Seagate 500GB ST3500320AS

[hddmania]

Good Luck to your head replacement practice. Data Recovery & Hard Drive is not like a broken computer, damaged high-end WAN equipment, broken down car or broken watch. It is more of a MD operating on a human being. It is not an exact science.

When MDs operate on patient, don’t they do that in a very sanitized room with years of experience and still come out once in a while with unsuccessful result? I’m sure if your son/daughter need a knee surgery, you won’t go buy a medical book and practice on some pigs and then do the surgery on your own in a clean-bathroom…

It is hard to give you the legit quote without looking at the drive. I’m sure you don’t want the quote for the recovery from the damaged platters or damaged motor. There are so many factors involved for the physically damaged drive. It could be just the PCB, could be the weak/damaged head or any combination of all of the above to include the damaged/lost firmware. Each problem can have a different recovery price. I don’t want to quote you for the simple headswap recovery job and it turned out to be a nightmare recovery and end up giving you $1,000 quote.

[pcimage]

We get this sort of thing all the time......



Client: "Hello, I'd like a quote on data recovery please?"
Us: "Certainly Sir, what seems to be the problem with the drive?"
Client: "I don't know"
Us: "OK, what model is it?"
Client: "I don't know"
Us: "Ok, what capacity is it?"
Client: "I don't know"
Us: "Well, all I can suggest is that you send it in for an evaluation"
Client: "But I want to know how much is going to cost me, why can't you give me a quote?"

What do you do?

[burn1out]

I am certain that I can practice the head surgery with success

FYI I'd say that this is probably the attitude that is ruffling people's feathers the most. You're talking about what real DR people spend a lot of personal time, money, blood, sweat, and tears on and then trivializing it by saying what sounds like "I've never done this before but I'm sure I can do it just fine but I want someone else who does it for a living to do it for me anyway and I want it cheap".

I didn't have an attitude, but I surely received plenty of it. The point still isn't gotten and that's fine. I have a WD set that I will attempt to do and will report back here. Also, I am now up to 28 % recovered on my collection of pictures. I have no doubt you guys are great and love what you do, just like me. There's never been anything related to electronics that I have not been able to do SO FAR. So don't just get an attitude because I seem confident. I'm just not your typical engineer/tech...it's just that simple.

Like I said before it appeared to be a good community and I asked for quotes, now I have 2 quotes, but it sure wasn't before being blasted and that type of attitude just makes all the top notch pros here in a realm of their own and disconnected from new people.

oh and the cheap part, re-read the damn thread...I asked for quotes and all I got was the How much you got/are you willing to pay. Reminds me of Chevy Chases adventure to the middle of nowhere.

[burn1out]

We get this sort of thing all the time......



Client: "Hello, I'd like a quote on data recovery please?"
Us: "Certainly Sir, what seems to be the problem with the drive?"
Client: "I don't know"
Us: "OK, what model is it?"
Client: "I don't know"
Us: "Ok, what capacity is it?"
Client: "I don't know"
Us: "Well, all I can suggest is that you send it in for an evaluation"
Client: "But I want to know how much is going to cost me, why can't you give me a quote?"

What do you do?

I explained in detail what was wrong, model, fw ver, etc, even detail on how the drive acts. Your post carries no weight regarding me. I understand the public and techies that think they are techs, but that's not me.

Last edited by burn1out on December 5th, 2009, 17:13, edited 1 time in total.

[burn1out]

Good Luck to your head replacement practice. Data Recovery & Hard Drive is not like a broken computer, damaged high-end WAN equipment, broken down car or broken watch. It is more of a MD operating on a human being. It is not an exact science.

When MDs operate on patient, don’t they do that in a very sanitized room with years of experience and still come out once in a while with unsuccessful result? I’m sure if your son/daughter need a knee surgery, you won’t go buy a medical book and practice on some pigs and then do the surgery on your own in a clean-bathroom…

It is hard to give you the legit quote without looking at the drive. I’m sure you don’t want the quote for the recovery from the damaged platters or damaged motor. There are so many factors involved for the physically damaged drive. It could be just the PCB, could be the weak/damaged head or any combination of all of the above to include the damaged/lost firmware. Each problem can have a different recovery price. I don’t want to quote you for the simple headswap recovery job and it turned out to be a nightmare recovery and end up giving you $1,000 quote.

I liked your reply and it's respectful. I'm not sure it's worth spending that much cash (1000) on, in this particular case. Had it been something else besides pictures and more important data, I surely would expect that price or higher for whatever needed to be repaired if it had been my business data, or something else with more weight, it'd be more of who does the best job and rep, not the highest cost and surely not the lowest pro would be picked.

