Physical data recovery services

Johnmcl7

Can anyone recommend any companies for physical hard drive data recovery for home users? I've used Ontrack for companies but while the results are good, they're usually fairly pricey so I'm wondering if there's any alternatives people here have used and what sort of price it was.

I realise any of these options are likely to be pricey but it would be handy to know when data can't be retrieved through data recovery software.

Thanks,
John

bod1467

Is the HDD dead? Or is it that you've deleted files/reformatted and want to try to recover the files?

For the latter there are other companies (but I've never used them except Kroll Ontrack through my business), but none of them are cheap. You're probably looking at a starting price of around £350+

I won't try to suggest any other companies because I can't say whether they are any good - your Google Fu must be as good as mine.

Johnmcl7

The drive isn't mine, it was in a laptop that was running when something fell off a shelf above and landed on the laptop and has damaged the hard drive. I've tried data recovery software but the drive is sounding very ill and it only seems to be reading a small section of the hard drive. There's no backup so the only option is physical data recovery, frustratingly this is not an unusual situation but when I've mentioned a cost of hundreds people haven't chosen to proceed with it.

So it would be good to have more concrete information on any viable consumer options. The difficulty with searching for companies is that many of them don't make it clear from the outset they are only offering software recovery and the physical data recovery is one shot, if the company is no good and screw it up there isn't another chance.

John

securityguy

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

There's no backup so the only option is physical data recovery, frustratingly this is not an unusual situation but when I've mentioned a cost of hundreds people haven't chosen to proceed with it.

If the data isn't worth backing up and isn't worth paying a few hundred quid to recover, it's not worth very much, is it? Physical data recovery is complicated, unreliable and involves both expensive equipment and skilled people. It is also a ransom business, because if you need the service, you're in no position to quibble over the price.

People who don't have backups don't care about their data. A large portable USB drive is fifty quid. A cloud service is fifty quid a year. If you aren't backing up, your data isn't worth fifty quid. Physical recovery services are able to charge a tax on foolishness.

Johnmcl7

securityguy wrote: »

If the data isn't worth backing up and isn't worth paying a few hundred quid to recover, it's not worth very much, is it? Physical data recovery is complicated, unreliable and involves both expensive equipment and skilled people. It is also a ransom business, because if you need the service, you're in no position to quibble over the price.

People who don't have backups don't care about their data. A large portable USB drive is fifty quid. A cloud service is fifty quid a year. If you aren't backing up, your data isn't worth fifty quid. Physical recovery services are able to charge a tax on foolishness.

I'm well aware how cheap and convenient backing up is and that physical data recovery is expensive and unreliable but that's not what I was asking - there's nothing I can do to force people to back up so it will keep coming back to this situation where physical data recovery is required. Hence trying to find recommendations for companies have used as I've only used Ontrack.

John

DigForVictory

I believe Solomon (the antivirus software people as were) did a recovery service, but my boss used them as we needed both data & expert witness testimony.
All the best.

securityguy

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

I'm well aware how cheap and convenient backing up is and that physical data recovery is expensive and unreliable but that's not what I was asking - there's nothing I can do to force people to back up so it will keep coming back to this situation where physical data recovery is required. Hence trying to find recommendations for companies have used as I've only used Ontrack.

John

I doubt there is cheap physical data recovery service. People who don't care about their data won't pay anything, and people who do care will pay anything. You need quite a lot of equipment and skill, so why would charge a low price for something you can charge a high price for? The set of people who might pay fifty quid but won't pay the three hundred quid the big boys want is small, so even if you cornered the entire market, charging them fifty quid each isn't going to pay the rent. And the big boys are hardly going to offer a "cheap for home users" service, as their commercial customers will just take the disks home and claim it on expenses.

Johnmcl7

securityguy wrote: »

I doubt there is cheap physical data recovery service. People who don't care about their data won't pay anything, and people who do care will pay anything. You need quite a lot of equipment and skill, so why would charge a low price for something you can charge a high price for? The set of people who might pay fifty quid but won't pay the three hundred quid the big boys want is small, so even if you cornered the entire market, charging them fifty quid each isn't going to pay the rent. And the big boys are hardly going to offer a "cheap for home users" service, as their commercial customers will just take the disks home and claim it on expenses.

It's all well and good you like having a rant about this but as I said already - it's not what I asked for so it's of no use. You're incorrect about the lack of cheaper consumer services - they do exist but usually slower than the business services, I've only used the more expensive several thousand pound business services so I simply don't know if the cheaper several hundred pound services are worthwhile or what the actual breakdown of costs are (which I appreciate vary but some actual numbers would still be useful)

Hence I was looking for experience with these options, not people ranting about lack of backups as the latter is something I'm extremely familiar with already and don't need any more of it.

John

isofa

OnTrack (as you previously mention) are superb. I've not used cheaper ones, as (as far as I know) the facilities from OT are easily the industry best. If data is important I'd rather use the experts, is too easy for a cowboy to try and fire it up or put an incorrect controller board in a ruin data that could have been salvaged.

MS1950

Johnmcl7 wrote: »

It's all well and good you like having a rant about this but as I said already - it's not what I asked for so it's of no use. You're incorrect about the lack of cheaper consumer services - they do exist but usually slower than the business services, I've only used the more expensive several thousand pound business services so I simply don't know if the cheaper several hundred pound services are worthwhile or what the actual breakdown of costs are (which I appreciate vary but some actual numbers would still be useful)

Hence I was looking for experience with these options, not people ranting about lack of backups as the latter is something I'm extremely familiar with already and don't need any more of it.

John

You could try these people:

http://www.essentialdatarecovery.co.uk/index.html

Their pricing is (relatively) transparent and they claim a good success rate and testimonials. They initially try to recover data in house but if that is not possible they then have a further fixed charge for diagnosis in a clean room followed by a quote for repair/recovery.

After trying unsuccessfully to recover data myself from a SATA Drive (by hooking it up as an external drive with a USB adaptor) I sent it to them about a year ago and paid their initial fixed fee. They said they couldn’t recover the data in house so then I paid the further fixed charge for diagnosis in a clean room. I was then called to say that it would cost £320.00 + vat to repair the drive before any data could be recovered; which I declined as being more than the data was worth to me, and the drive was returned.

However, when I got it back and hooked it up again with the USB adaptor I could read it and transferred the wanted data to another drive. I may have been lucky or it may have been something they did in the clean room – I don’t know.

I'm not recommending them but you might consider it worth the risk – depending on what the data is worth to you?