Hard-disk Data Recovery

Anybody have any personal experience or recommendation about data recovery specialists for a hard-disk that has hardware failure ?
Would appreciate if you would share your experience or rating for any companies that you may have used for this service, in the past.
I've heard of names "Drive Savers Inc", and "Total Recall".

[DriveSavers|DriveSavers.com], [Ontrack Data Recovery|www.ontrack.com] and [Lazarus|www.lazarus.com] all have excellent reputations for data recovery. They are not cheap, however, but they do not charge if they don't recover anything.
Best of luck.

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Hard Disk Data lost due to time machine back up

My external WD hard disk initially has my files in it.
After agreeing on the mac to use it as time machine backup for it,
the files got erased.
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Crashed Hard Disk! What is the Hard Drive Data Recovery Service, & why wasn't it offered?

I thought I had purchased the best extended warranty available. Apparently the 3-year warranty I bought didn't include the Hard Drive Recovery Service. I can't help but wonder why it wasn't mentioned when I bought the extended warranty. Now I have a trashed HD, and am looking at where I go from here. I was told I should send the drive back to Toshiba... the manufacturer... for the most secure data recovery. WHAT NOW? who can steer me toward the best solution. Of course, I don't have unlimited funds... and someone said it would probably cost $500 to $1000 to recover the info on my HD. Arrgggh. Help.
This is a TouchSmart Tx2 laptop... not even a year old. Under original warranty and has the 3-year extended warranty.

I will check out your link...http://lowcostrecovery.com/pricing.html
Do you know anything about carbonite? Perhaps had I gotten that service, I wouldn't be in this position. I do back up a lot, when I'm at home. However, we have been traveling for a coupe of months... and I'm a photographer. Poof. photos. Important ones! The tech who looked at my drive after putting it in an enclosure said he didn't "see" any files on it. He said he HOPED I could get them recovered. Gave me a sick feeling, as he didn't seem very hopeful that even data recovery would work.
Thanks for your replies.

External Hard Drive Data Recovery

Hello Apple Support Communities!
I have a Western Digital 320GB external hard drive and it currently has 0 bytes available. This has prevented me from even viewing the hard drive on my finder window. I can only see it in disk utility. I have tried repairing the disk and verifying it but neither has worked in letting me view my files. I use the hard drive for movies and now i can't see them! Can anyone recommend free data recovery software so i can delete a few files so that i can view my hard drive? Thank you!

I found a way to sort of mount the drive and consequently do a data recovery.
What i did was highlight the 'iphone-dump.img' and opened it with 'Disk Utility'. Inside of 'Disk Utility', I double-clicked the 'iphone-dump.img' icon and low and behold, it split into two drives, despite it giving me an 'Unable to attach 'iphone-dump.img' (no mountable file systems)' message at the same time.
I wasn't able to do much with it in 'Disk Utility' from there on, so I opened 'Data Rescue III' and it became available to scan as a 'Virtual Interface' called 'Apple read:write'. I performed a scan and was able to locate my missing photos. It took a while because there were several duplicates of older photos. I think this is because each time I've restored the phone from a backup, data has been placed in a different location on the hard drive. Therefore, it has not overwritten these very same photos that have been on most of my backups for some time.
I wasn't able to find my missing voice memos from the 'QuickVoice' application though. They appear not to be there. I found the existing ones from the recovery. They must be somewhere surely? Maybe the photos are stored in a different way since the photo application is a default app and 'QuickVoice' is a bought app. ?
Ideas anyone

Hard Drive Data Recovery after Format

If, after using Disk Utility to re-format a hard drive, which software might be the best for recovering the data that was on the drive prior to formatting? Nothing has been written to the drive following the format.

i came across this his Web site
http://data-recovery-software-review.toptenreviews.com/mac-recovery-software/fil esalvage-review.html
which compares four data recovery applications. It gives Data Rescue a 100% rating but only 60% for FileSalvage. There doesn’t appear to be a trial version of FileSalvage and the price is $89.95 so I don’t think I’ll be trying that one. If Data Rescue couldn’t restore the files I wouldn’t have a lot of hope with FileSalvage.
The Hard Drive in question contains mostly aiff audio files. If anyone knows about a good audio file recovery program, I would appreciate hearing about it.

