Can you recommend hard drive recovery service?

[dkkruse]

I have a friend who has a dead laptop hard drive with lots of important pictures/stuff on it. I did a quick search and there are a ton of recovery services out there so has anyone had good luck with any of them?
I back my stuff up, so it has never been an issue for me when my hard drives die.

Thanks!

 

[dedwards]

I've had good luck with OnTrack in several situations at work. We sent a drive in to them and they were able to recover most of the data from it. This was a drive that was physically damaged, so it needed more than just a software tool.

For other situations where the drive just fails, has errors, etc. we've used the EasyRecovery Professional tool to recover them ourselves and it works great.

DE

 

[Pabster]

SpinRite is great and always my first choice.

If there is a physical problem with the drive, you will need a professional to swap out the platters in a clean room. Expensive and should be a last resort.

 

[dkkruse]

Thanks. I should clarify - the HD will not spin up when installed as a secondary drive. The OS will see it, but no data is obtainable.

 

[CDC Mail Guy]

I use GetDataback for NTFS, and I think it works good. I have used it to retrieve info off 6 hard drives so far in the year that I have had it.

Edit for link http://www.runtime.org/

 

[RebateMonger]

dkkruse,

As you are doubtless aware, data recovey from physically damaged hard drives is quite pricey. For good reason.

I usually suggest contacting Ontrack, who've been in the data recovery business for a LONG time. Others here have suggested DriveSavers, who also appear to be reputable.

Most individuals, when they find out how much it's likely to cost, decide that their data isn't worth the price. Hopefully they start backing up things after that.

Businesses don't have much choice when their entire accounting or customer list is on the drive. One client I consulted with paid $15K to recover data from a Windows-software-RAID 5 array that apparently encountered a simultaneous two-drive failure.

 

[MadAmos]

I have used Dave in the past with excellent results and much less than the "big" guys this was also a laptop drive that nothing would recognize. YRMV

Amos

 

[sulanebouxi]

I've used Ontrack before. I had a hard drive that was physically damaged from a head crash and they were able to pull some stuff off. Not everything though. It was just too badly damaged. But yeah, like everyone else has said. This can cost you upwards of $1600 or more if it's physically damaged.