How should I approach recovery service? 500GB Seagate crash

[guru]

Sorry but that is a stupid quote............... A "REAL" high success rate should indicate the competence of the engineers in the company not your "Luck" value

Question: let's say a company's real success rate is 99%. If the next drive in-line is yours and it ends up not recoverable. Will the rate success really matter to you at the end of the day?

[lcoughey]

Sorry but that is a stupid quote............... A "REAL" high success rate should indicate the competence of the engineers in the company not your "Luck" value

Question: let's say a company's real success rate is 99%. If the next drive in-line is yours and it ends up not recoverable. Will the rate success really matter to you at the end of the day?

I find the problem is that success and failure are measured differently.

Does a DOA drive with no surface and a black filter count as unsuccessful for you?
Does a drive that was completely wiped or overwritten with no data to be recovered count as unsuccessful?
Do you crank up the quote so high that the client turns it down on a project that is unlikely recoverable?

I can't speak for others, but we get at least 15-20% of drives in after it is too late. Either because of physical crashes beyond repair or because of the effects of DIY by end users or their technicians.

It really comes down to, what is the percentage of unrecoverable projects by you might be recoverable by someone else? But, who really knows or would want to honestly answer that question?

I can say, with certainty, I have a lab tech who has recovered data from drives that I would have called unrecoverable...and I'm the one who trained him. But, we all see things differently. Sometimes, it just comes down to the value of the recovery and the time and parts needed to recover it.

[labtech]

Well, not so stupid when many claim to recover some high % when they really do not.

Also, it is not about luck, but rather fact with regard to the drive's condition once it gets in the shop, including first recovery attempt and any subsequent ones.

In my prior post, I was trying to convey to Greed that the % success rate should not be his focus, but rather digging deeper and understanding his situation better. Call whatever company(s) he was willing to send it to and explain his drive's situation and what has been happening with it so far and then I am confident his expectations would become a bit more realistic once hearing the explanations from the other end.

In this case, there is way too much media damage, and so any company with high percentage success rate is more than likely to have the same results. If I was Greed, what would impress me from the next company I will send the drive to is a clear realistic explanation of what the likely outcome will be, not so much their success rate.

[Greed]

My drive is on its way to Kroll-Ontrack FYI.

I have a lab tech who has recovered data from drives that I would have called unrecoverable...and I'm the one who trained him. But, we all see things differently. Sometimes, it just comes down to the value of the recovery and the time and parts needed to recover it.

So your lab received a client drive and you determined it was unrecoverable. What were the events that led to having the drive go for a second opinion by a different tech?

[lcoughey]

My drive is on its way to Kroll-Ontrack FYI.

I have a lab tech who has recovered data from drives that I would have called unrecoverable...and I'm the one who trained him. But, we all see things differently. Sometimes, it just comes down to the value of the recovery and the time and parts needed to recover it.

So your lab received a client drive and you determined it was unrecoverable. What were the events that led to having the drive go for a second opinion by a different tech?

I never worked on the case that I mention. After a few head changes and platter transplants, the older hitachi laptop drive just wouldn't come ready. So, I told him to call it unrecoverable, but he forged ahead and got it after one more platter and head exhange. It cost me 5 donor drives for the $1250 job, but the client was very happy, as was I...even though I lost money on the project.

But, this is why a $300 lab service will never be a threat...they cannot even afford the one donor drive, let alone five of them.

[hddguy]

I never worked on the case that I mention. After a few head changes and platter transplants, the older hitachi laptop drive just wouldn't come ready. So, I told him to call it unrecoverable, but he forged ahead and got it after one more platter and head exhange. It cost me 5 donor drives for the $1250 job, but the client was very happy, as was I...even though I lost money on the project.

But, this is why a $300 lab service will never be a threat...they cannot even afford the one donor drive, let alone five of them.

In principal I agree after several head changes its time to start thinking about calling it a day.

