Hard Drive Data Recovery - Datatrack Labs

pineapple

A small computer sales/repair shop in Halifax West Yorkshire recently fitted a new hard drive to my computer AND transferred all my old data to the new hard drive - all for a very reasonable price of £60 +.
I don't know where you are OP but can supply contact details.

macman

pineapple wrote: »

A small computer sales/repair shop in Halifax West Yorkshire recently fitted a new hard drive to my computer AND transferred all my old data to the new hard drive - all for a very reasonable price of £60 +.
I don't know where you are OP but can supply contact details.

But that is not data recovery-that is data transfer, which any PC tech can do.
Data recovery is recovering data from a physically failed drive, which require specialist equipment and knowledge. It is never cheap, for that reason.

pineapple

macman wrote: »

But that is not data recovery-that is data transfer, which any PC tech can do.
Data recovery is recovering data from a physically failed drive, which require specialist equipment and knowledge. It is never cheap, for that reason.

The reason I got a new hard drive was that after several years of constant daily use, the original hard drive failed - which is why I had it replaced. Sorry I should have made this clear. So I guess I should have used the term 'recovered' rather than transferred. To reiterate - recovery cost £60 odd quid all in.

macman

That cannot possibly have involved physical recovery of the data though.

Dussed

Moretistic wrote: »

I hate to think how much it would cost to recover a 1TB drive if charged per 20GB and it was full !

What happened to angrysmurf ? (data-recovery-blog .co.uk) He did a lot of posts about the data recovery company that scammed him.

This was the company that I stupidly went with but luckily got the hdd back

Steve_Andrea

pineapple wrote: »

The reason I got a new hard drive was that after several years of constant daily use, the original hard drive failed - which is why I had it replaced. Sorry I should have made this clear. So I guess I should have used the term 'recovered' rather than transferred. To reiterate - recovery cost £60 odd quid all in.

Hey, thanks for the response.

WOW @ £60... thats really cheap.

What exactly did they do to your drive? when you say "failed" was the drive totally dead or could the bios recognise it?

Steve_Andrea

Data_recovery_expert wrote: »

Notmyrealname -

You are clearly misinformed. There are no companies which charge per GB, well none that I know of. Maybe this is how they operated in the early 90's but times have changed.

Have you had any experience with dealing with that company? It's quite a statement based on your own poor assumptions.

If all they did was run a bit of software then I am sure that you wouldn't have been trading for 6 years, have lots of reviews online and have a healthly set of accounts.

It's quite a malicious post.

Also in regards to your backup advice, I would seriously reconsider offering advice when it is bad advice. I would not backup to a SSD as these are expensive to buy, have less storage capacity and will likely cost you a small fortune to recover if they were to go wrong as the data is striped across multiple chips, data recovery is 10 times for more complex from a SSD as opposed to a normal hard disk.

Also an SSD has the capacity to instantly wipe all data in a second with one malfunction, a hard drive cannot do this.

My advice would be to have two hard drives which contain identical copies of the data, store the disks in different locations, one in work, one in the house etc.

Hey, just tried to send you a PM but it says you have disabled them so I will have to post my comments below:
_____________________________________________________

Hey,

Im a bit confused...

Why have you changed your screen name and removed the post you made yesterday?

I am assuming you are the same user who posted yesterday with the name Datatrack Labs?

As you can probably appreciate, with so many scammers out there I want to independently check the firm I send my drive to as the best chance of recovery is the 1st time the drive is opened.

I've got a few more questions about the recovery before I send my drive in, but removing your posts on the forum hasnt filled me with much confidence.

macman

Steve_Andrea wrote: »

Hey, thanks for the response.

WOW @ £60... thats really cheap.

What exactly did they do to your drive? when you say "failed" was the drive totally dead or could the bios recognise it?

You would be ill-advised to trust your data to any firm charging as little as that. Whatever recovery was carried out, it was clearly not forensic, more likely just a failure to boot and the data was copied via a USB hard drive caddy.
The bottom line is that any chance of recovery of your data if possible is going to cost you several hundred pounds. You only get one chance, and that is not going to be from a backstreet PC repair shop. If you can't afford that then maybe your data is not as irreplaceable as you think.
I have heard good accounts of this company:
http://www.retrodata.co.uk/

squeek31

What brand and model number? Where was it purchased?
At 18 months old it should still be under warranty, there maybe an option to have the manufacturer recover your data under warranty, you may have to pay shipping.

macman

squeek31 wrote: »

What brand and model number? Where was it purchased?
At 18 months old it should still be under warranty, there maybe an option to have the manufacturer recover your data under warranty, you may have to pay shipping.

The data is never covered under a manufacturer's warranty, only the part.