Retieve Data from Damaged External Hard Drive

jacknife

I brought an external hard drive to be repaired and was told that just changing the case would sort it.

The guy chnged the case and it still did not work, he said that it may be damaged and he needs to run data recovery software on it.

There are years of work and files on that drive and i need the data to be recoverded, if the data recovery does not work, how can i get the data back.

Are their specialised companies who can help??

holcus

Yes there are, they can recover almost anything. The problem is that even they will not be able to do that if someone is trying to recover data without specialized knowledge. Data may get overwritten or damaged when using data recovery software improperly. Ask your tech guy if he has made a 1:1 physical copy of your hdd before running recovery software. If he didn't I would not trust him with my own data.

Gone Drinking

There are companies that will completely take apart your drive to recover data, its expensive..

The guy looking after it sounds like a run of the mill PC repair guy, I'd get it off him ASAP if the data really is critical. Send it to a decent data recovery company.

And without trying to add pain to your situation, what were you doing with years of work/files on just one drive without a backup? These drives fail completely all the time.

old_aussie

holcus wrote: »

Ask your tech guy if he has made a 1:1 physical copy of your hdd before running recovery software.

How will he make a 1:1 copy of the data if the HDD is not working?

He should be installing the data recovery software to the Operating System HDD in a PC and then attaching the USB HDD to the computer with the recovery software installed.

If the data recovery process fails OP, send the HDD to a data recovery centre, it maybe expensive but at least you will have the best chance of recovering your files.

OP, maybe in the future you will make a backup of your importamt data.

holcus

old_aussie wrote: »

How will he make a 1:1 copy of the data if the HDD is not working?

if you can use recovery software you can copy the drive too can't you?

yoyo

holcus wrote: »

if you can use recovery software you can copy the drive too can't you?

Not if the drive is damaged, doing so would probably make it worse!

Nick

holcus

it's better then recovery software anyway
My point is: if you make it worse by accessing the drive, it is still good as you have your 1:1 copy done already. Drive is broken but you have your data safe which you can work on with recovery app later on. If you run recovery software first. It may recover nothing, it may recover something, or everything but risk is much greater. 1:1 copy is always the best idea. Limits to minimum damaged drive access and copies the most - therefore risk is the smallest.

This is obviously unless your data is worth a million. Then you go to data recovery companies straight away.
I don't think I'm helping author of this thread, I'm not saying anything else

yoyo

holcus wrote: »

it's better then recovery software anyway
My point is: if you make it worse by accessing the drive, it is still good as you have your 1:1 copy done already. Drive is broken but you have your data safe which you can work on with recovery app later on. If you run recovery software first. It may recover nothing, it may recover something, or everything but risk is much greater. 1:1 copy is always the best idea. Limits to minimum damaged drive access and copies the most - therefore risk is the smallest.

This is obviously unless your data is worth a million. Then you go to data recovery companies straight away.
I don't think I'm helping author of this thread, I'm not saying anything else

If you data is really important you are best off sending it to an expert recovery company, the more you spin the drive up the more chance you have of damaging ther platters further, lessening the chance of recovery.

Nick

gambit88

Exactly the same thing happened to me as I damaged my external hard drive containing all my data. I took my hard drive to Limerickdatarecovery.com 061-418384 and they got back all my information. It wasn’t cheap, €500 + parts, but I was very happy to have all my photos and years of documents again. For an extra €100 they also supplied me with a second external hard drive. From now on I will keep two copies of my important stuff. Limerickdatarecovery.com were half the price of any other quote I got.

kaji

Same thing has happened to me. My external harddrive literally tipped over 2cms, and now beeps when I turn it on. I know something must have dislodged as it started beeping the second it tipped over. I have years of data on it and am desperate to retrieve it. Why is it so expensive to retrieve the data? Also, anyone know of any other companies who do it apart from that Limerick one? I feel like crying

holcus

Professional data recovery requires very expensive equipment not available even to pc repair shop. Very often they will open your harddrive which requires almost vacuum conditions. 500 is cheap actually

PC technicians recover data much cheaper but only few of them know what they are doing

Firblog

Few ppl I know have used this one price ranged from €200 to close to 1K, will send you a listing of the files they can recover and cost, you then decide if you want to do it..

Groinshot

Firblog wrote: »

Few ppl I know have used this one price ranged from €200 to close to 1K, will send you a listing of the files they can recover and cost, you then decide if you want to do it..

+1 for critical data

kaji

How much would it cost for a 500gb external hard drive? Gonna ring them tomorrow.

section4

Groinshot wrote: »

+1 for critical data

i had very important info lost on my hard rive becaiuse of a power surge about 6 onths ago, and i tried an unlimited amount of data recovery companies in the island of ireland and in the end i used critical data services
and they were great, they never promised to be the cheapest or promised the earth, but they recovered data my data, were very reasonable, very nice, very professional and most of all in the data recovery business, trustworthy.

kaji

How much did they charge? I had a 500gb external hard drive. It was half full. But the only really important content on it are my photos and videos which are about 20gb. The rest is replaceable. Can I get these singled out (to make it cheaper) or is that possible?

Hal Emmerich

What's the best way to make 1:1 backup?

What's the best recovery software?