $34. By the way, I recommend Acronis back up software - used it for years and it always came through.

    Mike

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