HD recovery

[Clockwork_Killa]

Last night I almost dropped my external HD, I thought it would be ok seeing as I caught it before it hit the floor, but no, now it isnt recognised by windows (on any of my machines) and its making an abnormal buzzing noise. My only conclusion is that its dead, which couldnt come at a worse time as part of my final year uni project is on their and its due in in 3 weeks!!!!
My question is, who should I take it to to try and recover the data?
PC world claim to offer a data recovery service, and their are plenty of companies who you can send your drive to for recovery, but I have no experience of this so I dont know who to go with.
My main concerns are time and price, obviously the faster the better and the cheaper the better too. SO could anyone give me some reccomendations?
Also does anyone know if this kind of thing is covered by insurance? Its looking like itll cost over £100, which would seriously dent my bank account.
Thanks

[Biscuit]

Oh dear that really is bad! Is the buzzing sound mechanical like or electrical. Its its mechanical you could be in some real trouble but if its electrical then its probably not the actual hard drive itself and its probs just part of the power circuits and you may be able to dismantel it and jut plug it into the cmputer.

[Clockwork_Killa]

No, its mechanical, Im pretty sure. I dismantled the casing and tried just powering the drive and it still made the buzzing. I cant say for sure, but Ill have to take it to someone to have a look anyway. I would take it to PC world since I can just walk there and its the only proper computer shop near me, but Im just worried that theyll screw everything up, I just dont have any faith in their technical knowledge, or them as a whole really.

[peterb]

I haven't used them myself, but another Hexite (?) did with success. They work on a no-fix - no fee basis so worth contacting them to discuss the case (and likely cost)

Redacted

A Google search will bring up several more - but this is the only one I have heard anything about. (I contacted them when I thought I had a data recovery problem - they were very helpful)

Check with your insurance policy -you might be lucky, but you might only be limited to the value of the item, not the data on it.

Good luck.

[Clockwork_Killa]

I haven't used them myself, but another Hexite (?) did with success. They work on a no-fix - no fee basis so worth contacting them to discuss the case (and likely cost)

Redacted

A Google search will bring up several more - but this is the only one I have heard anything about. (I contacted them when I thought I had a data recovery problem - they were very helpful)

Check with your insurance policy -you might be lucky, but you might only be limited to the value of the item, not the data on it.

Good luck.

Thanks for the link. I just filled out there online quote form and it quoted me almost £300!!!! I think Ill have to look elsewhere.

[Pob255]

yep that is the sort of price good recovery services cost.

I'm guessing PC world will be cheaper but all they'll do is run a couple of bits of software over it to try to recover the data.

probably no real way to tell what's happened without opening up the hard drive, which is someting I'd personally not do if I wanted to still use the disk.

[Totem]

Is the drive seen in the bios, 'manage' on 'my computer' or a program like partition magic?

[peterb]

£300 is a pretty reasonable starting price - you'll be hard pushed to find a reputable company that does it for less. If the drive is mechanically damaged, it will have to be dis-assembled in a clean room, and the disk repaired or mounted on a special test rig to extract the data - and those facilities aren't cheap to build.

If the drive is mechanically damaged, spinning it up is only likely to cause more damage to the the drive, decreasing the possibility of successful data recovery.

[Totem]

Arnt most external usb drives just a 3.5" disk with a usb converter? Are you able to take the case off and connect it directly to your pc via ide/sata?

[peterb]

Arnt most external usb drives just a 3.5" disk with a usb converter? Are you able to take the case off and connect it directly to your pc via ide/sata?

If the drive is mechanically damaged, as the OP implied, that won't make any difference - it is just a different connection method.

[Clockwork_Killa]

Im pretty sure the drive is damaged, but right now I cant afford £300 unless my insurance miraculously covers it, so I will just have to wait until Ive got the funds. Ill just have to redo the stuff Ive lost, its a pain but its got to be done, Im more gutted by the fact that nearly all my music was on there so ill have to work tuneless.
Thanks for all the replies guys

[Krakkenbus]

You could try handing in your HDD as your uni project.

Sometimes it helps to have more than one copy of things ):