Wildfire Burned Home to Ground - Advice on Data Recovery Service

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Wildfire Burned Home to Ground - Advice on Data Recovery ...

pygmyowl
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p.1 #1 · Wildfire Burned Home to Ground - Advice on Data Recovery Service

To cut to the chase, wildfire incinerated my home (along with over 60 others) here south of Pocatello, ID last Thursday (June 28) - did better than most and wife, dog and myself got out. In 15 min, loaded nearly all my Nikon camera & lens (minus tripod, whimberly head and few other items), but hard disk was in my Tundra and it never made it out - power was gone and garage doors jammed - got my Jetta TDI and camper van out OK -only myself to blame for the loss of all my images as they should have been stored off sight.

I have found my 1TB WD HD that I had stored in my detached shop. It has seen a lot of heat & smoke, but the case is intact and not melted. The ones in my basement are in pretty bad shape and putting most of my hope in the recent Synctoy BU that I had in the shop.

Just checking if anyone had any recommendations of a HD Data Recovery service. I have found a couple, but thought I would see if anyone had actual experience with these "forensic" type outfits.

Realize it can be quite expensive but I would like to take a shot at it.

Thanks,
Scott

Jul 03, 2012 at 11:45 PM

WilsonImages
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p.1 #2 · Wildfire Burned Home to Ground - Advice on Data Recovery Service

again, glad you are safe!

Jul 04, 2012 at 01:02 AM

aborr
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p.1 #3 · Wildfire Burned Home to Ground - Advice on Data Recovery Service

There are a few good choices, but it can be a fairly costly job - $500 or more per drive, if they have to disassemble the unit and move the platters to a new drive.

Drive Savers: http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/

(Drive Savers is probably the biggest, most well known company in the business.)

Seagate: http://services.seagate.com/Data-recovery-services.aspx?SR=sr3_181701045_go

(The Seagate service doesn't only do Seagate drives.)

WD also has a directory of data recovery services on their web site.

All of the good data recovery companies have toll free phone numbers to call for advice & pricing info. It's a good idea to talk to them before you decide what to do.

Jul 04, 2012 at 03:22 AM

Grantland
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p.1 #4 · Wildfire Burned Home to Ground - Advice on Data Recovery Service

wow, sorry to hear of your lose.

can't help on the data recover but am glad you are safe.

Jul 04, 2012 at 06:13 PM

pygmyowl
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p.1 #5 · Wildfire Burned Home to Ground - Advice on Data Recovery Service

Thanks for the tips. The HD backup (enclosure with HD inside) down in my garage didn't melt, so maybe there is some hope

Jul 05, 2012 at 03:31 AM

Gregory Edge
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p.1 #6 · Wildfire Burned Home to Ground - Advice on Data Recovery Service

Drive savers can do wonders, even on the ones that look too far gone. Give them a try.

Jul 09, 2012 at 01:18 AM

netexpress
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p.1 #7 · Wildfire Burned Home to Ground - Advice on Data Recovery Service

Man that is terrible - I'm so glad to hear your family is OK and no one was hurt!

I've sent dozens of drives in for data recovery as part of my job. I'm not as big a fan of the Seagate service. I generally like http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com and http://www.thedatarescuecenter.com. Both do an outstanding job. thedatarescuecenter.com is often a bit cheaper. But you can get a 10% discount from drivesaversdatarecovery.com if you use our Referral ID# DS23399 for "Net Express." I don't mean to make this an advertizement. I'm just trying to save you some money. Or just Google for a referral ID from another company if you don't want to use mine. Any of them should get you a 10% discount.

With both services you send the drive in, they do an evaluation and send you a quote. Then you can decide if you want to proceed. The price for drivesaversdatarecovery.com depends on the speed of service:

Prirority Overnight 1800 - 8900 next day
Standard 2-business day 900-3900
Economy Service 5-7 days 700- 2700

So choose the Economy option. The final cost is prorated based on the percentage of data recovered and the amount of time involved (head transplants are the most expensive). Sometimes they'll also discount further if they are late on delivering your data back. Ship a target drive of equal or greater capacity in with your drive so they don't have to charge you for a target drive. Also make sure you check all your photos files are for real when you get them back. Sometimes you'll get files back of equal size but they are just full of null characters. So browse all of them. If some end up being filled with nulls let them know and they will refund you a prorated amount based on the number of files with improper recovery.

Jul 09, 2012 at 03:52 PM

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