I am hoping someone can give me some answers. I recently dropped my wife's laptop that all the kids baby pictures on their and I took it to a data recover center near me in Los Angeles California. They told me the platter was scratched and they have to replace the heads. I only have a 20%-30% chance to retrieve the data. They want to charge me $1200.00. Can someone tell me what are other options I have or if there is another place I can send it that specializes in scratched platters. I only care about the pictures. I very desperate for some good advice.

Thank You in advance.

IMHO, that is an average price. scratches can mean multiple head changes. a Head Change means they need to find another drive that is compatible with yours each time they need to do a head change. They have to buy the disks, can be $200 or more cost to them. For a laptop hard disk, I don't want to suggest any type of DIY.

The only thing is the percentage of recovery they said. It may be just trying to tell you that there is no guarantee and trying to use layman's terms, but I think it is hard to give that type of idea.

you can try, in no particular order, these professionals:

Luke at recovery force (Canada) (lcoughey on here)
Jon at Data savers in Atlanta (jono-ats on here)
Jared in Rhode Island (data-medics on here)
pcimage (UK)
Northwind (Greece)

I would trust my HDD with any of these guys any day of the week.

Did they provide pictures of the scratches? I have had a couple of different local DR firms tell my clients their drives needed a head stack change in a clean room (for which they quoted $1,200 CAD), and it needed no such thing. I'm not saying that's the case here or that many DR firms are so unscrupulous, but you are right to get a second opinion. If it truly does have scratched platters, I think the $1,200 figure is low, hence my suspicion.

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Sabo Computer Repairs & Data Recovery

Im afriad there is no real place i know of that specializes in scratched platters, maybe someone can correct me.
The only possiblitly for recovery is to work around the scratched area and avoid the new heads getting killed. This is why the recovery will be expensive, most likely 1-3 donors will be used the in process. It just depends how much money you are willing to throw at it.

It all depends on where the platters are scratched. Its quite common on 2.5" drives to have scratches on the outer edge of the platters from the heads loading and unloading from the ramp and smashing into the platters. If the scratches are in the SA (Service area of the drive) then chances are much lower for recovery. Pictures here would help.

As long as you got for a reputable data recovery professional you will have the best chance of getting your data back, like HaQue mentioned above.

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Web: https://www.day1data.de

I agree with all the above.
$1200 for a scratched Hitachi is a very low price IMHO, which might be good news for you: The platters may not be scratched (thus, you can perhaps get a better price).
If the platters are scratched, we need to know the whereabouts of the damage, as mentioned by the fellows above.
You need to provide more info about what the other firm did (ie. did they open the drive? Did they provide pictures of the platter damage?).

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
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