[X4U] Hard Drive Recovery Service Needed

[Geoffrey Loeffler]

On Jun 22, 2008, at 11:40 AM, Ronald Steinke wrote:

>> As I said previously, at this point in time, there are plenty of  
>> other respected recovery services that do a great job, cost far  
>> less, and are quite a bit more accommodating to their customers.    
>> I'd go with one of them.


The important thing is to call and talk to as many different  
companies as you need to.  Like any company, ownership and operating  
practices can change in a week. So real time assessment is important,  
check them out on the web, and get a feel for the industry lingo, the  
industry sales line, and their lab capabilities. Most likely, unless  
you really have drowned, microwaved or dropped it from 10 story  
building, it's not going to be thousands, although some will bid that  
high. They will usually recover using their own software, cost $250  
to $850. DriveSavers were professional to me in email and on the  
phone. However I kept looking and called others, but they were the  
only ones to return a call and see if things worked out. Since I had  
recovered the data myself, I did not spend the $$ to have it done  
professionally. But it takes a lot of time and in reality, it  
probably saves money to just get the drive back in a couple of days,  
on a new HD, already to boot or run, so you can back it up right then  
and there and go on with life.

I must say I also had a little pause about security, I had a lot of  
passwords to all my financial and legal accounts, so it was only  
going to be prudent to change all the vital passwords 50 or so  
anyways. Now I know that the probability is low of them taking  
something, but giving up that hard disk, with all that information,  
just did not feel comfortable. But that's just me.

Randy did a most excellent job of supplying a source list to work  
from and I would recommend saving that one. Maybe even printing it  
out...You never know.

Geoff