Anyone use a hard drive recovery service?

[robinb]

Ugh. My desktop has been giving me fits with a Windows upgrade for the past few weeks. I couldn't get it to upgrade so I made sure that I had a current backup and backed up all my personal files to an external hard drive using the Windows "file history" backup and reinstalled Windows 10.

Things seems to be going well as I restored my files ... until I got to my pictures (OF COURSE!). I started to get errors and was only able to recover a small portion of them. I tried to view a sub-folder in the Pictures directory on the drive and got a cyclic redundancy error. I did a chkdsk and now my file system is messed up and I can't see anything in my Pictures folder. 14 years of photos are missing .

Anyway ... I need professional help here. Can anyone recommend a hard drive recovery service? I have a local one here that will charge me about $600-$800.

 

[bcla]

I don’t believe you need a drive recovery service per se, but data recovery. It doesn’t sound like you have a physically damaged hard drive. Something got corrupted.

I’ve got years of photos, but they’ve been saved in standard directories on a couple of different hard drives. Everything was copied manually via drag and drop. However, your backup used an archival format that has to be extracted.

Do you still have that external drive with the backup? Your data might not have been restored for whatever reason. I would recommend finding a data recovery specialist, explain the situation, and see if they can offer a solution to extract the data. If you still have the backup, maybe try restoring it again.

 

[GreatLakes]

Before you spend thousands on any forensic recovery try SpinRite. I've gotten way more than my $90 out of my copy.

 

[robinb]

I don’t believe you need a drive recovery service per se, but data recovery. It doesn’t sound like you have a physically damaged hard drive. Something got corrupted.

I’ve got years of photos, but they’ve been saved in standard directories on a couple of different hard drives. Everything was copied manually via drag and drop. However, your backup used an archival format that has to be extracted.

Do you still have that external drive with the backup? Your data might not have been restored for whatever reason. I would recommend finding a data recovery specialist, explain the situation, and see if they can offer a solution to extract the data. If you still have the backup, maybe try restoring it again.

I do have the backup. I've tried restoring the entire Pictures directory a couple of times and I got errors. I eventually started restoring each sub-directory one by one and got stuck on my 2004 photos.

ETA: I think my file system was corrupted.

 

[bcla]

I do have the backup. I've tried restoring the entire Pictures directory a couple of times and I got errors. I eventually started restoring each sub-directory one by one and got stuck on my 2004 photos.

ETA: I think my file system was corrupted.

You might need industrial-level software to do that. I'd say find a reputable place and tell them your situation. It's not going to be cheap, but at least you're not dealing with a crashed hard drive that needs to be physically rebuilt in a clean room.

 

[Imzadi]

I eventually started restoring each sub-directory one by one and got stuck on my 2004 photos.

Can you do any other sub-directories either before or after 2004? Can you still restore on of the years you already did? Did you try unplugging it and then rebooting? Did you try copying the info to a different computer in case it is that PC that's messed up and not communicating with the hard drive any more? Does the hard drive have any drivers that you can try reinstalling?

Did you try calling the hard drive company? Or doing a Google search to see if others had the same problem with that same drive, and is there a solution?

 

[bcla]

Can you do any other sub-directories either before or after 2004? Can you still restore on of the years you already did? Did you try unplugging it and then rebooting? Did you try copying the info to a different computer in case it is that PC that's messed up and not communicating with the hard drive any more? Does the hard drive have any drivers that you can try reinstalling?

Did you try calling the hard drive company? Or doing a Google search to see if others had the same problem with that same drive, and is there a solution?

Doesn't necessarily sound as if it's a physical/electronic hard drive issue. The description sounds more like the database is somehow corrupted. Maybe a corrupted volume or an error with the archiving software.

I'm paranoid about losing my photo archives, so I have them backed up to redundant sources. I know not everyone does, but these days external hard drives are so cheap. But you have to think about the possibility of losing everything.

