I have the opposite question—how do you RECOVER data on a crashed hard drive? I googled some places online, and the cheapest I found was around a thousand bucks or so!!! Too steep for me—I just want baby pictures and videos recovered! Is there an easier/cheaper way to do this???
Not really. A grand seems a little steep, but I haven’t had to do it in years. It’s very laborious and tedious, so the cost is commensurate with the task. Sorry.
It just depends on how valuable the data is. It might be worthwhile to spend a few thousand to get millions of dollars worth of data.
I would add, or ask. Does your hard drive make any unusual noises when booting or seeking? If not, you may just have a bad MBR, which is much easier to fix. If you don’t quite have the technical skills, you could take it to a Geek Squad or the like and it would only be 100-200.
But, if the HD has had a catastrophic physical failure, it’s going to get expensive.
Try cooling it down in the freezer, then install it and MOVE THOSE FILES FAST!
You might be able to hook it up to a pc that already has a bootable hard drive. They you can use windows to copy and paste the files to the working hard drive.
Best way I know involves a DeLorean...
I have had fabulous results with this software over the years.
It gets rated in the top 10 in my circles.
Well, depends on how crashed .... as in you can load it into another PC and it is a recognized drive?
If so, you can run undelete utilities on it but don't format or copy anything into it until you get everything off.
If it's still not recognized try slamming it sideways on the sidewalk ONCE. That might get it loose enough to load one last time.
If that doesn't work .... better pony up some cash because recovery by physical platters is not cheap.
Most crashed hard drives have absolutely nothing wrong with the hard drive platters - it is just the drive controllers that have gone bad.
Your husband should be able to find software on the internet for free that basically bypasses the drive controller and reads the raw data. It's a slow process, but sure beats paying somebody $1,000 to do basically the same thing.
I've personally done this with hard drives that I've owned.
Check with your homeowner's or business insurance. You may already have insurance to cover the cost of recovering the data.
HDD Regenerator has saved my pork rinds more than once...
Will the drive spin up and do you have a network?
Sometimes the drive will “spin up” inside one of those USB external drive cases and you are able to recover at least some of the data. We do it at work for clients all the time. It almost always works - dependent upon how “crashed” the drive is.
If you purchase a case, be sure you get the correct one: SATA or IEDI.
I had that happen a few years back - I took it into a small computer place and they charged me $50. Come to think of it, it was more than a few years ago - 1986 or so - might be more now... Oh well, nevermind. ( But do call around - some places might need the work)
Depends on what is wrong with the drive.