Can anyone recommend one for retrieving the data off a hard drive? (chkdsk is reporting "The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverabable problems").

I know. I should have been backing up. Save it for someone for whom it matters.

Join the IRC channel...

I suppose the first step is to try something like reading the raw disk (with dd or equivalent) to see if you can extract "enough" of it to make a go of recovering your own data. If it's well and truly broken, then you're dealing with the sort of people who keep clean rooms around and charge big bucks. Never used one myself, although there was a NY Times article a couple years ago that you may be able to hunt down. If the companies mentioned then are still in business now, that's a good sign...

I've always had the sick desire to start a data recovery firm, and do nothing but hook the drive up, shake it a few times to try and get it started. If that didn't work, the next procedure would be to open it up with whatever's handy and try getting the platter spinning by hand.

I figure I'd have just as high a sucess rate as the professional places, and if not I'd still get to keep the initial $400 fee to look at the drive.

Really I guess I just don't trust the data recovery places. They charge an arm and a leg, and you have no way to verify they're going to any great lengths to get your data.

Matthew

Quote:
If that didn't work, the next procedure would be to open it up with whatever's handy and try getting the platter spinning by hand.

I want to try that on a dead drive I have but I can't find torx that will fit.

Quote:
I want to try that on a dead drive I have but I can't find torx that will fit.

I seem to remember a recent thread extolling the virtues of vise grips when removing stripped screws.

They aren't even stripped I just need to get motivated enough to get the torx bit that fits. I might try the vice grips though since I have one here now.

Edit:
I got it open and it keeps slamming the head into the spindle. There is also a ring worn into the top platter. I think it's a gonner