Hard drive data recovery UK

Hello friends,
It seems that my iMac G5 hard drive has died! Upon boot, the grey screen appears, the hard drive clicks and eventually the question mark folder pops up.
Firstly, am I right in thinking it is well and truly dead? Upon disc start up, the HD is not read in the disk utility.
If this is indeed the case, can anyone recommend a reliable UK based data recovery firm? I have my most important files backed up but not things like photos and media etc you see!
Many thanks,
Sam

Hey Ian,
Most hard drive's when sent in for repair are not replaced with Fujitsu drives. The drives I see commonly used within Apple's notebook computers are Toshiba HD's.
You're best option would be to call technical support and ask an agent for sure what type of drive would be replacing your current iBook's HD (pending it needs service.) Don't buy another drive yet and have it installed by someone else. When you have some free time, call Apple's technical support line to clarify what manufacturer of the HD will be replacing your Fujitsu.
As far as the AppleCare question referring to a non-Apple certified tech installing the HD you may buy separately, the technical support line would also be able to answer this for you.
Hope this helps.

NB505-508BL Rebuilding replaced hard disk without recovery media

Hi All,
I'm hoping for some help. My brother has an NB505-508BL mini netbook. It doesn't have a DVD drive, and so when he got the laptop, he decided he couldn't make the recovery media.
Last week his hard disk completely died, so I ordered him a new one. I've just installed it and asked him for the recovery disk / image / media, which he hasn't got.
So I've been checking these forums and I can't believe what I am reading: Toshiba don't supply a link to a downloaded image for recover for software that the customers already own, but will charge an outrageous $30 to send out an image by post.
The main problem I have is that I like in the UK, so Toshiba wont send me the recovery disk or USB. So I pretty much screwed unless someone else can help me out with any of the following:
Is it possible to download windows 7 starter from Microsoft (or anywhere, legitimately) and install it onto the laptop, at least to get it going?
If I got windows going and downloaded all the Toshiba drivers from the website, would I be able to create the recovery media and re-image the hard disk to have the hidden partition with all the recovery data on it?
I'm desperate to get this going for my brother - especially as he spent a lot of money on the computer, and then I spent a lot of money replacing the hard disk!
Many thanks for any help -

mini notebook NB505-N508BL
Probably your best bet is to have an acquaintance in the US or Canada request the recovery thumb drive and mail it to you.
   Order Toshiba Recovery Media
That's cheaper than purchasing a retail version of Windows and certainly much less trouble than installing all of the drivers and utilities (which are here).
Until recently it was possible to download Windows 7 for Netbooks from Microsoft. But that has for some reason been withdrawn.
You can still download Windows 7 from here. You'd want the x86 English version. That DVD contains all 32-bit Editions.
You can convert the DVD to a bootable flash drive.
   Use a USB Key to Install Windows 7—Even on a Netbook
Note that Microsoft does not actually sell Windows. It sells product keys. Which edition you choose to install determines the price of the product key.
I'd guess you have a fighting chance of convincing the Microsoft activation people that Windows 7 Starter edition has already been paid for. If you're successful, they will issue a free product key for that edition (only).
This Microsoft toll-free phone number in the UK is for volume licensing, but maybe they will give you the number of the local Microsoft people for more info.
   (0) (800) 018 8354
Good luck!
-Jerry

Good Hard Drive Data Recovery Companies?

