Need help to find a local data recover store for my dead hard drive! (laptop, email)

[beidog]

I think my hard drive(SATA, laptop hard disk,200G) is dead because of water(1 week ago)
I brought it to a computer repair store, they took three days and my money, and told me that they cannot to fix it, and suggest I bring it to somewhere else(more professional) to do data recovery if I really want my data back.

I didn't do any backup for my data , which are very important to me, i have been keep these data more than 5 years, including a lot of my memory.

However, I heard that to do the data recovery is very expensive. Does any one know that any local store offer cheaper price for data recovery near San Francisco or Sacramento in California. Would it be a cheaper if i only want to recover some files or folders. Thanks !

[EscapeCalifornia]

Data recovery from a soaked hard drive is going to cost an arm and a leg because it isn't something just anybody can do. I don't think that shop should have taken your money but you're going to need a company like Drive Savers or Ontrack that specializes in data recovery from physically damaged drives.

[TomSD]

Data recovery is VERY expensive and is hot or miss as to what you will get back (if anything). When you say you took it somewhere else what did they do? Pretty much anything they tried probably lowered your chances of data recovery as it is a tricky process at the best of times.

[mensaguy]

I asked a similar question last year. Recommendations I got from people I trust and who had experienced good dealings with them suggested contacting Ontrack:

Data Recovery in North America - Data Recovery Labs and Cleanrooms - Kroll Ontrack (http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/data-recovery-locations/north-america/ - broken link)

[beidog]

what's the lowest cost in the market today? need to depends on the condition of how bad the drive is?

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by beidog

what's the lowest cost in the market today? need to depends on the condition of how bad the drive is?

The last time I dealt with Drive Savers, the minimum charge was $500 but they waived that if they couldn't recover anything. From there, the charges can go into the thousands. Once you get a drive wet, I have to believe that's going to be one of the more costly recoveries.

[marsbound2024]

Unfortunately data recovery is indeed very expensive. Data is stored on magnetic platters in your hard drive. Loss of magnetism means loss or corruption of data. This is why the hard drive is built as a Faraday cage (to minimize electromagnetic interference). Also, the read/write heads hover over the platters at microscopic scales while those platters are rotating at 5400-7200RPM (sometimes 10,000RPM for consumer drives). If dust or water gets inside and gets between the heads and the platters, it could cause a crash and even demagnetize part of the drive.

Anyways, skipping over those technical details, this is why data recovery usually occurs in clean rooms. Although I don't mean to be harsh, I would say this is a lesson learned. ALWAYS keep important data backed up. Don't trust irreplaceable data to mechanical/electromechanical devices. They will eventually fail. Keep data on CDs/DVDs, archive them with Gmail even (easiest way is to send an email full of attachments with files you want to keep to yourself), back up on an external hard drive, do online data backup. Always have your data stored in at least two working locations (if your main hard drive goes down and your external hard drive is the only working backup, try to hook up the external hard drive to another PC and burn the most important files to a CD/DVD). Redundancy is key.

[J Arp]

I've never done this for a drive that was soaked, but...

You could buy the -exact- same hard drive model.
Take your old hard drive apart and let it air out somewhere for a few days where bugs and dust aren't going to get into it. Keep it away from pretty much everything. Don't mess with the platters, just take the covering off.
Remove the circuit board panel from both drives, (You should have done this with the dead drive already)

Once you think it has sufficiently aired out put the dead drive back together using the circuit board from the new drive.

My reasoning is that possibly the water only damaged your circuit board and by using a new board it will work. I've done this on hard drives where the board had simply died or it had somehow got fried, complete with visual burn marks.
You're going to need a new drive anyways so... Granted this will probably void the hell out of your new hard drive's warranty. I don't know..maybe not. I'm not sure where all those little warranty void stickers are placed. I never pay attention.

[pitt_transplant]

You can find someone at a local school that would do it cheaply.

Does it work at all? What OS? Can you start it in safe mode?

[EscapeCalifornia]

Originally Posted by pitt_transplant

You can find someone at a local school that would do it cheaply.

Does it work at all? What OS? Can you start it in safe mode?

The drive went for a swim. He's well beyond the point of "someone at a local school that would do it cheaply". That's like suggesting he find someone at the local barber shop to remove a malignant brain tumor for him on the cheap.