Hard Drive Recovery Services?

dlsmith

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As a grandparent, I can only think that it was not your sister that might have needed help!

12,000 pictures of the daughter does not sound excessive to me. Ask ANY grandparent!

LOL
They were pictures the daughter had taken of herself and put on the computer, she had the problem, as many young people do today.
It's called Facebook.
A terrible affliction.
 
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58Ford

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Wow - lots of great advice here. I’ve paid for business recovery a couple times- rates above are cheap in my eyes. If you just want photos rather than any other data - that should be easier - providing it works at all. Be prepared for that event too.
Going rates here were around $1200 but that obviously Rates down to Hrs.
 

Jchonline

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HD Data recovery costs have gone through the roof thanks to Cryptocurrency. If you are willing to wait a few years or find a local repair shop it will be cheaper.
 

Henro

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HD Data recovery costs have gone through the roof thanks to Cryptocurrency. If you are willing to wait a few years or find a local repair shop it will be cheaper.
I may do this. I do not need the lost photos. Just a want, not a need....

I now have a list of maybe six or so possibilities for recovery. I will call them all and see what they say.

Worst case, I lose nothing...except for a bit of memories. I know where the sewer line goes, and uncovered the clean out points this summer. Only a bit over 200 feet in length...
 

Henro

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The PCBs for the driver ARE different between 1.5 and 2TB platters, there's a firmware number ,that's the one you may have seen. Not only do the PCB part numbers need to be identical, the REV #s have to match, and the firmware as well. I've seen PCBs for 'same drives' be PHYSICALLY different even though the 'major' part number was the same.
Since you've swapped the PCB and the bad drive didn't come alive, odds are the problem's inside the bubble. It only takes a 240 line program to read it, but odds are you don't know any machine level programmers or guys coding in Delphi. You might try Seagate, to see if they have any. Pretty sure Seagate bought out Maxtor, and one of them had DOS based software that did low level stuff. I KNOW DOS6.22 had the abiilty to read any harddrive,used to use it to locate backdoor codes, reset copy counters.
There is at least 1 copy of the drive's 'index info'. If the master is damaged, you can simply copy the 2nd one onto it, should be up and running.
Big problem could be what version Windows you're using. Everything after 98 got 'complicated' with 'layers' and restricted access to 'stuff', big PITA
Still trying to figure out how many 1,000s of pictures you have on one drive. Gotta be LOTS !
Curious.

Would the following stickers on the control boards refer to firmware?

Two on the left are for the 2 TB drives (old and new) and the two on the right are for the 1.5 tb drives (again, old and new). Red dots are the new drives. Both new drives work normally. Even after playing the swap boards game.

798AAA1F-93B4-4C5E-AD80-1A9DB66467A8.jpeg


edit: the 2 TB are different but the 1.5 TB are identical…
 

TheOldHokie

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Curious.

Would the following stickers on the control boards refer to firmware?

Two on the left are for the 2 TB drives (old and new) and the two on the right are for the 1.5 tb drives (again, old and new). Red dots are the new drives. Both new drives work normally. Even after playing the swap boards game.

View attachment 74365

edit: the 2 TB are different but the 1.5 TB are identical…
Have you tried running BIOS disk diagnostics?

Dan
 

NHSleddog

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We have sent drives in for forensic recovery 4 times in our 25 years in business. 3 of the times were complete failures and NO data was recovered usable. The forth was a success. It cost several hundred dollars for the fails and several thousand dollars for the success.

After going through all that and still losing the data you should come to realize that BACKUPS REALLY ARE CHEAP.

How many of you sitting here reading this have a usable backup of your system (phones count as well if you have data on it)?

With the cost of drives and the size of thumb drives these days when someone loses data past the first write, there is no excuse.
 
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Henro

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Have you tried running BIOS disk diagnostics?

Dan
I had not thought of that, but did use software called Partition master...which may do the same thing, or more. None of the configurations were recognized.

I just tried the two drives with the identical control boards, as far as I can tell, and they still are not recognized with the boards swapped, but the good one still is recognized after the original board is put back in place.

I did try using the BIOS disk diagnostics but drives other than the original new good ones were not recognized.
 

Henro

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We have sent drives in for forensic recovery 4 times in our 25 years in business. 3 of the times were complete failures and NO data was recovered usable. The forth was a success. It cost several hundred dollars for the fails and several thousand dollars for the success.

After going through all that and still losing the data you should come to realize that BACKUPS REALLY ARE CHEAP.

How many of you sitting here reading this have a usable backup of your system (phones count as well if you have data on it)?

With the cost of drives and the size of thumb drives these days when someone loses data past the first write, there is no excuse.
Granted that backups are really cheap. My issue was I had three backups, but as luck would have it, they all disappeared very close in time.

I think my limit for recovery of the photos is about 400 bucks. More than that, tough luck for me. Not like I need the photos anyway, just would like to have them. DATA on the disks is of no interest. Just the photos.

In my case, I thought 3 backups would be enough. WRONG. Sometimes things just happen that defies reason I guess.

While I did not mention it, my third backup was on my old iphone. My son in law's iphone died for reasons I can not remember. I was working, and told my wife to let him use my old iphone, rather than her old iphone, as her's was set up in Japanese.

Never occured to me that the SIL would delete everything from my phone...I just thought he would use it as is, and just change the phone number. LIVE AND LEARN.
 

Jchonline

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Granted that backups are really cheap. My issue was I had three backups, but as luck would have it, they all disappeared very close in time.

I think my limit for recovery of the photos is about 400 bucks. More than that, tough luck for me. Not like I need the photos anyway, just would like to have them. DATA on the disks is of no interest. Just the photos.

In my case, I thought 3 backups would be enough. WRONG. Sometimes things just happen that defies reason I guess.

While I did not mention it, my third backup was on my old iphone. My son in law's iphone died for reasons I can not remember. I was working, and told my wife to let him use my old iphone, rather than her old iphone, as her's was set up in Japanese.

Never occured to me that the SIL would delete everything from my phone...I just thought he would use it as is, and just change the phone number. LIVE AND LEARN.
As others have mentioned…

3, 2, 1.

3 copies
2 different media types
1 offsite

For me I do the actual hard drive, a physically attached backup drive, and a cloud based full real time backup service. I also use a cloud based system like Dropbox/iCloud/google drive/etc for ALL normal documents and such (not photos or media). So for all of that stuff I actually have it in 4 locations.

It’s not hard, nor is it expensive.
 

dlsmith

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How many of you sitting here reading this have a usable backup of your system (phones count as well if you have data on it)?

With the cost of drives and the size of thumb drives these days when someone loses data past the first write, there is no excuse.
I always tell customers and friends that it's not IF they will have a data loss problem, just a matter of WHEN they will have a data loss.
That's why I have a couple of NAS units with redundant backups.
Call me paranoid.
 

GreensvilleJay

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yes, probably 'firmware' stickers ..you can probably read the QR code info with a 'smart phone'.....

since the NEW HDs work with both new AND old PCBs, it's be 'bubble trouble'.
I'd go to Seagates website, see if under warranty ? then look for any 'resources' like a 'low level' reader.
probably some fancy names these days. Also google that specific drive and see if anyone has a 'this worked for me.....posting'
I'd try a 'scandisk' then a 'quick format' see what happens.

also...
reboot and when the screen show the BIOS configuration, press 'pause/break' key to SEE if the BIOS recognizes the drive. It should report the drive specs which will include the model/type of the drive.

things were a lot easier4 decades ago
 

shelkol

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yes, probably 'firmware' stickers ..you can probably read the QR code info with a 'smart phone'.....

