I have been looking for the best solution for rebuilding the system area of drives. Can anyone share their best solution? I have been looking at the PC-3000 and Salvation Data's WD Doctor. They don't quote their price on-line, which leads me to believe they structure the price differently for each customer / size of company. How to get the best price? Does anyone "share" or loan this type of equipment for a small fee?

You should research the tool and not the cost. You will not get the answer you are looking for, just opinions of people who mainly have experience with one or the other.

What specifically is your goal? What types of drives and problems are you expecting to be dealing with?

PC3k is the way to go IMO for FW work. Costly depends on the region , not the company size. North America gets 1 price while EU zones get another. Same for the yearly support / update costs.
Afaik no one will share nor loan equipment like that. I know we would not . Gl m8.

Short history: I've been working with hard drive for about 35 years, replace heads & platters in Control Data (CDC) drives back in the 80's, been doing "soft" recovery of hard drives for 20+ years (patching FAT tables with Norton Disk Editor to NTFS recovery programs, Spinrite, etc.), and have had successful recoveries by swapping controller boards. So I'm not a beginner in this field. Developing qualifications seems to help prevent smackdowns in these forums
When I get a customer with a failed drive with a hard error (unreadable), I present them with the option of "professional" repair service (OnTrack, DriveSavers, etc..) an out of the 50 or so customers, only one opted to pay the $2,500 to recover his data. Most of my customers (small business and home users) have a threshold of about $300 to get their files back. They just accept the loss, or have employees re-enter info. I'm looking for a solution for low cost recoveries that don't involve a clean room, which may be about half of the "hard" failures, from what I've been reading.
Currently, I have a customer with a WD800BB-60JKA0 that spins, click-clicks, & spins down. BIOS shows drive, diags show wrong model & size. Most likely a good PCB, may be bad heads or crashed system area. Customer just needs a few files. Customer's "pain" threshold is $300, and only if they get their files.
I could justify a few hundred dollars investing in a solution that *may* recover some data. Can't justify a few thousand.

Not gonna happen, IMO.

You can read through the old threads in the forum and get some ideas of the very few things that can be reasonably DIY-able (PCB repair/replacement being the main thing) and if you are handy with software or programming you could come up with a cheap or free imaging solution for the easy drives, but there is not anything out there that is going to deal with firmware or mechanical problems for a couple hundred bucks. Additionally, none of the tools are going to teach you how to use them and what to do, regardless of how much you spend.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

This site is a wonderful resource, the post newbie-info-from-and-for-newbies-about-firmware-etc-t6562.html is an excellent example. But most posts seem to discourage "messing" with the drive, and assume the person knows nothing about what they are doing (which may be true). However, I think I can handle it. I have "played" with ATA commands, written a few programs to directly access the drive, and understand the electronics & mechanical structure of drives. Admittedly, newer drives are a bit more complex that what I used to play with when I had time to "play"(about 12 years ago), so I have a little catching up to do. I have a stack of 200+ drives, PATA and SATA (and some SCSI old ESDI...) that I can play with. Some failed, most are working pull-outs from upgrades or recycled computers. We keep them in case the customer discovers he is missing some data or to keep private data from falling into the wrong hands (until they can be properly disposed of...).

One way to bring the cost of data recovery down is to make it more accessible. Don't just say "it can't be done", explain the problem if you really understand it. You would think some replies are from people that work for the "big data recovery companies"! "You don't know what you are doing, send it to the professionals!"

I don't expect a "couple hundred dollar" solution. The WD Doctor is $600 but only works with Western Digital (they have other models, $600 for each manufacturer). Which is in the ballpark, if it worked with more than one manufacturer. I still haven't gotten a price quote for the PC-3K which looks to be a better solution. They have a nice demo video too.

Unfortunately, making it more accessible can result in an increase in the number of "botched" DIY jobs, resulting in a more expensive recovery in the long run.

As somebody in the IT business, I'm sure you can understand that data recovery involves a big investment of time and money. Professional DR takes a long time to master. Forget about "soft" jobs, anyone can do using a vast array of tools available on the web.

