Do This Right Now!!!
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Thanks for all the kind words... I've run several recovery programs and have been able to find the files I lost however all are corrupt. so now I'm going to mail off the hard-drive to professional. I'll be using this company unless one of you knows of a better company or sees some reason why I shouldn't.
SalvageData: Expert Data Recovery Service Provider
Industry-certified data recovery, trusted since 2003. Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID data recovery by experts available 24/7/365. Free evaluation for any device.
(www.salvagedata.com)
They say I mail it to them and then they diagnose and evaluate the drive and what it will take to get the info out. cost is between $500 and $1100... no data no cost they say. and an estimate before any work starts. so sounds good to me. and they're #1 on Google for the term "data recovery" no easy feat in itself. so fingers crossed.
Again, I appreciate the comforting and the advice. I'm quite embarrassed, I should know better. but I thought this might stand as a lesson to others... So at least there might be some benefit from my loss.
I'll keep the thread updated to the progress.
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Kris, just a thought! Are you going to make a copy of the drive before sending or is this even possible?
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I was thinking about that... but I don't think it would do much good as the important files are down below and I would think not copy-able. but I would be interested in hear as I have the cloning software and I have an extra identical sized drive.
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I learned today that all I have to show for the last 14 years of work is what's in my head... Data Recovery Specialist says... "Files Unrecoverable." Heart Break to Ensue...
@unknownuser said:
Unfortunately due to the extent of physical/logical damage found on the media, this case has been deemed not recoverable. An email detailing specific findings to follow.
Regards,
The SalvageData Team -
http://www.carbonite.com/en/ $59 a year and it's unlimited. It takes a long time to backup the first copy, but at least you are protected against disasters as well.
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Really sorry Kris. You still have our undying respect but I guess that's not quite enough at present... And you have the legacy of the projects that were built.
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That's incredibly bad luck, Kris. I really feel for you...especially in view of the fact that you've been able to recover virtually nothing...and the thought of how this must be affecting your custom house plan business is truly terrifying.
You say you've lost the entire 14 years work. I know this is no consolation...but in the spirit of your original post (a lesson to others); how did you manage to go 14 years without backing up at all? By that, I mean...presuming that you have bought new PC systems in that time, how did you transfer the data from your old PC to its replacement?...or upgrade you OS? (I see you're now on Windows 7)
Do you still have any old machines lying around, or given to relatives, that might have been reformatted but not had too much new stuff loaded onto them yet? They might be recoverable, even if your work machine isn't. -
Sorry to hear.
Have you installed on top of the data or is the PC just saying the drive can't be read?
Why I ask is because I "lost" a drive that couldn't be read even by several recovery software.
Eventually it turn out that if I turned UAC off (in Windows Vista/Windows 7) and restarted.
It all came back. -
Sorry to hear of your situation. We have got good results with Norman-Ibas data recovery. Part of http://www.krollontrack.com/ (pick your country from the list).
About recovery programs, GetDataBack for NTFS has worked well, if data is not badly overwritten or disk is not physically broken. http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm -
Another vote here for "carbonite". Very cheap for the amount of storage you can get and its been a life saver for me on a couple of occasions. Also a handy feature is that you can remotely access all your backed up files no matter where you are in the world. Handy when you realise you left that all important client presentation back at home when your a thousand miles away!!
Data recovery specialists seem to be a licence to print money. I've never known anyone that has been able to recover data from a wiped/trashed hard drive. All you ever get is a large bill!
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