since the NEW HDs work with both new AND old PCBs, it's be 'bubble trouble'.
I'd go to Seagates website, see if under warranty ? then look for any 'resources' like a 'low level' reader.
probably some fancy names these days. Also google that specific drive and see if anyone has a 'this worked for me.....posting'
I'd try a 'scandisk' then a 'quick format' see what happens.

also...
reboot and when the screen show the BIOS configuration, press 'pause/break' key to SEE if the BIOS recognizes the drive. It should report the drive specs which will include the model/type of the drive.

things were a lot easier4 decades ago

Yes, even if the drive won't come ready ( heads load) the drive should report its manufacturer and model number. It may or may not report the serial number. Many drives today keep the 'firmware' and lots of information on hidden sectors on the media. So the drive must be running with the heads loaded before the full firmware loads and gets the rest of the information off the media. There is just boot firmware in a ROM to be able to spin up the drive, load the heads and then load the full firmware
 

Henro

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One more thing to try:

I know about the erasure trick and thought about it, but then did not act on it. This video rang the bell again, and I will try it and might get lucky, who knows?

(we all will later today I expect. :))

Thanks for posting the video!
 
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Henro

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since the NEW HDs work with both new AND old PCBs, it's be 'bubble trouble'.

I'd try a 'scandisk' then a 'quick format' see what happens.

also...
reboot and when the screen show the BIOS configuration, press 'pause/break' key to SEE if the BIOS recognizes the drive. It should report the drive specs which will include the model/type of the drive.
What I was trying to say was neither new drive works with an old board, and neither old drive works with a new board.

Both new drives still work after I return the new boards back to the original new drives.

The bios does not see the failed hard drives, but does see the new drives when they are installed.

I would not try any type of format unless I was willing to give up on possible data retrieval. Not there yet.

Thanks for your thoughts!
 

Henro

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I tried cleaning the contacts between the board and the physical drive box, as EXrocketengineer suggested, and it made no difference with the 1.5 TB drive, BUT made a slight difference with the 2 TB drive.

The 2TB drive is now at least seen by PartitionMaster and Crystal Disk software, but not by windows explorer or the bios on boot up. I do not know what this means, but think there must be some formatting missing, as windows explorer does not see the drive.

At this point I think I am going to decide to send the 2 TB drive for evaluation somewhere and get an estimate. Most places want to give an estimate sight unseen, which I am pretty sure means a high price. Not even sure what they mean when they say "no data recovered, no charge to you." My guess is if one file is recovered, that is data recovered, and you pay the full estimate.

I did find one place in Florida that says they cannot give an estimate without first having the drive in their hands for evaluation. Might be a sign of an honest repair place. Don't know...
 

GreensvilleJay

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before you 'pull the $$$$ trigger'...., what version of Windows ?

if the BIOS doesn't 'see' the drive, Windows(well 'new' ones) won't either...
it 'might' be the MBR is corrupted, there's a copy of it, you could use to replace the original one.
in the good old dayze using DOS6.22 you could 'recover' a Windows unreadable drive. Course back then drives were PRICEY,sadly today they're use once, throw away...like most everything else.
You may be able to use SEAGATE software to 'reconfigure' the drive, making it readable again. Always best to use the HD mfrs 'recovery' software if possible.
 

Henro

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before you 'pull the $$$$ trigger'...., what version of Windows ?

if the BIOS doesn't 'see' the drive, Windows(well 'new' ones) won't either...
it 'might' be the MBR is corrupted, there's a copy of it, you could use to replace the original one.
in the good old dayze using DOS6.22 you could 'recover' a Windows unreadable drive. Course back then drives were PRICEY,sadly today they're use once, throw away...like most everything else.
You may be able to use SEAGATE software to 'reconfigure' the drive, making it readable again. Always best to use the HD mfrs 'recovery' software if possible.
Windows 7, but I frankly know when I should stop and let someone who knows what he is doing take over.

Weakness or strenth on my part? Not sure...