Persistence and determination paid off here, and you made a great point about the availability of resources that a larger firm has.

I see many cases that small outfits have deemed unrecoverable. What this actually means is the case is only unrecoverable based on the companies abilities to do recover it.

But then again it can happen the other way also, some smaller firms have more time and less jobs to work on and sometimes I guess all it takes is that one final attempt.

Personally, I believe you get what you pay for so the $300 shop would not get my custom, even though they may be perfectly capable of dealing with it.

Just my opinion.

[Greed]

I never worked on the case that I mention. After a few head changes and platter transplants, the older hitachi laptop drive just wouldn't come ready. So, I told him to call it unrecoverable, but he forged ahead and got it after one more platter and head exhange. It cost me 5 donor drives for the $1250 job, but the client was very happy, as was I...even though I lost money on the project.

But, this is why a $300 lab service will never be a threat...they cannot even afford the one donor drive, let alone five of them.

I checked out your website, which has pictures of crashed drive and even a drive with shattered glass platters.
Are these just pictures of received drive or do they represent drives you were able to get some data out of, including the one with the shattered platters?

[Greed]

I chose OnTrack economy service and after they looked at the drive, I quickly got told unrecoverable.
“Media damage on critical areas and multiple surfaces; All parts and attempts exhausted.”

It's the economy service, so I believe the techs are doing repairs during normal hours.
Looking at their progress tracking it shows the drive was taken to clean room @ 1:20PM
Concluded unrecoverable @ 7AM next morning.

The conclusion came way too quick for all attempts to have been exhausted in my opinion.

[labtech]

The conclusion came way too quick for all attempts to have been exhausted in my opinion.

Not necessarily, as a technician can go easily go through 3-4 parts in a 4-5 hour time-frame. Swapping internal components is a tedious and complicated process, but for an experienced tech with the right tools, it is more than doable.

Did Ontrack charge any fees?

[Greed]

The conclusion came way too quick for all attempts to have been exhausted in my opinion.

Not necessarily, as a technician can go easily go through 3-4 parts in a 4-5 hour time-frame. Swapping internal components is a tedious and complicated process, but for an experienced tech with the right tools, it is more than doable.

Did Ontrack charge any fees?

I didn't expect my "economy service" drive would be something that's going to get a surgery right away. They had "priority service" that was far more expensive.

$65 evaluation. All I got was that one sentence feedback.

[Nick_CT]

$65 evaluation. All I got was that one sentence feedback.

Your $65 would have gone towards their man-hours spent in the cleanroom and the *possibly* numerous head stacks that were destroyed by your damaged media in an attempt to recover. That would be my guess.

[pcimage]

If a drive has massive platter damage on the critical areas, then it's pretty quick for any decent tech to deem it 99.9999% irrecoverable. As Nick says, this is more than enough time for parts to be fitted and destroyed many times over.

Regarding the "one sentence report".... would you rather have a 6 page report of complete twaddle?

Diagnosis normally occurs pretty quickly, irrespective of the service level I would imagine, it's just the position in the queue for full recovery processes I would guess.

[Greed]

Well, this isn't going well. Got told "not recoverable at all" by Ontrack.
When I asked what was attempted "that's confidential, we can't tell you" is their answer.

[Nick_CT]

Well, this isn't going well. Got told "not recoverable at all" by Ontrack.
When I asked what was attempted "that's confidential, we can't tell you" is their answer.

Perhaps they feel to the layman it's of no interest what they did or didn't try. I tell my customers what has been done but then that's my choice, everyone is different.

I would imagine that you're going to accept your loss now seeing that Seagate and Ontrack have deemed it not recoverable.

[BlackST]

Well, this isn't going well. Got told "not recoverable at all" by Ontrack.
When I asked what was attempted "that's confidential, we can't tell you" is their answer.

They are right in my opinion. Probably premium services include detailed report and different diagnose, but don't know for this very case.