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I've got a external USB HDD that doesn't work, the spindle has dropped or the motor is knackered. I need to get the data recovered so I recently sent it to PC World. They offer 2 services. One will cost you £99 if successful and the other will cost £699. Anyhoo I've had the drive back after opting for the £99 service and they haven't been able to recover anything and now PC World are saying if I pay the £699 then there is probably a chance that the data recovery will work. I have a couple of issues. The first is that PC World cannot provide any evidence or reports to show exactly what they have already tried or done with the drive. The second is that £699 is very excessive. Is it a con? Has anybody had experience with PC World and their data recovery? Is there an alternative? I have googled, but can't find anything. |
PC World HDD Recovery
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evildunksta 225 posts
Seen 7 years ago
Registered 14 years ago -
FooAtari 3,955 posts
Seen 10 years ago
Registered 17 years agoI wouldn't go anywhere near PC Worlds tech support. Overpriced and usually crap.
You not got a decent independent pc repair shop you can try?
Oh, and this will teach you to back your data up won't it. With the amount of valuable data most people have on their computers can't believe so many don't do regular backups... -
KayJay 5,350 posts
Seen 3 months ago
Registered 15 years ago£699....
What the hell are the going to do with it?
Cover the thing in gold..! -
Dirtbox 92,595 posts
Seen 13 hours ago
Registered 19 years ago -
FooAtari 3,955 posts
Seen 10 years ago
Registered 17 years agoDirtbox wrote:
There are far, far cheaper data recovery places. Also why is it that externals crap out far more frequently than internals?
FooAtari wrote:
Is that not what an external drive is for?.
Oh, and this will teach you to back your data up won't it. With the amount of valuable data most people have on their computers can't believe so many don't do regular backups...
OK, maybe I jumped the gun on my accusations (sorry evildunksta if I did). But then a lot of people use an external drive as main storage now. If this was a back-up surely he could just buy a new external drive and copy the data from the PC back to it. -
Findus 147 posts
Seen 3 years ago
Registered 15 years agoMy mum put her laptop in to replace the screen which contained all her Open University assignments she thought she would not have to do any kind of backup as it's simply replacing the screen and handing it back, right?
Suffice to say she received the laptop back with a fresh install of Windows no recovered disk, their response? "You take a risk when you bring the laptop in" -
For £699 they're probably sending it away to another company.
They really shouldn't be charging anything unless they have success though. Sounds like a case for Watchdog that, actually. -
Kilters 658 posts
Seen 11 hours ago
Registered 18 years agoMy experience of this is that you need to pay top dollar with a reputable company to get the data back.
I've had to send drives in on numerous occasions where the only procedure was to mount the spindles/platters individually onto special recorders in a clean room environment.
You'll need to determine the value of the data and how borked the drive in order to get a quote that makes sense. PC world will just farm off the drive to a reputable crowd and take a cut. Go to them direct. -
Just used these guys - http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk/
They've been very helpful and provide you with a list of data they're able to recover before charging you anything. They're cheaper than £699 as well. -
Normski 27 posts
Seen 9 years ago
Registered 16 years agoVenatio wrote:
Just used these guys - http://www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk/
I used those guys too. They recovered everything - even the porn!
Was a few quid, but couldn't fault the service. -
heyyo 14,356 posts
Seen 4 years ago
Registered 16 years agoFindus wrote:
My mum put her laptop in to replace the screen which contained all her Open University assignments she thought she would not have to do any kind of backup as it's simply replacing the screen and handing it back, right?
Suffice to say she received the laptop back with a fresh install of Windows no recovered disk, their response? "You take a risk when you bring the laptop in"
That's like plugging in a primary HDD from one PC into another PC and expecting the HDD to run the different PC as it runs the PC it is formatted for.
You need to format the HDD so it works with the reciepent PC - i'm not sure this makes much sense, but the only way a PC wouldn't need formatting is if PC World replaced the screen with the exact model instead of a generic screen with the same resolution (the latter is what happened I guess, as exact laptop specific parts are too difficult to source on a case by case basis - generic parts are used instead)
And your mother's OU stuff, she should have uploaded them to the university's online directory at intervals, this is complusory where I study as PC failure is not an excuse if they can't see you've taken steps (uploading to the directory) to negate it. -
evildunksta 225 posts
Seen 7 years ago
Registered 14 years agoCheers for the suggestions. I've decided that I'm NOT going back to PC World.
