Does anyone have a recommendation of a local data recovery type company to see if they can recover some photos from an old hard drive? Thanks for any thoughts.

Does anyone have a recommendation of a local data recovery type company to see if they can recover some photos from an old hard drive? Thanks for any thoughts.

What kind of drive?
What happened to make you think you can't access the data? Specifically, is there something about the drive that you know it has failed or is there something wrong with the enclosure that it is in?

What kind of drive?
What happened to make you think you can't access the data? Specifically, is there something about the drive that you know it has failed or is there something wrong with the enclosure that it is in?

It's from an old computer that was in a family storage unit. I was told by someone that "you get one shot" (which I have no idea about) so just wanted to be somewhat careful in not messing it up playing around with it on my own. It's a Seagate drive out of a Dell computer - my guess is 10 plus years old.

I can assure you that you don't get 1 shot.

If you don't know the drive to be bad, remove the drive from the old PC and just buy a cheap USB drive enclosure. Fire it up and see what happens.

If you don't know the drive to be bad, remove the drive from the old PC and just buy a cheap USB drive enclosure. Fire it up and see what happens.

OK....i'll check it out. Thanks.

I've had externals crap out on me from time-to-time. One time I was able to do the "freezer" technique to get some data off the drive before it crapped out again.

I don't know of anyone local that I trust. I've sent drives back to Seagate in the past (it's my Seagates that tend to die, not my WD's). But it was crazy expensive. The last one I sent them (for a client) was about $400 and I had to send them a new drive to put the data on.

If you don't know the drive to be bad, remove the drive from the old PC and just buy a cheap USB drive enclosure. Fire it up and see what happens.


I've done that with a couple of drives from old computers and had success.

Is the old computer not booting up. Like others have said, may want to first try an external hdd enclosure. Data recovery is expense depending on how bad the HDD is.

Is the old computer not booting up. Like others have said, may want to first try an external hdd enclosure. Data recovery is expense depending on how bad the HDD is.

No, will not boot and I have removed the drive. I appreciate the thoughts/suggestions. May try the hdd enclosure and see where that takes me.

THere are services like Gigabyters, but be ready to pay. Even if there's platter damage, they can recover some data, if not all.

No, will not boot and I have removed the drive. I appreciate the thoughts/suggestions. May try the hdd enclosure and see where that takes me.

I don't recall them being particularly expensive, but if you don't want to go through and buy a part that you'll only use a handful of times in your life--if not just this one time--I have a hard drive reader on hand. Feel free to PM me and we could look into that.

^ Thanks much....had a friend who took it and is working on it - we shall see. Appreciate the insights!