Question about PC World data recovery service

Sparhawke

davb wrote: »

So, for the £100 they are pretty much going to to what has been suggested previously - booting from something else and accessing the drive with recovery software. The lab service (clean room) is going to cost a LOT more.

Which is why I said this:

[p]This cleanroom is not needed if all you have to do is boot up a disk and never open the harddrive, yet some companies charge you for it even if they do not utilise it so it may be worthwhile to actually ask them what exactly they are going to do with your hardware.[/p]

Basically, make sure you know what they are going to be doing and get them to itemise everything on the bill, no point in paying for a whole bottle of wine a restaurant opens for you if they are then going to charge everyone for a glass. Cant think of a suitable analogy ( :eek: ) but why pay for a service they are not going to perform?

totalsolutions

Have you tried a product called Spinrite by Steve Gibson? Although a software product it does restore failing drives and can be used as a maintenance tool. I would use this first off, repairs damaged sectors and get the OS running.

https://www.grc.com

sharkie

any half decent shop will have a pc and the software installed on their own existing drive. Then they will attach your drive as a secondry system drive (a bit like attaching a cd drive). The main point is not to write anything, or move, or rename, or amend onto your old drive - copy off only. as said above a bootable cd may be the way to go and probably be very successful in your case. On the bad side you are not sure what chkdsk has done to your disk. copy off your data onto a usb stick or drive.

You also need to visit the various software company sites to find out which directory to look in and the file names needed when migrating systems, so you know what to copy off.

Perhaps you wish to purchase a cheap small drive to try this, or you may have one lying around?

I would personally think twice (or more) before going to PCW. If the data is really valuable and unreplaceable, go to a professional recovery company.

You need also a solution to prevent this happaning again!

Oneday77

Is it just the email that your worried about. You said you backup up all your my documents to an external HD and that your worried about the business use, I assume that is the email stuff.
3 options I see: -
1) Your hopefully using a webmail account and all your mail is still sitting there and you can recover it on another PC.
2) The harddrive is on it's last legs but works, do as previously mentioned and boot using an Unbuntu disc and transfer the files straight to a pen drive.
3) The hard drive is no longer accessible and the data is lost unless it is 'Clean Room' attended to.

Do not use PC World's data recovery service. You seem to have a rough idea what your doing so you will be equal if not better to them with some instruction.
Also when it get repaired you could try requesting that they send you the damaged drive after it is replaced then you can do what you like with it. If they are going to replace it instruct them that under no circumstances do they try reinstalling any partitions before they try to replace it. Did you burn off your recovery discs btw? If not you will need to request these too when you book your repair.

Oneday77

I meant to add when you try to boot the laptop for data recovery disable the hard drive as being a boot from option in th eBIOS to limit any extra drive usage and possible platter daamage until you actually try reading from it.