Before I begin, I know I am a potato head and that I should've made backups. Lesson painfully learned. Thank you all for reading and helping. Any advice is appreciated.

I have a 1TB Seagate Drive with some files on there that are very important. The drive suffered a mechanical failure and I've taken it in to a very reputable local data recovery place with a clean room and they quoted me: $1900. This was their diagnosis:

Mechanical/Physical failure(s):
-Previously opened drive* (I took the drive to them first, then shopped around for prices but no other service could do it, and then went back to them and they said "more damage has been done" so the price went up as well from $1300 to $1900).
-Visible damages on the top platter.
-Read/Write heads damaged and bent.
-Fused read/write chip on the platter.
-Drive has bad sectors.
-Possible minor scratches on the internal platter(s).

I am now deciding between going with them for $1900, or DriveSavers for a range of $700-2000, or Seagate's In-Lab data recovery which will do it for a flat $599. How come Seagate is substantially cheaper?

These files are fairly important so it is crucial that I recover the folder on the hard drive (don't need everything, just about maybe 50gb of files). Could you guys please recommend the best route for me to take right now? I am a student, so obviously money is an issue, but also I weight the value of the files more heavily.

Thanks for all the help!

I vote neither. Seagate is just going to tell you they can't do it and charge you a nice fee.

Send it to DataSavers.

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Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

Looked at data savers website...doesn't have a lot of information and will automatically charge me $100 just for looking. Also no mentioning of a clean room.

Without knowing anything about the actual work involved, it is obvious that a flat fee spreads the cost/profit of each job over the entire revenue base. In this way an easy, 5-minute job might pay for the more difficult 1-or-2-hour job. This happens in a lot of service industries, even those that have a sliding scale of charges.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

jetacle, just to expand on thatdellguy

datasaversllc have been on the forum for years.
Jon and Co have a 'First Class' reputation.
Impeccable credentials.

$100 for a reputable company to take a look is good value, compared to ten others that will do it for free.

Given the level of drive butchery DR companies see after other "pros" have taken a look, it's not too unreasonable a fee to expect.

You could always give the guys a call direct to discuss particulars

K

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Когда хочется кушать – съешь всё.
Голод не тётка!

From the looks of that drive and description, there's a good chance that no one will be able to get your data back, I'm sorry to say. We see it all too often where the budget data recovery "pros" tried hack methods without proper tools and ended up causing more damage. Sadly there are no set standards for data recovery and anyone who claims to be a professional can masquerade as one.

I will throw a +1 in there for Data Savers as well. In my few chats with Jono I've found him to be a wealth of advanced data recovery knowledge. I'd offer to take the case myself, but honestly I don't anticipate it being profitable for whoever gets it (unless they charge a good hefty diagnostic fee).

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

That is very disappointing to hear...if you are judging based off of the black dot you see that is just a reflection in the image im pretty sure. thanks for the input.

It looks like the slider has detached from the top head, most likely due to stiction.

http://hddscan.com/doc/HDD_from_inside.html
http://en.rlab.ru/doc/images/hdd_main_parts/heads1.jpg

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

+1

Shoot...I think you are right...oh man oh man. What do you suggest I do at this point? I'm honestly just trying to get some real opinions, because everyone I've talked to has tried to sell me on something...

DriveSavers
Seagate Recovery (I don't know how or why they only charge $599 when the other places are so expensive)
DataSavers

Thank you so much sir.

+1 datasavers in Atlanta

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Also, I agree with others; it's not going to be an easy recovery -if any-. Expect partial recovery if you're lucky.

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Do you think the drive will be further damaged when I ship it to GA? How could I minimize this?

+1 for Jon, put it in a antistatic bag, wrap it in with bubble plastic and a good cardboard box...also make the delivery "signed for".

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Rescue IT Datarecovery service Sweden
Rescue IT Dataräddning Göteborg AB
http://www.rescue-it.se

What he said ^^^^

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Thank you very much for your kind words and referrals.

Just for the record, we don't charge anything to evaluate a drive. The $100 lab fee comes into play only if we replace the heads but cannot complete a recovery.

I'll be delighted to check out your drive. We recovered one with identical symptoms (mangled heads and stuck slider) this past week. It all depends upon the depth and location of the media damage.

Best regards,

Jon

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

Hi All, I've spoke will Jon regarding this recovery and will be mailing him the drive this afternoon. I will keep this post updated as the recovery process begins and if anyone in a similar situation has any questions please feel free to contact me or post here.

Thank you all who have answered to this post and presented their expertise and experience.

You're in good hands with Jon & Co.

Heard nothing but good reports about their service and success rates

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

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

*UPDATE ON THE MATTER*

I've recently just received the recovered drive back from Jon at DataSavers, and honestly guys I could not have been more satisfied with how everything went. Jon is absolutely AMAZING and extremely patient/knowledgable. He kept me updated everyday and even sent me pictures of the recovery process. This was by no means an easy recovery as I've gotten diagnostics from various other data recovery centers before finding Jon. However, despite the difficulty, Jon was able to essentially recovery 100% of the drive. I could not love this man more. Please, if you are in need of data recovery, stop looking and call Jon.

Thank you all for the recommendations, and thank you again Jon you are the man sir.

Very nice to hear
Nice work Jon..

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Rescue IT Datarecovery service Sweden
Rescue IT Dataräddning Göteborg AB
http://www.rescue-it.se