Well, I've decided and have made a purchase through Laura at Salvation Data for the 3 items:

1)HD Doctor
2)Data Compass
3)HD HPE Pro

This is a huge investment, and i plan on starting a part-time business of data recovry in my area.

I should receive the equipment very soon.

Your worries are not about esd. You are worried about your data (hot? Sensitive info? For your eyes only?), so the decision -that frankly I don't endorse but understand- to buy equipment and DIY. I hear everyday from people who 'want to be present when I work on their hdd'. Guess where I send them...

It's ok, but trust me, dr, electronics and everything are not black magic, it's only a matter of application, logic and study.

Hello all, I'm fairly new to the forum , and I appreciate all the support I've been given thus far.

I need to purchase some equipment from either Salvation Data or from Ace Labs so I can repair my Maxtor DiamondMax 8 Plus 40Gig N40P problems that I have (one is Firmware, other has clicking sounds).

From what I've read on both SD and AL websites, there are different tools which do the same functions (more or less).

To recover the data from my Maxtor HDD's ,
SA has the following:
1)HD Doctor
2)Data Compass
3)HD HPE Pro

DPE Pro is used for stabilizing the HDD while some physical functions are performed such as head /motore replacement, etc

HD Doctor and HD Compass are similar, but I'm not sure which one of these 2 would be better used to recover my Maxtor N40P data.

Ace Labs has the following:
1)PC-3000 portable
2)PC-3000 for Windows (UDMA)
3)PC-3000 extractor UDMA
Although the PC-3000 Portable looks like a new item and would be real simple to use/simple to connnect to laptop, it states only 20-30% recovery rate.
Pc-3000 for Windows (UDMA) appears to be the hardware that sits in the computer, while PC-3000 Extractor UDMA is the software used with Pc-3000 for Windows (UDMA)?

So, my questions to you all is the following:

Which item shall i purchase for recovering the data from my Maxtor HDD's that show N40P?
SD's HD Doctor, or AL's PC-3000 Portable?

What I find ironic, is that I live very close to Ottawa (Canada), which happens to be the city where Ace Labs has its authorized vendor for the PC-3000 suite (Deepspar). However, I may be inclined to go with Salvation Data as their prices appear to be lower than PC-3000. (I've not yet received any pricing from Deepspar / Ace Labs). I'm iclined to drive to Deepspar in person and request pricing.

Many thanks in advance to those who will respond.

mmmm COOKIES!!!!

Yeah! I just received my Salvation Data tool suite!

I will be spending MANY MANY sleepless nights getting used to these tools. I've also managed to get a few HDD's that are either clicking, won't spin, etc. So I'll use these to practice on. I've been assured by the person who gave me these HDD's that he doesn't care if i permanently destroy these drives.

I'll post results soon.

I'm sure you WILL be spending many sleepless nights with these tools . . . but probably not for the reasons that you initially had in mind.

Jon

Amarbir, you seems like a snake with two heads with nasty horn. You hated SalvationData products before and you cursed them for not giving you the right tool and complained alot. Out of the blue you suddenly love SD products, what is wrong with you?

I'm glad you're 100% satisfied with Salvation's tools. I'm sure I'll sound like a broken record, but my experiences with Salvation are so horrible, they are completely unusable to me. The applications are extremely buggy. I have never seen such serious and obvious bugs from a company that hasn't gone out of business. That was the situation a year ago, and it hasn't changed at all. I can almost forgive bugs in new products, but Salvation had over a year to fix things. Instead, they're coming out with other products. Well, there's no way I'd buy Salvation's software tools again. Not unless if they really change their philosophy, and fix the existing problems.

Jon ,
Absolutely Wrong And cookie Monster Well Done ,If You Cannot Addord ACe then this is the best tool to buy,Get on to it ,Send me a pm i will forward you the chat idf i have and i am 100% sure you will have a pleasant experience with salvation tools

About imaging : why not put the brains at work? Inside the hw imagers there's always SOFTWARE. Hint: take a 'deep look' and with some C programming, with brand variants, you can save a lot of $ and develop your own in-house solution. Just to stimulate research...

Amarbir, you seems like a snake with two heads with nasty horn. You hated SalvationData products before and you cursed them for not giving you the right tool and complained alot. Out of the blue you suddenly love SD products, what is wrong with you?

About imaging : why not put the brains at work? Inside the hw imagers there's always SOFTWARE. Hint: take a 'deep look' and with some C programming, with brand variants, you can save a lot of $ and develop your own in-house solution. Just to stimulate research...