You analogy of perfect and don't you know it's like that, not just with your industry, but with all industries, hell I know that. Next model that came out was a monster to just research, figure it out and they made replacing the head more difficult, etc... I truly understand greater than anyone realizes. I don't think I really have much more to add to this. I'm giving up on issue. I received a quote of 350 and I think that is too low and it worries me. What did I truly expect? I don't know, maybe 400-700 ballpark, maybe higher.

[pcimage]

It wasn't actually directed specifically at you, just more of a general comment.

Maybe I should have made that clear, apologies.

But I would say that it's impossible to give a firm quote "sight unseen" and anyone that does give a "one size fits all" quote should be questioned. A lot of these "fixed fee" guys will spend no more than an hour per case and if they can't do it in that time then the case is deemed "unrecoverable" and move onto the next sucker.

I hope that you get you get your data back, but be prepared to spend ~$500 for a "straightforward" head swap and $1500 or more for a problematic case with media damage etc..

[burn1out]

I think I'm done with this thread, if you guys want, feel free to bash me some more, I'll probably respond, but I'm not impressed with most of the attitude I received. I have a reasonable quote and yet a little costly for pictures, but It was ball park ranges for different levels of damage, exactly what I was looking for. I truly appreciated his response. If I can land a good working drive, I may just send it to him, however, right now, I'm a little tired of even thinking about it. I am having a good success rate at pulling data from several previous drives and I'm still marching on. I was able to repair the firmware on one and that's where I got the initial percentage (Been sitting around for about 4 years).

[burn1out]

It wasn't actually directed specifically at you, just more of a general comment.

Maybe I should have made that clear, apologies.

But I would say that it's impossible to give a firm quote "sight unseen" and anyone that does give a "one size fits all" quote should be questioned. A lot of these "fixed fee" guys will spend no more than an hour per case and if they can't do it in that time then the case is deemed "unrecoverable" and move onto the next sucker.

I hope that you get you get your data back, but be prepared to spend ~$500 for a "straightforward" head swap and $1500 or more for a problematic case with media damage etc..

Actually some good info. I seen the results from the un-recoverables, that's why I search for hours over a couple of weeks time. I've seen customers in the past with just that, and they are still out money. So that's why I was afraid to trust just any website/reviews and therefore found this place. Thanks for the heads up.

[jono-ats]

Your situation reminds me of a recent customer who had the same vintage of Seagate drive that you describe (7200.11). He was a professor at a local university and had access to a Class 10 clean room.

Sure of his diagnosis and surer of his abilities, he attempted a head swap. He did pretty well, considering, but the resulting damage to the platters meant that we could only recover about 85% of his data vs. 100% that we would have recovered had he not adventured.

His diagnosis was wrong -- and I suspect that yours is too. My hunch is that you have a firmware issue (common with this model) and that the heads are fine. No donor required.

Since you like to do your own research and build your own electronics, the complete solution to that fault has been previously published on this website.

Had you taken a different tack (or should I say "tact") you would have gotten this information without all of the unnecessary

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[burn1out]

Your situation reminds me of a recent customer who had the same vintage of Seagate drive that you describe (7200.11). He was a professor at a local university and had access to a Class 10 clean room.

Sure of his diagnosis and surer of his abilities, he attempted a head swap. He did pretty well, considering, but the resulting damage to the platters meant that we could only recover about 85% of his data vs. 100% that we would have recovered had he not adventured.

His diagnosis was wrong -- and I suspect that yours is too. My hunch is that you have a firmware issue (common with this model) and that the heads are fine. No donor required.

Since you like to do your own research and build your own electronics, the complete solution to that fault has been previously published on this website.

Had you taken a different tack (or should I say "tact") you would have gotten this information without all of the unnecessary

I am well aware of that and saw it somewhere else first and familiar with both fixes that can be done. I've already done the firmware attempt (failed multiple attempts in various ways to get the drive recognized.), however I haven't done the unlock yet, which I will put together in the morning as a last attempt without. I am not an amateur with electronics. I don't "build my own electronics", I just make good stuff great and that's a hobby at home and for other customers. I was done with design and engineering to component level 10 years ago, that's what I started my career doing, but bored with it, moved on. You would have noticed that had you read an earlier post.

You don't know what my experience is and I generally work circles around anyone I work with both troubleshooting and quality of the work.

