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Recommendation ...
Recently, my computer suffered a catastrophic failure. The hard drive was
nonfunctional. I spent a good deal of money for a technician to come out to
diagnose the problem, install a new hard drive and reinstall the operating
system. Of course, since the original hard drive could not be accessed, it
went with him to the shop to see if missing files could be recovered. At
this point I had a backup external hard drive that hadn't been added to for
about five or six months. It also did NOT have my contact list! There were
many photos, templates, labels and other such business files also missing. I
was in trouble!
A few days later I learned a new term, "clean room". For those who don't
know the term on a personal basis, let me just say it is spelled with $$$$$$
signs. This means the drive must be sent to a facility that has what is
known as a "clean Room" so it can be opened up in a sterile environment so
that the discs can I guess be removed so the data can be taken off and
burned to either a new hard drive or DVD discs. I found that the local
computer repair shops here in the northwest have no such onsite clean rooms
and most send the discs out to the very few shops who actually do have the
capacity to do this type of repair. I contacted local outlets and went on
line and called some of the what appear to be larger national firms. The
costs started at about $500 to $700 and some had no set end cost and those
who would venture an estimate were into several thousand dollars with $2000
to $3000 as a fairly realistic estimate!!!!
I got my drive back from the local guy and sent it to a firm called
Nationwide Data Recovery. I found them online two or three pages into a
Google search. They boast a two tiered fee for recovering data. About $200
if they don't have to open the drive and a cap of $499 if they need to open
it. Nothing more! I sent it off and when it got there, I got a call to
discuss what I needed off the drive. About a week later the information now
on DVD's came in the mail. I was back in business. YEAH!!!! Everything was
there except for my Outlook Express files. I called them and they looked in
their files (they keep the information there in case the customer needs more
or something is lost in the mail. Good insurance policy) and burned it to a
DVD for me. Note. I did not use Outlook but preferred the older Outlet
express. Bottom line is that all is well in Hookville USA!
Why did I put this information here? Well, just because if you ever find
yourself in a similar situation, maybe I can save you some grief and $$$$$
and you can just send it to Nationwide Data Recovery. I got nothing in
return for this either. Nothing that is other than good service and saved
$$$$!
Happy Trails!
Ronn
Nationwide Data Recovery
web site:
http://www.nationwidedatarecovery.com/p2/
phone: 1-866-694-8324
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