Data Recovery, Round 1 left my drive on it’s way to ESS Data Recovery with “symptoms of a severe head crash” that were beyond the capabilities of Aero Data Recovery. ESS turned around an initial evaluation within a few days:
Recovery Chance: Good (70-84%)
Medium Failure Details:
Disk Head Failure
Rotational Scoring Present (moderate)
Evaluated Cost: $995.00 - 10% = $895.50
Needless to say, even with the 10% discount for Aero transfers, the price was a bit shocking. I called to find out why is data recovery so expensive? It pretty much comes down to the physical failure and damage (scoring) of the disk requiring more time-consuming procedures and more expensive equipment. In contrast, Aero’s $279 flat-fee generally only covers software-oriented fixes.
I was only after one directory (my unpublished Colorado photos), but it wasn’t an option to do a partial recovery for a partial fee. I also asked about damage during debugging, and once the drive heads fail and sit on the surface of the disk, every spin-up can worsen it. Though without knowing it’s a mechanical failure, you’re always going to end up rebooting a few times and trying to access the disk through other means. Asking the drive to be fault-tolerant enough to detect a head failure and not spin up is probably a bit much for consumer drives.
As for the lost photos, it is a real shame. There was some good stuff in there from Western Rocky Mountain and Trail Ridge Road. I’ve done my best to capture it in words, but as a photographer, I always feel that a picture is worth a thousand words. I am a bit annoyed with Apple’s defective software and customer service here, and kicking myself for not backing up to the blank DVDs I had taken along. It’s a lesson learned for me, though, and I know this tale has already cautioned a few people to think about their own photo backups.
del.icio.us/mbotos
December 31st, 2008 at 10:16 am
Again - I got almost the exact same email from both companies- We paid the fee and did get most of the photos back. Only 900 out 8000 could not be rerieved- Still think it is a scam. Everyone needs to back up their computers regularly- Who would ahve thought that a MAC book after less than one year on it- 9 months- would have a hard drive failure with no warning at all-
My other daughter got her MAC book at the same time and has no issues with hers- Oh well- An expensive to learn
December 31st, 2008 at 11:33 am
Glad to hear you were able to get most of your photos back, Adlai. I hear more stories about MacBook hard drive failures than other brands, which really reinforces your point: it’s much cheaper to back up file than to recover them.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
My college age son’s MacBook died without warning 3 days before Christmas. Thank goodness it didn’t crash mid-semester. Ironically, I had bought him a USB hard drive for backup for Christmas. He remvoed the dead drive and we sent it to DiskDoctor. They says it had a physical failure and will recover the data (for $1600). Sorry, can’t do that. Much better to spend the $99 on a 500 GB backup drive. We bought his MacBook as a refurb from Apple about 1.5 years ago. The drive that died was a 160 GB Seagate Momentum. At home I use Carbonite but it won’t work with Mac. I’m happy to send them $50 a year to keep all my stuff backed up without doing a thing.
January 25th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
@Bummed out - I’ve tried a few online backup services for Mac recently, and Backblaze is the one I found to be the most functional.
February 18th, 2009 at 6:27 pm
Aero Data Recovery are complete scam artists, and there are alot of companies out there who will do the same thing and just try to take your money. It is important to do your research and I would suggest going to http://www. datarecoverycomparison.com as that website allows you to read reviews about other people’s data recovery experiences with ALL companies out there, and if there is not a data recovery company out there they will add them to their list. Plus if you have ever had a bad experience with a data recovery company, you can post a comment about that company and rate that company, therefore making the chances higher of someone not falling for the same data recovery scam as other people have. This way it will weed out these basement operations data recovery companies.
February 18th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Sorry about the repost, for some reason it would not allow me to post the original and i missed out when I reposted, so leave this post and erase the one above. Aero Data Recovery are complete scam artists, and it is a well known fact that Aero Data Recovery and ESS Data Recovery are one in the same, and there are alot of companies out there who will do the same thing and just try to take your money. It is important to do your research and I would suggest going to http://www. datarecoverycomparison.com as that website allows you to read reviews about other people’s data recovery experiences with ALL companies out there, and if there is not a data recovery company out there they will add them to their list. Plus if you have ever had a bad experience with a data recovery company, you can post a comment about that company and rate that company, therefore making the chances higher of someone not falling for the same data recovery scam as other people have. This way it will weed out these basement operations data recovery companies.
February 23rd, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Make sure that you check this site (datarecoverycomparison.com) out thoroughly before you believe a word that is said about any of the companies listed there. It appears that it is owned by a data recovery company that is just engaging in liable and defamatory statements so that honest hard working data recovery companies look bad. If you look at this website you will notice that there is no real way to contact them if your company has been wrongly bashed by one of their so called reviewers. The site is a total scam and has been created for the soul purpose of bashing other data recovery companies. Like everything on the internet don’t believe everything you read.
If you really want to know if a company is capable and legitimate ask some questions about your data recovery situation. If they know what they are doing they will be able to give you information about what is wrong with your drive, how much it will cost to recover the data, and how long it will take to get your data back to you.
Also guru obviously works for this company and has posted this same article all over various forums in order to build back links to his site.
March 1st, 2009 at 4:01 pm
Lol, I checked out data recovery comparison, and you can definitely contact them by clicking in the top right hand corner on a button that says “CONTACT US”, and you can report abuse on different reviews. Do your research there systemsec, before you bash what looks like an honest website. I was going to go with aerodr but not anymore because of what was written ont hat site and this blog, and i would recommend checking out data recovery company reviews at this site before choosing your data recovery company. I went with an expensive, but honest company in the long run.
May 12th, 2009 at 9:42 am
(datarecoverycomparison.com) is completely useless. 200+ companies signed up? And there are only 50+ reviews? Is there any oversight or is it just a forum for companies to bash each other?. Looks like a poor attempt at trying and drum up some ad revenue.