Maybe I built a computer that was too stable I haven't had to reload windows xp in four years. Unfortunately I haven't backed up my hard drive in about the same time. I had partition C setup for windows and my desktop data and partition D had the rest of my data. In the past I could pull the data from the windows folders and do a quick format on C and reload windows. I hadn't realized it had been four years since I backed up but I knew it had been a while.

I got a couple blue screens in windows xp and a few system restarts out of the blue. I had just got parts for a new gigabyte brix system for my small business and told myself that I would back up my data after I got the new computer running. I knew xp was possibly going to have to get retired from my personal computer anyway. Well, it didn't last that long.

The hard drive is a WD SATA. The BIOS hung up a couple times but then I got windows to start to boot. It failed part way through. I got an old EIDE WD 160 gig drive out of the closet and reloaded XP on it. I booted from the new drive. BIOS saw the damaged drive correctly. When windows booted it wanted to scan the drive. It said NTFS check for consistancy, while booting. I hit no for both partitions on the bad drive. I opened the file explorer in windows and could see both partitions listed. I clicked on the first one and the computer froze for a second and said program not responding on the task bar. Then it asked if I wanted to format the drive. I said no. I also one got an IO error from windows.

I tried loading puppy linux from a cd but I couldn't seem to access the drive. I am new to linux. My neighbor is an IT guy. He tried windows and linux and used an SATA to USB cable with similar results. He didn't want to run any disc checks or software and risk damage to the drive. I booted the drive one more time today to listen to what it does. The neighbor said it all sounds normal. The drive sounds Ok, but it sounds like it is trying to read click,click....click,click...click,click. It isn't a loud click like I have heard from some bad drives in the past. It feels like it is spinning and has a slight vibration, but I had my other drive mounted next to it and the PC has a number of fans, so I can't be sure I was only picking up movement from the questionable drive. I shut off the PC after windows wanted to format and I said no, and the drive is on a shelf in the closet. I don't want to mess it up by doing any more.

The most used data is in the desktop folder of windows XP. I purposely saved it there instead of in the program directories like many programs do by default. I wanted to be able to get to it easily. I have backups of some data on the second partition and the most important part I would want from there is the jpegs from about 5 folders in my photo gallery folder. I actually backed up the first 5 folders to DVD and the 6th folder to my thumb drive. I made each folder small enough to be burned to a dvd. My DVD burners seemed iffy as well and manually backing up to a usb stick didn't seem great. I should have just done it anyway. I see that windows 8.1 has a backup feature. I think I may run two hard drives now and use the second for a backup. I can burn to DVD every month and maybe use a usb stick as well for my desktop data. I was lucky that I setup firfox sync when I got a tablet just a week before this drive going bad, so I had my bookmarks.

Internet reviews of data recovery companies scared me. Some are bad and others are good but say that it will cost thousands of dollars. My IT neighbor and my Uncle's spouse both recommended Drive Savers Data Recovery. I don't trust yelp reviews but they do seem like a decent company who demands big bucks for their good customer service. I don't really have thousands of dollars to spend. Hundreds of dollars will be hard enough to do, but my data is worth it so I will suck it up and pay a reasonable amount. I did more searching on the net and found this forum.

I read posts from lcoughey from Recovery Force Inc. I looked at their web site, too. It all looks pretty good and he sounds knowledgeable. I have never dealt with shipping to Canada. I live in Southern California, an hour or so from LA. There are a few companies in LA and Irvine, but I don't know who I can trust or afford. $300 recovery is here, but I don't want to risk any damage if he can't get the drive going. The price and location are great and he sounds like a decent guy. I saw posts from jono-ats from data savers llc and liked what I read. My uncle is visiting me right now, from Atlanta (actually 20 minutes from Atlanta I think) and will be flying back next week. His spouse is the head of the IT department at a university there (the guy is smart and has a phd) and is the one who said he uses drive savers data recovery. My uncle might be able to hand deliver my drive to Data Savers if I go that route. I would hate to lose the drive in shipping. I found out if his spouse knew that data savers is so close to them, yet.

I was hoping some people here could lead me in the right direction. On one hand I would like to hand deliver my drive and of course I don't want to needlessly spend huge money, but I also want to ensure I do what I can to protect my data and get it back without making the problem worse. I am willing to put money for high quality professional services but I don't want to get taken advantage of either.

Thank you for your help,
Chris

Here is a photo of the drive. I didn't notice any burned spots on the board and it didn't smell burnt, but I didn't look extremely close either.

Both "Recovery force" and "drive savers" are totally trustworthy and honest, go with whichever one you feel more comfortable with.

Sounds like your drive has some media issues, which will be well within their respective skill sets and not too expensive.

_________________
PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

Our rate for that drive is $349 or $649, depending upon the nature of the problem. Our diagnosis is free.

If your drive makes its way to Atlanta, I'd be delighted to help. Check our reviews.

Thanks.

Jon

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

Hi Jon,

I read the reviews on your web site and some from other sources and they are all good. I have read through your past posts and it seems that you are the owner of data savers llc and you are well regarded here and recommended for the toughest of cases. Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems that you offer all the same services as the well recommended drive savers but just at a price that is affordable for a personal user, which I like. Forgive me if I sound rude or inappropriate, but I wanted to be assured that the lower prices and service from your company will give me every chance there is of getting my data back without further compromising it. I wonder how drive savers and others justify prices in the thousands when guys like you can have a successful business while charging more reasonable rates.

If I send my drive to Atlanta with my uncle, are there any precautions with running a hard drive through airport security or with their xray machines or scanners? I assume he could take the drive as carry on to avoid having it thrown around with other luggage and that the scans shouldn't hurt the package, but I hate to assume.

