Does anyone, preferably in the Sabaneta/ Cabarete/ Sosua area have equipment which may be able to retrieve 'My Documents' files from my "dead" hard drive. It failed just before Christmas and although our other computer could "see" it, it was unable to open it to retrieve any files and I have some very precious photos on there which can never be repeated. Any help from anyone in DR would be appreciated.... thanks in advance.
- Thread starter whirleybird
- Start date
Help needed to retrieve from a "dead" hard drive please
There are companies/shops in the US that do that, but I don't know of anyone local who might be able to.
When you say that it's dead, do you mean that you can't even hear it spinning anymore?
Or that it won't boot up?
When you say that another puter sees it but can't open it, does that mean you hooked it up as a slave to try to retrieve the pix?
Try Banging it...........
........a few times................
Sometimes the humidity makes them freeze up...............IF the problem is that it isn't spinning...............
:bunny::bunny:
........a few times................
Sometimes the humidity makes them freeze up...............IF the problem is that it isn't spinning...............
:bunny::bunny:
It can still be heard spinning but it locked up the other computer when it was hooked up as a slave. Compucentro in Sosua had it said he tried with no success - he also said it may be able to be stripped and disc removed in either US or UK but is VERY expensive so thought I would ask the forum first. (You can imagine which pics I am referring to I am sure).
Yup.
Looks like you won't have much choice but to have it done professionally abroad.
Don?t give up, get a second opinion!
Try another computer place, you might just find a computer wiz that can help you.
I had a computer go dead and the tech at Cevecomp in La Vega copied the hard drive for me.
He was amazing to watch at work, dug right in to the desktop swapping cables all over the place, a real computer wiz.
Perhaps another tech has some tricks up his sleeves.
My Reputation Status
Bang it???
Do not bang it!! Do not freeze it (as some people do, but it adds moisture to it). My father owns a data recovery service here in Canada (where many from the US send their drives). If you would like the name of the company, please PM me as I do not want to overstep any boundaries here regarding advertising (mainly because I'm not sure of the actual rules).
No fun at all when pictures are so precious to lose them!
Do not bang it!! Do not freeze it (as some people do, but it adds moisture to it). My father owns a data recovery service here in Canada (where many from the US send their drives). If you would like the name of the company, please PM me as I do not want to overstep any boundaries here regarding advertising (mainly because I'm not sure of the actual rules).
No fun at all when pictures are so precious to lose them!
Don?t give up, get a second opinion!
Try another computer place, you might just find a computer wiz that can help you.
I had a computer go dead and the tech at Cevecomp in La Vega copied the hard drive for me.
He was amazing to watch at work, dug right in to the desktop swapping cables all over the place, a real computer wiz.
Perhaps another tech has some tricks up his sleeves.
My Reputation Status
La Vega is not that far - it your guy at Cevecomp still there and if so would he be able to try for me? This stuff is REALLY precious to me.
How did it fail? Did you drop the computer or was it a virus? Does it make strange sounds when you start the computer? Have you tried running antivirus scanning software on it or reinstalling operating system? If you tried master/slave installation and the other computer was able to see it - it is not totally dead. Don't format it, you can just reinstall operating system or partition it.
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Try doing a google search for a company like this one:
Hard Drive Crash Recovery and Hard Drive Repair for Disk Drive Failure
I believe they are located in Canada. I would pay the extra cost to ship the harddrive to a professional than to take a chance having someone tinker with it who doesn't really know what they are doing.
You can also give them a phone call and they could steer you in the right direction.
I understand your concern about the photos. Just this weekend I finally decided to sign up with an online data storage service.
You can also take a look at this site to get an idea of how intricate a harddrive is.
Hard drive repair & data recovery information
Hard Drive Crash Recovery and Hard Drive Repair for Disk Drive Failure
I believe they are located in Canada. I would pay the extra cost to ship the harddrive to a professional than to take a chance having someone tinker with it who doesn't really know what they are doing.
You can also give them a phone call and they could steer you in the right direction.
I understand your concern about the photos. Just this weekend I finally decided to sign up with an online data storage service.
You can also take a look at this site to get an idea of how intricate a harddrive is.
Hard drive repair & data recovery information
Today I just bought three 2 gb memory sticks to move copies of files for storage just in case, they were on sale for $9.99 each. Cheap insurance for those possibly needed files in the future.
Okay, its time I come completely clean here I think. There are only a few photos I need from this hard drive but they concern things like the photos of the flowers I placed on Dartmoor in the UK following the tragic death of my 30 year old son, Ross, whilst I was on holiday in September/ October. They are valuable only to me...
