Has anyone recovered data from a damaged hard drive??

ASmallWonder

FML.  I'll preface this with yes, I'm an idiot because I never backed up laptop.  Over the summer Aiden dropped it on the floor and it wouldn't power up.  Thankfully I work in IT and someone was able to look at it for me.  Unfortunately, the hard drive is shot and they're not able to get anything off it because the hard drive doesn't even power/spin.  I'm freaking out  He said there are data recovery places but from what he's seen, they're incredibly expensive or not reputable.  I'm kicking myself SO hard because except for what pictures I've posted to FB or saved to Shutterfly, ALL our pictures and videos from Aiden's first three years are on there.  Has anyone recovered data and had a good experience with a particular place?

wesleycrusher

Happened to me a while ago.  DH works in computers, but even he couldn't fix it.  Took it a local place and they wanted over $1000 dollars because of the large amount of data on the drive.  We ended up sending it away to a company that charged a flat rate no matter how much data there was.  It was still expensive- it was $649- but this was a few years ago and many flat rate places are cheaper now.  Good luck!

ETA: We used Crucial Data Recovery and they got like 98% off the stuff off the hard drive.  I'm not sure though how their prices compares to other places nowadays.

LuckyDad

Yes, but it's incredibly expensive.

shadypines

Yes.... Be ready to $$$$

ASmallWonder

So, slightly good news.  DH reminded me that when we bought this laptop we kept our old one.  That was about a year ago so anything in the year since then will be lost (minus the few pictures I've put on FB) but it's not THAT much.  At least all my pictures and videos of Aiden from the first 3 years would be able to be recovered.  I talked to the IT guy at work and he's going to try to pull all that from the old laptop for me.

That guy is getting a Target gift card as a thank you, for sure