It sounds like the best bet is to buy a new drive from you, if the data is recoverable. Do you have an estimate for supplying an SATA that is around 320-500 gigs? I don't know if my computer will support a 1TB drive. It has a gigabyte motherboard model number GA-M59SLI-S5. I was thinking of installing windows 8.1 and running two SATA drives that are the same size and using something like the windows backup feature to copy to the second drive automatically. I would periodically burn to DVD and probably a usb memory stick just for extra protection, in case I lost one or both SATA drives. I usually buy my hardware at Newegg, but it would be easier to buy one of your drives if the cost isn't too much higher.

Thanks for the quick replies everyone, and thank you for the info Jon.

Hi CGT80,

Yes, that's me.

I'm not especially comfortable focusing on our business on forums, as most of our competitors are friends (i.e. we often cooperate and help one another), and they also provide high quality services.

I can't speak for Drivesavers, except to say that they have been in the business "forever" and are very well regarded. Suffice it to say that our business models are probably different; our focus is on making data recovery affordable. We set our pricing many years ago, using a flat-rate approach, and it hasn't changed much (except as drives got bigger) and I don't keep current with what others are charging. There are some services that they provide that we don't, e.g. recovery of tape back-ups and other specialities.

Unfortunately, there is no good way for prospective clients to adequately compare the capabilities of one firm vs. another; it's an unusually secretive and guarded industry. "Surgery" on a hard drive carries some inherent risks; it's possible to make matters worse during the recovery process (e.g. if there is hidden media damage), but there are best practices which minimizes these risks. Data recovery is a salvage operation and there are really no guarantees.

I'd like to invite you to PM me if you have additional questions, as I don't want to give the impression of "tooting our horn" for reasons cited, or monopolizing the thread (more that I already have!)

Thanks & best regards,

Jon

_________________
http://www.datasaversllc.com

I sent my drive off to Jon at Data Savers, LLC. They were able to recover my data with their level A plan for $349, exactly as he stated. I could not be more happy with the service they provided. I was updated as they worked on the drive and they had it done the day after receiving it. I got lucky that the data was ALL there and it didn't require more work to extract. It may have been a simple or routine job for them, but it was all lost as far as I was concerned, or even the IT guys I talked to. I am glad that I ran across Jon's posts. He seemed to talk the talk, and in the end, his company walked the walk. The biggest ordeal was having a backup ups driver on the day my drive was delivered with a signature required. Well, they didn't know to go to my side street and ring the door bell to that entrance, so they rescheduled for Monday, and this was on a Friday. I had to wait about three more days to get the proof in my hands that everything went as I was told. I got my drive on Monday and was received to see all my data. I immediately made a copy to the SSD on my new computer, so that I have more than one copy. I will make some dvd backups in the next few days just as a precaution.

Thanks again Jon. You are doing customers a great favor by providing such a high quality service at prices that home users can afford. I will recommend your company to anyone who is looking for data recovery. Hopefully my friends and family will learn from my mistake and not need to hire you, but we know how people are, so I will keep your number handy.

Hey CG, good show for coming back in and posting the result and a testimonial for Jons service.
This is a good example of pro service and deserves recognition.



Would you please also send recognition back from here to your neighbourly IT guy for hiis pro attitude.
That simple "inaction" is worthy of praise as we still see appalling cases of hubristic "IT guys" trying every trick in the book, on hard drives they neither own nor understand, coming in to tell their tale of woe.
Often times they increase the cost of further recovery or, worse, remove any chance of it.

kudos

Kern

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Когда хочется кушать – съешь всё.
Голод не тётка!

Thank you very much for your kind words.

You never know how things will turn out. Sometimes a drive simply can't be recovered, and I worry that a review might be the total opposite (but not for lack of trying).

There are lots of other good people who contribute to this forum and offer top-notch data recovery services as well. I'm grateful it all worked out.

Cheers.

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

Duplicate post. Sorry.

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

Jon is always to humble and diplomatic. Could he be a future governor of Georgia?

_________________
Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

I let my neighbor know that his caution payed off and I recommended that he look up Data Savers LLC, if he ran into another case of a failed drive or heard of anyone who was in need. It is far better for a guy like my neighbor, or myself, to send a drive off to Jon than to mess with buying software to possibly further damage a drive. He was happy to have a recommendation he could use. There were others here who posted and looked like they would be worth doing business with, but in the end, Jon seemed like the best fit for me. I am glad I was able to find a forum with so much knowledge and people who are willing to recommend others in the industry instead of just throwing each other under the bus.

I got lucky with my drive, and the experience couldn't have gone any better. Even if my hard drive was not recoverable, at least I would have had an honest company to check it out. There are so many ways in which this whole ordeal could have gone worse. Rather than thinking about what might have happened, I am thinking about how to prevent it from happening again. I backed up some photos for my grandmother today. They are just on a usb drive, but I think I will go make a copy onto a dvd also. Same goes for my mom.

The external usb 3.0 drive, that Jon sold me, is very nice for backing up data. It is fast, small, and holds a lot at 1TB. My internal drive is a SSD 256 GB. I am running two Gigabyte Brix computers that I threw together (one for personal use and another for our small business). I have a mdisc dvd burner to make a third copy of my data. I am just about done organizing my photos so they can go onto dvd. With the new technology that we have now, and the lower cost of drives, people don't have a good excuse for not backing up.

This forum is pretty cool. While I don't have a need to come here as often as other forums I visit, I will probably poke around once in a while. I read some interesting things while I was researching data recovery. I post on a few that have some good people, much like the ones that hang out here.

Chris