Hard Drive Recovery Specialists?

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Hi,
I have had a series of hard drive failures in a short space of time resulting in all 3 copies of valuable files being lost.
Can anyone recommend any specialist data recovery companies.
Note
1 - The hard drives have failed so its not a software issue.
2 - I do have a working hard drive that exactly matches one of the drives that failed which I can also send so the platters can be transferred to the working drive.

Cheers
 
I've had great results recovering myself using a couple of manual tricks and a set of different external caddies,
so I'm just saying there are sensible ways to do it yourself if you are lucky with these kind of things.
 
Cheers but this is a mechanical failure with grinding on power up.
 
Kroll Ontrack are one of the best in the business that ive used for some customer data retrieval a few times but they aren't cheap. It depends on how important the data is really.
 
A company I used to work for had a disk failure on a machine that was completely unsecured / not backed up in any way and jut happened to be running possibly the single most "mission critical" thing in the entire organisation - was a director of the company, who'd bought the computer out of his petty cash fund (this in the era where a 486 Compaq was around £4000!) and not told anyone what he was doing on it. Anyhow - the inevitable happened - it went bang. IIRC we used a company called "ontrak" - think these are the company. We ended up removing the HD, biking it down to them, where they basically took it apart in a clean room, rigged the platters up to some kind of "lathe" assembly, and painstakingly managed to "bit-copy" the data off, then recover what they could. They got back something like 90% of the files on the machine - fortunately all of the data files, most of the ones that were un-recoverable were the programs, which could be re-installed. Data came back in a pack of CD's. I can't actually remember the price of the service - but it certainly cost getting on for the same price as the replacement computer and the new backup solution that was installed... On the other hand, had the information that was on there been lost forever, it's a question if the company would have survived, so it was worth the money... Didn't stop the company ending up with a replacement New Product Development Director the following year though... ;)
 
Just be aware that any failed attempts may make the job harder (and therefore even more expensive) if you end up going for one of the recovery specialists. The 4 recoveries we had done by Kroll Ontrack ranged from just over £1000 to just under £3000 - and two of those were the same person that didn't learn his lesson the first time but the second recovery was still cheaper than the £5000 the software company wanted for the CAD software he lost! On the flipside, a mate tried a company in Wales who charged him just shy of £400 for a box full of dvd's containing jibberish.

B->
 
BLZeebub said:
Just be aware that any failed attempts may make the job harder (and therefore even more expensive) if you end up going for one of the recovery specialists.
Click to expand...

This is a very good point. In this case, the OP has several failed drives with the same data on which means that if my suggestion of a DIY attempt is unsuccessful, one of the other drives can be sent for expert recovery. If it was the only copy then I'd definitely get specialist assistance first.
 
I used one in NI which was good, try and get the name for you.

The home/DIY method also works, and may help the grinding. ;)
 
If it's that important, don't risk it, go to the best in the business regardless of the price.

Don't attempt it yourself, and don't use a cheap service.
 
Try Data Wreck in Hanley , Stoke on Trent. Used them several years ago and gave good service
 
PeterTheJet said:
From £249, there is one in Edinburgh, not used them, link
Click to expand...

I know two people who have used these guys with excellent results

EDIT TO ADD: It was the Edinburgh branch
 
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Thanks for all the input.
I'm based in Edinburgh so its good to hear of good reports of that company.
 
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