Hard Drive Failure

[frase]

I had a client who bought in a HDD, was not responding so with agreement of client sent it of to a Data Recovery specialist.
They had a look at it and stated "Your device was suffering from damaged heads and a damaged PCB. The nv-ram which is part of the ROM on the PCB is damaged and cannot be fixed, the engineers attempted multiple techniques but were unable to overcome the issue."

Unfortunately the client was charged $400 for them to attempt the repair, is this normal practice? Also is there any chance of repairing a drive with a failure such as this?

 

[mdownes]

The DR specialists we use, have an inspection fee of about $80. For that, they outline what may be possible to recover, the probability of success and what it will cost. And this is an expensive city (Dublin). $400 seems very steep - there’s hardly much motivation for them to put much effort in, if they can get that much just to look at it...

 

[fincoder]

Unfortunately the client was charged $400 for them to attempt the repair, is this normal practice?

I always refer my (Australian) customers to PAYAM Data Recovery (if I'm unable or unwilling to use my software-based recovery). I don't participate any more than that, if the customer is serious about paying good money to recover files they can deal with them directly and negotiate fees etc.

One of my customers said they were told by PAYAM that recovery was not possible and they sent them the drive back without charge.

 

[lcoughey]

Doesn't sound right. If you are willing to send to Canada, I'd be happy to give it a second look.

 

[frase]

They had children's photos on them, the client is pretty disappointed in the outcome. I will ask them thanks.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

The place we use, about 40 minutes away from us, their "evaluations" are free

Hard Drive & RAID Data Recovery Services Company | Data Medics

HDD and RAID Data recovery service professionals. Our lab specializes in both failed hard drive data recovery as well as RAID data recovery. Affordable prices are on listed on our site, free evaluations for all cases, and a data back guarantee! We don't get paid unless we recover your data.

www.data-medics.com

I'm sure some data recovery specialists may charge for an eval of the drive. After all, it is time spent taking a look.

 

[frase]

They did evaluation for "free" though then they attempted repairs and could not repair. That was where the expense went to, one would think no fix no fee.

 

[sapphirescales]

The current data recovery center we partner with doesn't charge unless they're able to recover the data. They also send a list of all the files they were able to recover to make sure you're going to get the files you actually need. If the client looks at the file list and there's stuff missing, they don't have to pay for it.

That being said, as a shop we charge for attempted recovery for recoveries in-house (i.e. software based data recovery) and if we send the drive out to our partner. We currently charge $169 for attempted data recovery in-house, or $299 if we send the drive to our partner. Successful recovery ranges from $300 to $3,000+. The client is given an accurate estimate before we give the go-ahead to our partner.

 

[Sky-Knight]

The place I work with only charges for parts if they're needed before recovery. Which on my last recovery was about $300. They even sent me the eBay link they were buying from so I knew they weren't gouging.