Data recovery services?

[bgary]

I have an external hard-drive that has started to barf. When it powers on, it tries to spin up a few times, then shuts down. No nasty grinding noises, just doesn't ever spin up and appear as a viable drive.

I'm not *entirely* sure what all is on the drive. I have it labelled as a "backup" drive... it has a few years worth of backups on it. Unfortunately, it is the only copy of those backups (stupid me, I didn't think to back up the backup drive). Net result is, there's probably some benign data, some junk... and some personal info.

I'd kinda like to get the data back, if for no other reason than so I know what I'm throwing out. But I'm nervous about sending it off to a data-recovery service to see what they can do. Would really hate to see personal stuff show up on the net, or identity-theft show up in my credit report. There are a couple of companyies out there who say they will recover the data - for somewhere between 300-700 bucks - which might be worth it *if* I can be convinced it is secure and private.

Anyone have *good* experiences with a particular hard-drive recovery service?

[edison]

sometime on old hard drive if you rotate them gently, then power them up, you'll might get lucky.

[bgary]

sometime on old hard drive if you rotate them gently, then power them up, you'll might get lucky.

Yeah, thanks. I have tried all the "normal" things: gentle wiggles and rolls, different controller, different power-supply, putting it in different computer, etc. (I'm a geek). I'm of the belief that this drive needs to be opened up to get the data off, and that's not a job I'm equipped to do.

[CocoBolo]

Ontrack has recovered the contents of several drives for me, I work in IT&S. The average bill has been about $2500.00 in each incident.

[Jonathan Taliani]

Ontrack has recovered the contents of several drives for me, I work in IT&S. The average bill has been about $2500.00 in each incident.

Wow! Is that a typo? If not, what amount of data recovery for that price tag?

[Graham Smith]

OnTrack can recover files from disks that have been though fire and flood. They basically disassemble the drive and move the platters to another drive.

It may be that the drive controller in the external drive is shot. Seagate used to have a free sofware program that could diagnose hard drive problems - might be worth a look.

But if the drive won't even mount, you may have a big problem. You may need to check locally to see if there is a shop that can take the drive out of the external enclosure and plug it into a different controller and see if it will spin up.

[jmurch]

I'd get a new external housing for whatever size/interface type the drive is and try that before anything else. The drive itself may not be bad.

Jeff

[-JQ-]

Ontrack has recovered the contents of several drives for me, I work in IT&S. The average bill has been about $2500.00 in each incident.

Wow! Is that a typo? If not, what amount of data recovery for that price tag?

+1 Ontrack

unfortunately I've had to use them too for work. $2500 isn't too bad

OK - this will sounds like an "old nerds-tale" but...put the drive in the freezer over night in a double freezer bag and takeout in the am and mount it up. You may have to repeat the procedure until you get all of your data copied off, backed up etc.

Be sure to post your results.

[Merlin Orr]

PM me. I have a guy who is Extremely reasonable......

[bgary]

OK - this will sounds like an "old nerds-tale" but...put the drive in the freezer over night in a double freezer bag and takeout in the am and mount it up. You may have to repeat the procedure until you get all of your data copied off, backed up etc.

Be sure to post your results.

Tried it. No joy.