If you are shocked at a $600 tool, professional DR is definitely not for you. You will fall off your chair when the quote arrives for PC3K.

I'm not trying to be purposefully negative but professional DR is expensive for a reason. You can't spend $250k +++ on equipment and charge $200 for a recovery. Simple economics.

Furthermore, tools are only the absolute beginning. I suggest you partner with a reputable DR company who can assist you with the more serious recoveries. At least you can make some margin without the big investment.

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Data Recovery Ireland

Just as an example PC3K with Data Extractor cost me over $7,000. Your quote will be different depending on your region, I was merely mentioning it to highlight the fact that $600 for a 'HD Doctor' tool isn't even the tip of the iceberg. Professional DR people have a lot more than just PC3K, it requires a large investment in terms of money, time, and dedication. PC3K is an amazing tool so it's price is justified in my opinion. As CK says, you can't invest so much money and time and then charge peanuts for your work.

Good luck.

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Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town

From a different perspective, I think it would make more sense to think about your market. As you mentioned, people do not want to spend more than $300. So, my suggestion sort of follows the same suggestions other above have posted.

Carry out recoveries that are logical and PCB related so that you can make a profit. For more complicated recoveries when dealing with mechanical and firmware, outsource or partner up with a good DR firm. The problem is though that many things changed from a decade ago and so recoveries have increasingly become more complicated and dependent on expensive tools. This is the case if you want to recover everything that is theoretically recoverable.

Sure, there are still some drives that easy solutions are applicable, but the number is shrinking. This only means that whatever you use, software, hardware, knowledge, training investment, time investment, parts, drives the cost up and unfortunately $300 is not going to cut it. You will be constantly operating at a loss.

To conclude, there are two ways to be in the business:
1. Do it big: Invest in equipment and training and address all recoveries
2. Do it small: Invest in only a few things, address what you can on your own, and outsource difficult projects to others (likely will be able to outsource, because people in your market do not want to pay - )

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Hard Disk Drive (HDD), Solid State Drive (SSD, SATA, NVMe, etc), USB Flash Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts

Same here. In those days we were taught how to do this kind of work in a matter of days, without any prerequisite knowledge. The required tools for a head alignment were a 10K disc exerciser, a $3K CE pack, a torque screwdriver, and an alignment tool that looked like a key-shaped sardine can opener with an eccentric nipple.

Later on, when I went into business for myself, I replaced the exerciser with about 30 words of machine code, and I used the customer's software pack in place of the CE pack, but I couldn't avoid stumping up $99 for the alignment tool and $300 for the screwdriver. I probably could have used a wire coat hanger in place of the tool, but the customer wouldn't have been impressed.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hey, I still have one of those disk exercisers! Not likely to run into any CDC drives any more though

I got my quote on the PC-3K, price almost $10K, a bit more than what I'm looking to invest. Perhaps if I was 20 years younger... I don't mind investing in hardware, if I can see a payback down the road. My network analyzers, cable certifies, scopes, all payed for themselves, from a couple jobs to a couple years. I can't see a payback any time soon on the PC-3K, and considering it will only solve less than 50% of the drive failures (perhaps a lot less than 50%).
I have been getting quotes to recover my customer's drive. And even explaining that I believe it's a firmware rebuild job, and to limit it to that, I still get quotes $800 or more.
Now, one thing bothers me: most recovery services will look at the drive for free and tell you what is recoverable, and give you a quote. To "look at the drive" they pretty much have to make the drive readable, essentially recovering the drive (at least temporarily) to "see" you data. Easy process if you have the right equipment? Obviously, the major cost of recovery is their investment in equipment. I predict a niche market between the "Do it Big" and "Do it Small", forming that will steal the easy, profitable jobs away from the "big" guys. Seen it happen in the computer industry many times.
Just some thoughts, sorry to ramble...
BTW: Can anyone relate their experience with Salvation Data's products?

Mainstream recovery companies use PC3k. Budget conscious companies use Salvation data. HRT is also an option but not very good IMHO

I only use PC3k or quite often use my own SW tools when PC3k fails.

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All went well until I plugged the drive in.

Revise your market and business model !

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