 

[robinb]

Can you do any other sub-directories either before or after 2004? Can you still restore on of the years you already did? Did you try unplugging it and then rebooting? Did you try copying the info to a different computer in case it is that PC that's messed up and not communicating with the hard drive any more? Does the hard drive have any drivers that you can try reinstalling?

Did you try calling the hard drive company? Or doing a Google search to see if others had the same problem with that same drive, and is there a solution?

(1) I can't access any thing in the Pictures folder now. I get a "This is no longer located in ..." message.
(2) Everything else in the backup seems fine.
(3) The PC Communicates fine with the drive. I can restore other files (even photos) from other directories.
(4) Rebooting the PC and/or the external drive doesn't help.

I'll google the drive tomorrow, but I think I have resigned myself to shelling out a few hundred dollars to get my photos back.

 

[Skylerwalker]

Did you look at the suggestion for Spinrite that was given? It’s what I’ve been using as of late for my clients as well. I’d also stop trying to fix it without a recovery tool or giving it to the pros. Yes, the cost I’ve seen others pay is as little as 600 and upwards to 5000 for recovery, it’s expensive.

My personal approach to photo storage, one external copy and one in the cloud, I do not pay to store mine in the cloud. Multiple externals do not help when they are stored in the same location, disasters happen.

 

[LYSE]

For a DIY I would give getdataback a try...the trial will allow you to preview recovered files before paying....it has been years since I've used it though

Otherwise I have used drive savers at work more than 10 times (end user drives mostly) ...but I wasn't picking up the tab for that..the DoD was

Of course this is assuming you still have the failed drive to try the recovery on.

 

[robinb]

Did you look at the suggestion for Spinrite that was given? It’s what I’ve been using as of late for my clients as well. I’d also stop trying to fix it without a recovery tool or giving it to the pros. Yes, the cost I’ve seen others pay is as little as 600 and upwards to 5000 for recovery, it’s expensive.

My personal approach to photo storage, one external copy and one in the cloud, I do not pay to store mine in the cloud. Multiple externals do not help when they are stored in the same location, disasters happen.

Spinrite writes to the disk. I'm thinking that I don't want to do that.

 

[LYSE]

Spinrite writes to the disk. I'm thinking that I don't want to do that.

I believe get data back is read only, however if the drive has limited life (physically damaged) you may not want to risk it.

 

[bcla]

A lot of the suggestions are for recovery tools that scour through raw data to find files that may not be properly accounted for in the file directories. That may not be the problem. The backup was in a packed format, and issue sounds as if there was a problem with the unpacking. If they weren’t unpacked properly then there may not be there to recover. And the original drive has been wiped via a clean install.

Maybe there’s a chance that some of those files are still on the original drive. Most formatting doesn’t wipe anything, but rather overwrites the file directories. But then the drive was written to by installing Windows 10 then unpacking the file history archives.

 

[LYSE]

A lot of the suggestions are for recovery tools that scour through raw data to find files that may not be properly accounted for in the file directories. That may not be the problem. The backup was in a packed format, and issue sounds as if there was a problem with the unpacking. If they weren’t unpacked properly then there may not be there to recover. And the original drive has been wiped via a clean install.

Maybe there’s a chance that some of those files are still on the original drive. Most formatting doesn’t wipe anything, but rather overwrites the file directories. But then the drive was written to by installing Windows 10 then unpacking the file history archives.

For some reason I misunderstood and thought a drive failed and the failed drive was still around, however the real situation that you describe actually isn't so bad, I've used getdataback to recover files from accidently wiped drives or in cases were something was forgotten about and not backed up..I would stop using that drive asap and run data recovery
I agree it sounds like a bad backup or bad restore but the original files could still be recoverable from the old partition unless the drive was filled with 0's intentionally to destroy old data.

 

[bcla]

For some reason I misunderstood and thought a drive failed and the failed drive was still around, however the real situation that you describe actually isn't so bad, I've used getdataback to recover files from accidently wiped drives or in cases were something was forgotten about and not backed up..I would stop using that drive asap and run data recovery
I agree it sounds like a bad backup or bad restore but the original files could still be recoverable from the old partition unless the drive was filled with 0's intentionally to destroy old data.

