Data recovery is probably one of the most mysterious industries out there. How are files recovered from a dead drive? Why is it so expensive?
Data recovery may range from $85 all the way to $2,500 depending on who you’re asking. There are really two stages of data recovery. The first stage, which is the less severe, deals with software corruption. Appropriately, the cost is on the lower end of the range and typically takes 1-2 days time. Utilities or software is the way to extract files from this type of scenario.
The second stage, and the more expensive and mysterious stage, deals with physical crashes or failure(s) of the hard drive or other media. This requires opening up the hard drive in a Clean Room, or dust-free lab environment, in order to replace bad parts. Then, if all goes well, the files may be recovered after good parts are installed to get the drive operational long enough. A data recovery expert should be the one performing this physical or lab recovery stage.
The biggest myth that computer users can do with hard drives that fail is to stick your hard drive in the freezer, and once
your drive becomes a popsicle, voila!, your drive wil magically work again. The rationale behind this is that any bad sectors on your hard drive may be frozen, or solidified, in order to read the files again.
The big challenge here is that there might be a possibility that you can read your files again from this technique; however, you’ll most likely have minutes if not seconds to recover your files. After the freezing thaws out, your drive will be effected the same way a spill will – it will be completely dead. So, in effect, this freezing technique is not close to 100% effective and can possibly render the drive completely useless in terms of ever being able to recover files. The take-home message here is to have a data recovery specialist diagnose your dead hard drive first before you plan for its funeral.
