# Why aren't there inexpensive commercial services to recover data from damaged drives? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 11, 2012, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214 "2012-01-11T22:02:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2012, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/21 "2012-01-12T17:36:32Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > The problem we had is that my company needs an exact quote to issue a PO, so the approach that Drivesavers takes where they can’t tell you an amount until they’re done will not work. So the Ontrack model, where there is a fixed price for an evaluation and then you get a quote for the exact amount to recover the files worked better. When was that, last I heard the evaluations at drivesavers were free unless you request priority service. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2012, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/22 "2012-01-12T17:38:25Z")
That was in June 2007. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2012, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/23 "2012-01-12T17:39:09Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > I’ve used their services before. Once a sales exec’s drive had failed, just as he was working on a contract worth millions. He’d been away from site and it wasn’t backed up. The thousands it cost to recover was small beer in comparison to the value of the contract. Another time, a power outage hosed a server, the day before the weekly backup. The bill would have been over £10K. They opted to have everyone come in and redo their work instead. We just sent a contractor who is working on a 30 million dollar expansion to a local hospital, all of his job specs were on his laptop. ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/24 "2012-01-13T03:58:40Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > The bill would have been over £10K. > [@drachillix](#): > > We just sent a contractor who is working on a 30 million dollar expansion to a local hospital, all of his job specs were on his laptop. Was his hospital bill under $15K? (£10K) ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 4:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/25 "2012-01-13T04:20:59Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > Ah. In that case forget what I said earlier. He is still lucky to have a job. Skipping backing up emails? Seriously, that’s incredibly incompetent given that some of the most valuable data for any business is in their emails. He is lucky to have a job. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/26 "2012-01-13T06:15:01Z")
I’m not familiar with all the details. The other tech and I briefly talked about this one day at lunch. I do know nearly everyone at work reads their mail from the Web browser. We stopped configuring Outlook in my dept almost four years ago. So, there shouldn’t be any mail files on the pc’s. Apparently someone had configured this VIP lady’s pc with Outlook and failed to click the check mark that says “keep a copy on the server”. The result was one pc with an unexpected mail file that didn’t get backed up. Then the hard drive died. It took a whole string of circumstances to create this screw up. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/27 "2012-01-13T06:28:35Z")
Some threads, usually in MPSIMS, make me want to go in and hug the Dudeling or tell Mrs. Devil I love her, squoosh our pets one by one, etc. Some threads, often in GQ, make me want to go down to the basement and hug our backup server. My thread from about a year ago: [Data recovery services; Mac [desperately need help fast!]](http://boardstest.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=583511). Long story short: we were on a working vacation when the Mac’s HDD failed; ‘Genius’ Bar at the Apple store (lucky to be staying at the Venetian, right across the street) replaced it with a blank drive. I posted asking about the process (e.g. what to ask for, be aware of, etc.). Ended up talking my then-babysitting _mom_ through the process of getting our home office PCs linked up through the Internet to our laptops and copying necessary files. She did double babysitting duty as she kept the connection from timing out, restarting, etc. That holiday, we gave her an iPad. Oh, and the offending drive? When we got home I used an external enclosure to read and pull what data hadn’t been backed up. I know it could have been the act of flying (e.g. temperature changes) but when asked, the fuckers at Apple wouldn’t even try. Going to go hug the backups now … and then verify their integrity. ---