My Powerbook G4 Seagate 100gb hard drive recently crashed. I am a little desperate. I have been calling many different ones and not sure which to choose from.
Any suggestions or recommendations or experience? This is a really confusing and frustrating process. I'm afraid to send it to a bad place and risk losing the data, but also worried about spending a couple thousand dollars when I don't need to.
I was told that based on the sound of the hard drive that the heads crashed and that the head is broken. It hasn't been opened or anything. When I heard the sound, it sounded like a very faint clicking, almost inaudible. No software will work cause my hard drive is not recognized by anything, even in target mode.
I have contacted DriveSavers (very, very expensive), Lazarus Data Recovery, DTI Data, OnTrack Data, and looked at many, many website pages.
DTI DATA offered NO DATA, NO CHARGE, plus free evaluation and a fixed price, they seemed reasonable and confident on the phone anyway. For a head crash recovery, they said $1195.
DriveSavers was very expensive. $225 attempt fee and said they would cap the price at $2000. They have clearly an amazing reputation and it seems like they could recover it. But they were a little weird, like used car salesmen telling me I had to hurry and decide because the price was only good for 7 business days. But, I haven't seen any posts saying they didn't recover anything.
Lazarus was very, very nice and friendly and I liked them a lot, very nice and patient with me, explaining everything. Spoke to the technician. Much less expensive. $225 if they need to take it to the clean room. They said they would first try to clone the drive and avoid the clean room to save me money, but it sounds like they will need to go to the clean room. Their upper price range was about $600-$800. Much more affordable, but after scanning the web, I saw some people thought they were fantastic, miracle workers, others were not so enthusiastic.
OnTrack had a $100 evaluation fee and a range of $400-$2400, but said most likely $1600. I couldn't ask details because the person on the line wasn't a technician.
Anyone know who to go to? Or others? Help!
powerbook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Can't help you with evaluating these companies as I've never had to use them. But, as you probably realize by now, the prices are not out of line.
I found some positive reviews for DriveSavers and I'm sure if you search for reviews for the others you'll find one or two at least.
I also found a photoshop blog that claimed it was a reseller of DriveSavers services and offered a coupon:
Receive An Exclusive 10% Discount
We have become an Authorized DriveSavers reseller, which means we can offer special discounts. Simply mention Discount Code DS1-32-30 and you'll instantly receive a 10% Discount on your invoiced recovery fee. You'll also be eligible for DriveSavers' exclusive No Attempt Fee – if data is not recoverable, there is no charge. DriveSavers will evaluate your unique situation, decide what course of action to take, and help relieve panic and stress that is common in data loss crises.
G4 933 mhz Quicksilver Mac OS X (10.4.8) Wacom Intuos 2 tablet; Epson 2400 Photo; HP Deskjet 6840; LaCie 80gb D2 FWDV

Hard Disk Data

If I take out iMac formatted Hard Disk from dead iMac is it possible to transfer contents to PC Hard Disk.
Will the data, eg. JPEG photo still be readable?

mac computers contain allot of 'meta data' about your files. They also have access control lists and POSIX permissions. if you copy the mac data to a pc formatted HD your going to loose lots of meta data.
if your planning to get a pc for your next computer; then the meta data isn't that important. If your planning to get a mac, your better off reformatting the hard drive to mac. (mac os x extended journaled)
lots of images files can be opened on both mac and pc out of the box. (jpegs, gifts, tiffs)
pdf open on the mac without any added software. PC will require downloading and installing adobe reader.
If you have word, excel, and power point files they can be opened on the PC if you buy office for the pc.
if you have iwork files (keynotes, pages, numbers) they need to be converted on a mac into office files before you can open them on a pc.
iphoto's organization only works in iphoto so you need a mac for that
itunes can be moved to a pc.
grage band files can only be opened on a mac.
iweb files can only be opened on a mac

Formatting the Hard Disk with recovery DVD's

I'm having a L505 S5996 laptop and it takes a longer time to boot. So I thought to format the HD and install a fresh copy of windows and other drivers from my recovery dvds.There is only one HD partition in my laptop but when I open the disk management window it shows three HD partitions. These two hidden partitions are named as "Recovery Partitions". So I want to know the formatting of HD will result in erasing all these hard disk partitions(including the hidden partitions) in my laptop. If so please tell me the correct way of formatting the HD without loosing pre-installed image of Windows.

if you want to return it back to factory. as in exactly how it was when you opened the box and turned it on. you can select recovery to factory out of box when you either run the recovery media or hold zero during boot and use the recovery partitions.
-civicman4-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Post all info about your laptop and version of windows. We are working on it but still do not have the powers to read your mind.