I would call several companies and ask for customer references to make sure they are reputable before I ship the disk to one of them. This is one of them:
Gillware Inc. Data Recovery
Gillware Inc. Data Recovery
The problem that you describe could be something as simple as bad sectors or a corrupt file system that are preventing access to your data. That being said, your drive is most likely failing and will continue to degrade until it detects no more.
I suggest that you do not let anyone touch the drive, except a professional data recovery lab until you get a quote. If their assessment results in a price that is too high or they give bad news, you can always try other methods. If you choose to have a non professional work on your drive first and they fail, you risk the chance that more damage will be done and the data will be rendered unrecoverable by anyone.
With all that being said, you are welcome to contact my company, Recovery Force to discuss your options. We're located in Canada. If our toll free number doesn't work for you, you are welcome to send a message to info@recoveryforce.com with your phone number and we will call you back.
Good luck!
Luke
I suggest that you do not let anyone touch the drive, except a professional data recovery lab until you get a quote. If their assessment results in a price that is too high or they give bad news, you can always try other methods. If you choose to have a non professional work on your drive first and they fail, you risk the chance that more damage will be done and the data will be rendered unrecoverable by anyone.
With all that being said, you are welcome to contact my company, Recovery Force to discuss your options. We're located in Canada. If our toll free number doesn't work for you, you are welcome to send a message to info@recoveryforce.com with your phone number and we will call you back.
Good luck!
Luke
Many thanks to all for your good help and advice. I will post on here when I have a "success story" to report. Happy New Year to all xXxXx
Your hard disk is not "toast". Don't bang it, freeze it or anything of the sort...
As per you described it has been detected by your OS and BIOS. That means one of your plates is damaged by burnout or overwriting of the same sector by most likely a virus. Since it freezes the PC when you try an access it, that means your HDD is 100% operational regarding all the electromagnetic components and not the result of instant failure, a common trait of HDDs.
Don't continue to hook it up to any PC or try to access the files, the more you do, the more damage you're doing and shortening the chances of a successful retrieval.
There are several options for you to reclaim your data, not all but most of it. Neither one is cheap or out of your ballpark. A described you can get your HDD to be inspected and a certainty provided for the odds of data retrieval. It all depends on how much of the data you need back. The less data you need, the less charges will be...
There's a device to access this kind of damaged HDD in the market going for some $170 to $300 US $. But there's no guarantee that the data will be in the sectors available for recovery as it all depends on where it was allocated on the platters.
If you really want the data saved, contact one pro service and have them answer your questions regarding the model, behavior and amount-type of data you need recover.
I keep my PC on Raid in striped version. Since I ran about 5 HDDs to their grave and a bunch of data with them. I also have the particular device to access dead or problematic HDDs and let me be honest and say the pro recovery services earn every penny they charge you to recover your data...
To all reading these posts: Please! Pretty please! Make it an add-on New Year's resolution to backup your data as soon as yesterday!! It's simple, cheap and will save you tons of tears and pains...
As per you described it has been detected by your OS and BIOS. That means one of your plates is damaged by burnout or overwriting of the same sector by most likely a virus. Since it freezes the PC when you try an access it, that means your HDD is 100% operational regarding all the electromagnetic components and not the result of instant failure, a common trait of HDDs.
Don't continue to hook it up to any PC or try to access the files, the more you do, the more damage you're doing and shortening the chances of a successful retrieval.
There are several options for you to reclaim your data, not all but most of it. Neither one is cheap or out of your ballpark. A described you can get your HDD to be inspected and a certainty provided for the odds of data retrieval. It all depends on how much of the data you need back. The less data you need, the less charges will be...
There's a device to access this kind of damaged HDD in the market going for some $170 to $300 US $. But there's no guarantee that the data will be in the sectors available for recovery as it all depends on where it was allocated on the platters.
If you really want the data saved, contact one pro service and have them answer your questions regarding the model, behavior and amount-type of data you need recover.
I keep my PC on Raid in striped version. Since I ran about 5 HDDs to their grave and a bunch of data with them. I also have the particular device to access dead or problematic HDDs and let me be honest and say the pro recovery services earn every penny they charge you to recover your data...
To all reading these posts: Please! Pretty please! Make it an add-on New Year's resolution to backup your data as soon as yesterday!! It's simple, cheap and will save you tons of tears and pains...
Don't use those to save "important" data as they are susceptible to static electricity damage. They can be corrupted by humidity or magnetism.
Use CDs, DVDs, External HDD or any combination of a Raid in striped mode in your PC.
Solid state memory is volatile and it does go bad after certain time or improper handling.
I recently signed up with a data backup service that charges $20 bucks a year for 10GB of storage. Once a week the software does an automatic backup. I am not sure if the price I am paying is the going rate or not, but I do have peace of mind knowing my precious data is safe and sound.