I think the sequence was:

1) Backed up to "file history" from internal drive to external drive.
2) Reinstalled Windows 10 on internal drive.
3) Restored "file history" back to internal drive.
4) Where are those *&!% photos?

I was thinking that it might be partially recoverable, but the more the internal drive is used, the greater chance that anything there in the raw data might be unrecoverable. There would certainly be a good chance that many of those photos that the OP wants to recover have already been overwritten since they probably got spread to random locations, and reinstalling Windows 10 was likely to have been over some of those locations.

I don't know enough about Windows 10 file history, but I'm thinking there might be some data recovery service that knows something about repairing an archive that isn't properly restoring.

 

[cobright]

Ugh. My desktop has been giving me fits with a Windows upgrade for the past few weeks. I couldn't get it to upgrade so I made sure that I had a current backup and backed up all my personal files to an external hard drive using the Windows "file history" backup and reinstalled Windows 10.

Things seems to be going well as I restored my files ... until I got to my pictures (OF COURSE!). I started to get errors and was only able to recover a small portion of them. I tried to view a sub-folder in the Pictures directory on the drive and got a cyclic redundancy error. I did a chkdsk and now my file system is messed up and I can't see anything in my Pictures folder. 14 years of photos are missing .

Anyway ... I need professional help here. Can anyone recommend a hard drive recovery service? I have a local one here that will charge me about $600-$800.

I had the main drive of my pc crash hard 2 months ago. I had backup but the USB hdd adapter did something awful and ruined it bad.

I probably could have fiddled with them and got them back up but since I was dealing with both of the disks with all my Disney vacation pics I decided to let the pros have a go. Quotes in the $300-700 range. Ugh. So I tried going cheap. I let Easus recovery wizard take a swing at it. Out of 1500 or so total photos, easy as was able to save 1400 or so of them. Which is actually fine since most of the time I was shooting burst and could throw away 4 out of 5 pics anyway.

 

[bcla]

I had the main drive of my pc crash hard 2 months ago. I had backup but the USB hdd adapter did something awful and ruined it bad.

I probably could have fiddled with them and got them back up but since I was dealing with both of the disks with all my Disney vacation pics I decided to let the pros have a go. Quotes in the $300-700 range. Ugh. So I tried going cheap. I let Easus recovery wizard take a swing at it. Out of 1500 or so total photos, easy as was able to save 1400 or so of them. Which is actually fine since most of the time I was shooting burst and could throw away 4 out of 5 pics anyway.

How long did it take? I remember one time I had a messed up hard drive and I was looking at a Mac tool to try and recover data. Well - it was a tool that had a trial version that did the search for files, but then a cost to unlock the actual recovery features. It ran for hours and there was a ton of data to sort through.

 

[Imzadi]

I let Easus recovery wizard take a swing at it. Out of 1500 or so total photos, easy as was able to save 1400 or so of them. Which is actually fine since most of the time I was shooting burst and could throw away 4 out of 5 pics anyway.

That sounds promising.

Robin, one thing I read, when trying a program you aren't sure of, test it on a different device first, instead of the actual device you are trying to save. Like try it on a USB drive first with stuff you aren't attached to, to work out any bugs and to see if it will actually do what you need. This way, there is less chance of harming or accidentally wiping your external hard drive.

 

[DisneyHardin]

Anyway ... I need professional help here. Can anyone recommend a hard drive recovery service? I have a local one here that will charge me about $600-$800.

That is really expensive. I had the same thing happen last year with my laptop and a local computer repair place was able to pull all the files off the dead laptop and I think they charged me $90.

 

[marcyleecorgan]

My DH has all the hardware equipment for that sort of thing. It's happened a few times to us... it's about a day of paying attention to the little boxes with blinking lights LOL

But when you have >8TB of personal data...