Mac died, hard disk data recoverable - does this include Desktop files?

Hi there,
My G5 died (well, it fell victim to my ex's violent outrage - logic board dead), anyway... I have had my hard disk made up so I can mount it / access it on my new mac. But will this include the files that were saved on my Desktop?
Thanks in advance,
Bree

The desktop is just a graphical representation of a folder inside your User's home folder. Naturally, the folder is named "Desktop." For those that work in a cluttered environment and have a hard time finding files or folders on their desktop, you can see the contents of the desktop in alpha/numeric list view by going to the desktop folder (Users->[your user name]->Desktop).
-DH

Powerbook Hard Drive Data Recovery

A few months back, I bumped the desk that my Powerbook was on pretty hard. The laptop did a bounce, the desktop locked up, and that was it. Whenever I attempt to boot up the drive, it makes god-awful sounds, and the farthest I get is the grey Apple logo - no spinning wheel. Sometimes just a blank grey screen. Seems pretty clear that it's a physical problem, as if the hard drive can't spin. I have no idea what this means for the data - if it could possibly still be in tact and retrievable (no, I don't have it backed up, and yes, I know that's a no-no).
I tried hooking up the Powerbook to my desktop in Firewire target disk mode, but the screen just stayed black after powering on. I tried booting from my DiskWarrior 3.0.3 CD, but it will not look at the hard drive, because it's the boot up drive.
The prospect of a home remedy looks pretty hopeless at this point, but if you know of anything else I can try, please let me know. And if not, I'd appreciate it if you could point me in the direction of a reliable, affordable service company that might be able to assist. Many thanks.
-Vince

if the drive makes noises, problem is likely with the hardware and running utilities may not be able to fix it.
if possible, get a qualified technician to check internal connections or possibly remove the drive and connect it via external enclosure/adapter
DriveSavers is one of the best known recovery providers:
http://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/

HP Protecttools encrypted hard drive - data recovery

I have an HP Probook 4530s. It got dropped and the mother board was damaged. The computer does not even load the boot screen. The hard drive is un-damaged. I would like to recover the data from the hard drive, but the data is encrypted with HP Protecttools Security Encryption. I found this thread:http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Operating-Systems-and-Software/ProtectTools-issue-Decrypting-an-encrypted-ProtectTools-HDD/td-p/3362403 It details how to recover data using Disktech2011, a bootable recovery iso image from CD. I followed the directions, but when I get to the step 6, selecting the recovery key...I get an error. (I do have the original recovery key that was created when I first set up the encryption). This is the error that I get: I believe the problem is that the Disktech software cannot find the USB drive that I have the encrypted drive plugged in to (I have the encrypted hard drive from my damaged laptop plugged into a separate computer via a SATA to USB adapter plug). I googled the error and found this https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB79409 It details setting the boot disk , which basically tells the software which drive to look at. However, this is a McAfee error/solution (because the HP protecttools is a McAfee product). I cant figure out how to set the boot disk in the HP Disktech2011 software. Does anyone know how to get the Disktech software to recognize my encrypted drive in the USB? Or any other solutions if I am not doing this correctly??? Please help. I have videos on there that the wife would kill me if I lost. Thanks.