I do suspect some power issues could have caused the problem in the first place in addition to the problem that was already likely to happen as the power supply failed in the system it was in.

I don't claim to be a know-it-all, sorry it comes across that way, to ALL of you guys. Give the bat a rest already.

[TerraNova]

Ohh come on burn1out.....if people are not willing to give a hand forget it and move on.

[burn1out]

Ohh come on burn1out.....if people are not willing to give a hand forget it and move on.

I already stated above, that I'm not looking anymore, I got the offer (between 500 and 1000) that I was looking for. I already did, people just keep raising the bat.

[jono-ats]

So, trying to provide you with some suggestions to send you in the right direction & to avoid unnecessary procedures is "raising the bat?" Pardon me. No good deed goes unpunished . . .

I am sure, being from Huntsville and all, that you are a regular rocket scientist.

Please forgive any of us here who did not immediately recognize your genius, experience, & modesty for what they are.

Good luck with your recovery.

Last edited by jono-ats on December 5th, 2009, 21:33, edited 1 time in total.

[burn1out]

I am sure, being from Huntsville and all, that you are a regular rocket scientist.

Please forgive any of us here who did not immediately recognize your genius, experience, & modesty for what they are.

Good luck with your recovery.

Not hardly....and Thanks! I think...

[msurgeon]

This is starting to look like on of those threads that goes on for six pages and never really reaches any conclusion. As a general rule, when a cold-call customer asks for a price range on recovery I respond : "It ranges from $250 upward." I try to avoid giving an upper ceiling, not to be deceptive, but because people tend to obsess on the high number and ignore the possibility that it is as likely to be a lower one. Since, like most of you, we don't charge for diagnostics there is no downside for the customer in sending in the drive so that they can get an accurate estimate. Sometimes customers get so caught up in the paranoia of being "ripped off" that they can't make good judgments up front. If a customer refuses recovery based upon the price, we merely send back the drive and -no- we don't booby-trap it for spite.

[SpawnMOD]

burn1out,

I felt the need to register to this site just to post in your defense. While I fully agree with the statement that there cannot be a one size fits all quote (non-data recovery specialists may be surprised that this holds true for many repairs in other tech fields as well), the grief you received for your humble and detailed post is awful.

Rather than coming right out and stating reasons why a quote is difficult or asking for more detail, you were given crap over symantics for price, grammer, and even your skills. I READ the posts from first to last and it appears to me, as an outsider, that you were humble and courteous in your replies. Your posts did not seem to show any "attitude" or that you believed yourself to be a know it all. The replies to you however seemed to come from many showing those exact characteristics. Yes - it is OBVIOUS that some did not fully READ your posts (or perhaps understand).

I have to disagree with the statement "Data Recovery & Hard Drive is not like a broken computer, damaged high-end WAN equipment, broken down car or broken watch. It is more of a MD operating on a human being. It is not an exact science.". I have done work on ALL of the listed items and believe that none of them are "an exact science". Each requires different levels of expertise. With burn1out's listed experience I have no doubt that the ability to perform some of the tasks for data recovery are within reach.

In my 20+ years in the industry, it has been my experience that people quick to put others down and belittle them are most often the ones who know the least. In the few occasions where the offenders do actually know what they are doing, they only serve to make life difficult for the rest of us in the technical services realm by creating the "Nick Burns" stereotype. Customers all too often provide even less information due to being afraid of some prick wanting to poke fun at them.

burn1out - I hope you succeed despite some rude comments by some people who obviously have more time to ridicule than actually help.

[HDD Spaz]

you came here for a quote. here you go. $1500 for the data recovery plus shipping costs and a new hard drive.

[burn1out]

Update:

I have recovered all of my data, what an awesome feeling.

SpawnMOD, thanks for the kind words and seeing my posts as I meant them. While I did in fact feel humble, I was also trying to spill it out without trying to sound cocky, but we know how objective people can or can't be.

All else, some of your prices were a little cheap, some were acceptable and some were rip-off as I expected. I have a couple of contacts here should i need the resource in the future.

Good luck keeping this community a PRO community. I don't think this is what the founder had in mind.

[drc]

So did you send off to a forum member?

[burn1out]

So did you send off to a forum member?

I was lucky (after a lot of bad luck) and recovered from a mirrored set from last year/earlier this year, Feb.

Then had a overlap between recovering from my/wife's memory cards and the original server hdd's.

I rarely give away/sell my old hdd's.

I'll just send the drive back now. Fresh or Remanu'd is good with me. Hmm, or should I tear it apart and display it for old time's sake.