**Author:** ![Folly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/folly/32/3219_2.png) [@Folly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folly)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/28 "2012-01-13T06:46:01Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > We just sent a contractor who is working on a 30 million dollar expansion to a local hospital, all of his job specs were on his laptop. There is no excuse for not backing up your laptop, but you sent him to the hospital because of it?? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/29 "2012-01-13T06:59:35Z")
> [@Vicullum](#): > > As long as we’re talking about data recovery on the cheap there’s always the [freezer trick.](http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2006/01/freeze-your-hard-drive-to-recover-data.html) Supposedly throwing your hard drive in the freezer to cool overnight will buy you a few minutes of useful life to access your data. Or if you’re particularly desperate you can try booting it upside down or giving it a good whack to hopefully jolt it to life. > > I’ve never actually tried any of these methods. Here’s a video that discusses the HD click of death. It also touches on the freezer trick: [Hard Drive Click of Death Explanation and Live Demonstration - Techwarelabs Community](http://www.techwarelabs.com/community/showthread.php?p=71251) Article discussing freezer trick, which is really a last resort: [http://geekyprojects.com/storage/how-to-recover-data-from-a-broken-hard-drive/](http://geekyprojects.com/storage/how-to-recover-data-from-a-broken-hard-drive/) Article discussing effective way of retrieving data yourself: [http://geekyprojects.com/storage/how-to-recover-data-even-when-hard-drive-is-damaged/](http://geekyprojects.com/storage/how-to-recover-data-even-when-hard-drive-is-damaged/) Many data recovery services charge big dollars for this, and it is a procedure you can do at home, without having to open the hard drive. This procedure however, does not work for all cases, but it does work for a big percentage of them even when the hard drive has the famous “click noise of death”. I’ve successfully used this method with a failed external hard drive with non-critical data. The project ended up taking months (though admittedly I wasn’t exactly rushing). Summary from article: Ubuntu Rescue Remix is a Linux Live CD. It already comes with a whole array of data recovery tools. One of them is Ddrescue. Ddrescue, is one of the best data recovery programs available and it is free. Ddrescue works by extracting a raw image of your hard drive and transferring it to another drive. It extracts data bit by bit, regardless of the file system on the drive. The reason it works even when hard drives are dying is because Ddrescue retries several times and even tries to read data backwards. The procedure sometimes can take days, but it is very effective. If the data were mission-critical, I would worry about a faulty read head doing damage to the platter, but I don’t know how big a risk that actually is. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/30 "2012-01-13T09:28:30Z")
Everyone says you should backup, maybe even offsite backup if you can, but does anyone actually test their backups? Seems pretty important to me, but never heard it mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/31 "2012-01-13T09:33:30Z")
> [@AaronX](#): > > Everyone says you should backup, maybe even offsite backup if you can, but does anyone actually test their backups? Seems pretty important to me, but never heard it mentioned. Last line of post #27. I got in the habit because in almost every thread mentioning backups someone (usually more than one) re-emphasizes the point. Thank you Dopers! ---
**Author:** ![anson2995](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c77e96/32.png) [@anson2995](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anson2995)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/32 "2012-01-13T14:30:48Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > But he missed saving emails on pcs. Depending on how its configured, a copy of email can be left on the server and still delivered & stored to the pc. The lady was a big shot with a nasty attitude and a big voice. He’s lucky to still have a job. No he’s not. Most companies purge mail automatically after a short time interval as part of a document management policy. And [del]most[/del] all commercial mail servers are configured to do this. It’s best practice for a variety of reasons, and fairly standard. Unless it was explicitly stated that all emails should be backed up to disc (separate from the mail server), I can’t see how your friend should have been expected to do this. Good backup policies define what is to be backed up and what is not. Having said that, I understand that the politics of small companies often lead to nonsense like your friend experienced. It’s a warning sign, and I’ll second others who say your friend should take his talents elsewhere. And soon. ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2012, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/33 "2012-01-16T02:02:52Z")
> [@anson2995](#): > > It’s best practice for a variety of reasons, and fairly standard. Unless it was explicitly stated that all emails should be backed up to disc (separate from the mail server), I can’t see how your friend should have been expected to do this. I regularly tell my customers…outlook is not a file cabinet ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2012, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214/34 "2012-01-16T02:20:38Z")
> [@drachillix](#): > > I regularly tell my customers…outlook is not a file cabinet Amen. I have one client who has a 14GB pst file. He stores architectural drawings there. Another used the Deleted Files folder as a storage location for email she wanted to look at later. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-inexpensive-commercial-services-to-recover-data-from-damaged-drives/609214.md?page=1)