I don't know about this particular product, but I've found that lots of disk utilities don't work well, or even at all, when the drive is connected through a USB cable. In some cases, a drive connected via a USB cable, even if you're using a docking port, is considered "external" -- and some utilities simply won't work with external drives. If you're using a desktop, what you will probably have to do is open the case and connect the drive to one of the drive cables in the case -- and then reboot.

2009 imac hard drive data recovery

Hello, last Friday my imac got stuck on the grey screen/apple logo/spinning gear when I went to restart.
I attempted a restart because any operation I attempted to perform - clicking a link, typing a word - had serious lag time and I could hear a noise it making it hadn't made before. I hadn't backed up in a while, and there's some stuff on there I'd like to recover. So, here I am a week later...
Part 1: Entering Target Disk Mode did not work, or my iMac wouldn't mount through firewire as an external drive. So I removed the internal drive and put it into an external enclosure. It mounted on the MacBook and I could see my Documents folder and everything. I initialized a new Lacie 2TB drive so I could copy everything off of the iMac drive. When I went a few folders into the Documents folder to start to copy stuff onto the Lacie, it froze. After a few minutes the iMac drive was no longer mounted and there was a notice that it was not ejected properly. I restarted the drive, but it no longer would mount. This was very frustrating as I was so close to retreiving my data, and then when I was right there it decided to go fully kaput. Disk Utility can see the iMac drive, but can't repair it - just says I should back-up as much data as I can and then reformat it, which is a catch-22 b/c I can't mount the drive to back-up any of the data. Anyways, I am currently running a Diskwarrior rebuild on the drive. It's in Step 5 and has that "speed reduced by disk malfunction" number going up. I've set the MacBook and it's display to never go to sleep - it already did once, but I woke it back up and Diskwarrior seemed to not miss a step and hopefully that didn't cause a problem - but I've read some people saying it's taken days and in some cases weeks for Step 5 to complete. I won't let it run that long without going to sleep, so I'm probably out of luck in getting into that drive.
My question is, does anyone see anything that I missed or could try differently in the above? Yes, I should have had a current back-up and then I wouldn't be in this position, but here I am. I was so excited when I got the drive to mount that first time in the external enclosure. I'm kicking myself that I should have just dragged and dropped the whole Documents folder onto the new Lacie as soon as I saw it, rather than trying to navigate into sub-folders. Was there anything I could have done to get it to mount again? Should I cancel Diskwarrior and try to mount it on a different computer? Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Part 2: My currently hard drive-less 2009 iMac... I am unfortunately past the option of getting the HD replaced for free from Apple because of the recall they were doing, so I'd have to purchase a new HD and install. The problem is I've moved recently and I can't for the life of me find the original install disc, nor remember if there ever was one. I have this sinking feeling that if there was one, it got purged in the move by accident.
My question is, is it possible to even install a new HD in the iMac without the install disk? Any thoughts would be much appreciated.
Thanks.

Update. ha!
Diskwarrior finished doing its thing. I previewed my recovered drive, and voila, there was my old drive. I am currently moving all important folders over to the Lacie. My Documents folder ended up being in the Recovered Folders folder, which I had to search around for, but I found it.
Lesson. Use Time Machine regularly. If I was, I would have a bootable copy of my computer that I could install to a new HD in my iMac.

Hard drive data recovery

After running disk repair using Applecare Techtool deluxe my IMac G5 no longer boots up. I tried to retrieve data from IMac with a friends IBook using Firewire target disk mode but the hard drive did not show up on host IBook, however when I inserted an install disk into the IMac it showed up on the Ibook.
What can I do now?
Imac Mac OS X (10.4.6) 1.8GHz PowerPc G5

Hi Miriam, I have a 1.8GHz 17-inch iMac RevA
I ran Disk Utility and tried to repair the drive and I am getting an error message
invalid b-tree node size
Volume check failed
Error :The underlying task reported failure on exit (-9972)
1 volume could not be repaired
Thanks Iver
Imac Mac OS X (10.4.6) 1.8GHz PowerPc G5

Hard-disk Data Recovery

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