Okay so I had a harddrive fail. A 2TB hard drive. This hard drive had some priceless family photos and things that simply cannot be replaced. My family would pitch in but they want to have about a million more quotes done. My uncle in fact wants me to get the drive back and bring it home aboard a rocky train ride and then fly it to Chicago where he apparently "knows a guy who is good with computers" who should be able to fix it for less. I know personally I got a good quote around $1000 It has firmware corruption the motor has died and it was improperly assembled He also thinks that simply getting the drive back and waiting a couple years to save up for the money and then try and retrieve the data would be fine. I want him to also understand that leaving the job makes it harder and more expensive. Anyone able to help me explain this.
Get him to give you an email address for his 'computer man' and explain to him exactly what the problem is and how valuable the information is. If he has any idea what he's talking about he will then be able to tell your Uncle that the best course of action is to go to a professional and no expense (within reason) should be spared. Consequentially, after understanding the circumstances completely, the computer man wouldn't want to touch that hard drive.
2TB? I'd charge you $15,000. If the platters and such are good, buy another 2tb with the same board (firmware) and swap it.
$1000 sounds like a good deal, actually. Assembler is clearly not in the data recovery business, as nobody would pay that. Tip for the future: Do backups. 2TB's is a pain in the ass, so start off with a mirrored setup (gets you out of this problem), then backup your other shit in temporary backups to Blu Ray. It's quick and easy, and you can do it in 50GB increments. No telling how long BDRs will last, but it will likely save you in the case your computer AND HD's go tits up. That's what I'm doing w/ my family pictures... and my wife would cut my balls off if I lost them.
The price is not depend on how big is the disc (as you provide the one to transfer the data to in most cases), but what's wrong with the disc and how hard is to get the data back. Usually if you use only software to retrive the data the cost is around $300 if you have to open the disc or change a part it's goes up quickly.
I had a RAID controler that died. Local recovery places wanted $500 bucks to recover the data from the drives. I said "Forget it, I'll do it myself". The controler was dead, not the drives. So I simply mounted both drives on my PC, used recovery software that supported virtual RAID partitions and dumped all my information back to a fresh set of disks. Formatted the RAID disks back to normal partitions and transfered my data back on the drives. I know it might not be possible since I don't know if this firmware mumbo jumbo is legit or not, but if you don't have a serious hardware problem perhaps someone else can recover the data for you (For free, or much cheaper).
Are you able to run a diagnostic on the drive with software from the manufacturer? Only Western Digital makes 2TB drives I believe, so you can download their diagnostic software. Basically the diagnostic can tell you what's wrong with it. Chances are, it is the PCB on the hard drive, it is worth a shot to buy another 2TB of the same model/firmware and swap the PCBs. I've done this and it works and it's cheaper than sending it to a recovery center. But if it comes down to where the mechanisms inside are bad, then I'd take it to professional data recovery center. Always have/make backups!!
The firmware corruption can be "easily" fixed with the right equipment. The dead motor could be swapped out by a trained technician. It's the "improperly assembled" statement that makes no sense. Obviously, it was assembled well enough to function correctly for at least a little while. If it can be disassembled and reassembled correctly (in a dust/particle free environment), then I don't see what the $1000 quote actually involves. If the platters are damaged though, then $1000 is about average for a single, unencrypted hard drive recovery. Be careful that some places do charge per MB/GB or platter for recovery and some places do charge ridiculous amounts of money.
Don't actually tell this to the data recovery people. They're like sharks - they can sense your weakness. If you mention the word "priceless", you'll actually see the dollar signs light up in their eyes, and possibly hear them make the "cash register" noise. (some but not all data recovery professionals have a specialized organ in the larynx that produces this noise) Instead, go in and say "Hey, my hard drive full of boring crap files died and I'm too lazy to buy a new HD, what can you do for me?"
If there's nothing on there that you personally need back then hand it over to them and let them get on with it. Sounds like something you don't want responsibility for. Let your uncle take the blame when his knowledgeable friend screws the disk completely.
