Dead disk? Boot loop. Disk unreadable. Shows in diskpart. Won't initialize.

[Computer Bloke]

The member who has been paged is an excellent resource. ... I cannot for the life of me recall his business name at the moment, though.

Luke's (@lcoughey's) business is Recovery Force in Waterloo, ON and I'll heartily second the recommendation based on personal experience. (Yes, I'm in New Zealand and he's in Canada - what of it?)

Shipping to/from Canada has become, in my opinion, exorbitantly expensive, though.

It's relatively cheap if you're already in Canada - as the OP is.

This could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

 

[JohnDoe1980]

The member who has been paged is an excellent resource. Shipping to/from Canada has become, in my opinion, exorbitantly expensive, though. I cannot for the life of me recall his business name at the moment, though.

I have used Data Medics myself (US Based - Rhode Island) and have been impressed with their service. Like many data recovery services, they will only charge (and only return any data at all) if they find they can return at least 70% of the data on the drive. If it's less than that, you are able to make the call as to whether to pay the full charge for what they can recover, or bail on the process with no charge.

I know many have used $300 Data Recovery (member: @300DDR) and been happy with them. That's who I refer clients to when they want to handle the entire process themselves rather than have me handle it for them.

Thank you

 

[britechguy]

(Yes, I'm in New Zealand and he's in Canada - what of it?)

Nothing of it.

I don't know why I'm being attacked as though I attacked Luke, because I didn't. My opening statement was he was an excellent resource.

Many people do care about shipping costs. Many people don't. But not every single thing I say is aimed at the original poster. Many people read these forums, and shipping costs between the US and Canada have, in my opinion, become exorbitant and that can and does matter to me, and may to some others.

That isn't anything negative about Recovery Force or Luke, personally.

And I absolutely agree that since both the OP and Luke are in Canada, that makes him probably the very best option. That doesn't mean there aren't others that future readers may be interested in because they are not in Canada.

 

[Markverhyden]

There's @labtech as well. I recommend customers to him all the time. We both lived in MA and he helped me out a lot on some non-data recovery projects so I maybe a tab biased.

 

[Computer Bloke]

Sorry, Brian - I wasn't attacking or criticising you in any way, just trying to get a discreet plug for Luke's business into the thread.

I really have sent clients to him, both from Canada and New Zealand, and the quality of his service more than justifies the expense of shipping.

Can we still be friends?

 

[labtech]

There's @labtech as well. I recommend customers to him all the time. We both lived in MA and he helped me out a lot on some non-data recovery projects so I maybe a tab biased.

Thanks for the support. Brian does not like me since the CV thread feud . But I don't hold grudges, as business is business and helping clients is priority #1.

There are many excellent options in Canada:
Recovery Force
Data Rescue Labs
HDD Recovery Services
Sabo Computer Repairs and Data Recovery

All are great techs and companies, with various pricing structures and business models.

 

[labtech]

Forgot to ask: is this an HDD or SSD?

 

[JohnDoe1980]

Forgot to ask: is this an HDD or SSD?

3.5" HDD

 

[britechguy]

Can we still be friends?

No.

[Since there are no emoji or emoticons I know of for arch humor, none are used. Nor, I hope, are they necessary!]

 

[labtech]

0Mb size on an HDD indicates the drive does not initialize correctly, meaning the reading heads cannot correctly read the firmware on the disks. Could be firmware degradation, damaged reading system heads, etc. So, nothing to do further there.
On some SSDs however, some tricks may be possible, but by a data recovery specialist.

On drives that show the correct size/capacity, do you check the health of the HDD or SSDs using SMART reporting before cloning? I am also reading your other thread on the "cloning challenges". If the sources drives are failed/failing, then the cloning with those software (Aomei, Macrium, Acronis, Fabs, etc), they will all fail.

Another software to consider, that I found useful in my cloning experience when using healthy drives for upgrades, is Paragon. It is not free.

 

[lcoughey]

Sorry...typed out a long answer on my phone and lost it when i got a call. Will reply tomorrow.

$25 USD is what one reseller told me it costs him to ship to me from Kentucky.

 

[lcoughey]

Okay...it seems that @labtech has addressed most of it. The drive is clearly in a failed state and beyond software recovery. General rule of thumb for techs when dealing with boot issues is to start by cloning the drive with ddrescue or hddsuperclone. If you cannot do that or run into more than a few read errors, stop and refer to your preferred data recovery professional before more irreversible damage is done.

For those who are referring to Data Medics, Jared is out of country and had trained a new company to take his jobs. But that recently fell through and I've been discussing with him ideas of how to move forward. With him being in Africa, communication is a little broken.

And, to expeand on the shipping to Canada. It seems odd that even if the shipping were to cost you an extra $100USD for the round trip, my labs prices tend to be anywhere from several hundred to several thousand cheaper than most of the larger US labs.

That said, there are some excellent labs in the US and I recommend you all familiarize yourself with the members of Data Recovery Professionals who pool their knowledge together while giving highly ethical service. @labtech and @300DDR are also members.

Edit. @Joep is also a member.

 

[britechguy]

referring to Data Medics

I hopped over to their website yesterday after posting. This is what is on their main page: