Data Recovery Service recommendation please

Rhino666

Unfortunately my Laptop Hard Drive has crashed. Its a 2.5 inch Western Digital Scorpio Blue 250GB drive.
I am going to need the services of a Data Recovery Company and hoping that someone can recommend. Seems to be an expensive service and a number of rogue companies around, so anyone with personal experience of this situation able to recommend a reputable company much appreciated.
Please private message me if this is something you would rather not place on a public forum.

Thanks

Rob  

J_B

A few years ago I spoke to a guy from Cheshire who did this sort of thing and a) came recommended and b) seemed to know what he was talking about.

We ended up not using his service as the owner didn't think their data was that important.

Sad thing is that I can't remember the company name 🤔

Found it .... https://www.cheadledatarecovery.co.uk/

GDB2222

I have never used a data recovery company, sorry, but my understanding is that you are talking thousands if they have to remove the platter from the hard disk and work from there. Obviously, if this is your bitcoin wallet, cost doesn't matter....

I have used recovery software, which was pretty effective at getting stuff off one of the infamous IBM Deskstars. That was 20 years ago.  I haven't had to try since then. 

Perhaps, you should say a bit more?  What's happened? What have you lost? Is any of it backed up on the cloud - windows may have done that without your noticing?  Do you have access to a PC? 

GDB2222

J_B said:

A few years ago I spoke to a guy from Cheshire who did this sort of thing and a) came recommended and b) seemed to know what he was talking about.

We ended up not using his service as the owner didn't think their data was that important.

Sad thing is that I can't remember the company name 🤔

Found it .... https://www.cheadledatarecovery.co.uk/

Brilliant! Hope that I never need to use them.

grumpycrab

Found it .... https://www.cheadledatarecovery.co.uk/

Yes, recommended. The process/cost of data recovery is not simple/cheap but only you know how important your data is.

Rhino666

Thank you for the replies.
I will contact Cheadle Data recovery and hopefully they can help.
The 250GB WD Scorpio Blue disk was knocked and stopped working. Initially no recognition at all. Disk spins but no actuator movement, likely mechanical damage.
I have a very similar disk that is currently covering for this ones failure. Perhaps that would be of some use for repair.
        

YorkshireTraveller

A couple of years back I used R3 Data Recovery based in Sheffield to recover photos from a memory stick that had failed.  They provided an excellent service  - I had shopped around and they were considerably less expensive than other firms that quoted for the recovery.

They offer full data recovery services.

https://www.r3datarecovery.com/

ann_droid

Rhino666 said:

Unfortunately my Laptop Hard Drive has crashed. Its a 2.5 inch Western Digital Scorpio Blue 250GB drive.
I am going to need the services of a Data Recovery Company and hoping that someone can recommend. Seems to be an expensive service and a number of rogue companies around, so anyone with personal experience of this situation able to recommend a reputable company much appreciated.
Please private message me if this is something you would rather not place on a public forum.

Thanks

Rob  

Would the Laptop boot if it had an alternate method???
This does not install overwrite or anything similar onto your HDD.  Unfortunately if you have Fast Start Up enabled and the dirty bit is set that is a tad more tricky.

Perhaps boot from a W10 media?
https://www.raymond.cc/blog/manually-reset-or-clear-dirty-bit-in-windows-without-chkdsk/

##########################################################

BitLocker is becoming more prevalent and maybe that is a contributing factor.

Step 1: Press Windows + X, select Command Prompt (Admin) to run command prompt as an administrator.

Step 2: Type the following command as the screenshot shows: manage-bde -unlock F: -RecoveryPassword YOUR-BITLOCKER-RECOVERY-KEY .

Step 3: Launch manage-bde -off f: to remove BitLocker drive encryption.

################################

Rhino666

Hello

I have been dealing with Dr. John Reid from CDR, Cheadle Data Recovery for quite some time but now in receipt of Recovery Data from my crashed and damaged hard disk.
Opening the drive, as I did was a huge mistake and the platter surface damage that occurred probably resulted from that. John sent me photographic evidence but to be honest I was not at all surprised. Platter damage has two effects, limiting recovery through corruption but also very rapidly degrading donor parts used for recovery. The heads need a smooth clean platter surface to operate effectively and damage, dust, etc basically wears them very quickly.
I was proactive with this process and supplied a disk for donor recovery parts as well as another for return of recovery media. John basically used my parts until they wore out and then after consultation as to success/failure focussed on remaining important damaged files with another set of recovery parts. 
Communication was excellent throughout and it was so good to have a working file and damaged file structure to look at after the first pass. Sounds strange I know but having a file structure was very important to me regardless of what was working or damaged. John managed to recover a number of important files that had appeared damaged on the first pass. The main loss was photos with most of the damaged ones showing nothing or just a thumbnail with very limited expansion. Damaged word files usually produced no data at all. 
I cannot recommend Dr. John Reid of Cheadle Data Recovery highly enough and thank the posters on here who brought him to my attention.
Please learn a lesson, if required, from my experience. Take regular backups and should the worst happen to your hard drive, do NOT open it or trust it to anyone other than John Reid.          

GDB2222

How much has this cost you, in total, may I ask?