Data recovery costs?

[Deleted member 65081]

Just curious if anyone has used a data recovery company to recover data from a failed HDD.

I had a HDD fizzle (blue flames + smoke) the other night at work. Although the information on it is not totally vital, and much of the data is backed up, having direct access to it would save me a ton of time.

So, has anyone used a data recovery service? Any insight into their pricing? $500, $1k, $10k ballpark?

 

[pissboy]

Was it just the board that died? If so you can get them on ebay relatively cheap (~$40).

 

[john2k]

Ontrack is the top data recovery company. I used them twice, first time was (I think) in 1999 and then again in 2001. The first time they were able to recover data, perfectly, from a failed HDD in my webserver. The cost was around $1800 for the entire job. The second time I used them they were not able to recover the data (too much damage to the HDD platter) and the cost just to check was, if I'm remembering correctly, a few hundred dollars.

 

[Deleted member 65081]

We are looking at Ontrack actually. Their corporate hq is just the next city over from us. I talked to them on the phone and they welcome walk-ins, which I thought was cool. I'm just not sure $1k+ is worth it at this point... we are still weighing that