I can't stand the service in there but I didn't really know where to start.
@Footari - This was a back up drive (one of many!) and I've just got round to transferring the data onto a shiny new PC. The old one was stolen!! All of my drives have been locked safely away. This one however just refuses to play ball. I know what you mean though about people using external drives as their main source of storage. Most of the guys I know have never backed anything up !!! -
Red-Moose 5,344 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 19 years agoevildunksta wrote:
I've got a external USB HDD that doesn't work, the spindle has dropped or the motor is knackered. I need to get the data recovered so I recently sent it to PC World. They offer 2 services. One will cost you £99 if successful and the other will cost £699.
Anyhoo I've had the drive back after opting for the £99 service and they haven't been able to recover anything and now PC World are saying if I pay the £699 then there is probably a chance that the data recovery will work.
I have a couple of issues. The first is that PC World cannot provide any evidence or reports to show exactly what they have already tried or done with the drive. The second is that £699 is very excessive.
Is it a con? Has anybody had experience with PC World and their data recovery? Is there an alternative? I have googled, but can't find anything.
My plan for HD recovery begins with getting the HDD out of the caddy and hooked into a desktop. Then, get some recovery software but at least have proper hardware access to it and can test it. If it's an internal physical problem you are likely not going to be successful but trying that stuff over USB is asking for trouble IMO. -
Try a linux distro -
angry-smurf 2 posts
Seen 11 years ago
Registered 11 years ago -
FooAtari 3,955 posts
Seen 10 years ago
Registered 17 years agoheyyo! wrote:
Findus wrote:
My mum put her laptop in to replace the screen which contained all her Open University assignments she thought she would not have to do any kind of backup as it's simply replacing the screen and handing it back, right?
Suffice to say she received the laptop back with a fresh install of Windows no recovered disk, their response? "You take a risk when you bring the laptop in"
That's like plugging in a primary HDD from one PC into another PC and expecting the HDD to run the different PC as it runs the PC it is formatted for.
You need to format the HDD so it works with the reciepent PC - i'm not sure this makes much sense, but the only way a PC wouldn't need formatting is if PC World replaced the screen with the exact model instead of a generic screen with the same resolution (the latter is what happened I guess, as exact laptop specific parts are too difficult to source on a case by case basis - generic parts are used instead)
Maybe I'm not understanding the problem, or what your saying, but if the laptop had a faulty screen, you can just replace the screen without having to replace the whole laptop. Had it done myself when the wife stood on it! If I put in my laptop have the screen replaced/repaired I wouldn't expect the hard drive to be touched in any way. -
Anyone else use a HDD recovery specialist for a head-crash before? I know about Kroll [gulp!] Onttrack but they're rather expensive - £600 for the recovery part of the job. -
nickthegun 87,711 posts
Seen 8 hours ago
Registered 16 years agoKroll are the people we send our drives to if they are too fucked to get anything from Data Rescue.
They are brilliant but they are arse clenchingly expensive. -
Kami 2,711 posts
Seen 9 hours ago
Registered 19 years agoGoing to be blunt here - £699 would be IF they could recover it, and they couldn't at £99 so I wouldn't spend ten times the cost of a replacement drive on trying to recover information from one. Not unless you have the blueprints for a time machine on it. Or millions of confidential NHS records.
If you need to save important documents and stuff, my sensible suggestion is to get a flash drive - you can get some good-quality ones now (up to 256GB) which come with 10-year warranties. They're smaller, you can whack it on a keychain knowing it's always with you and no moving parts.
But don't spend that much money unless what you need recovered is worth significantly more than the costs involved. And definitely do not go through PC World tech support, the only place in the world that thinks Steam isn't legal... -
urban 13,148 posts
Seen 4 days ago
Registered 17 years agoglol -
evildunksta 225 posts
Seen 7 years ago
Registered 14 years agoBump - update
All sorted now. I used Fields Data Recovery. They were awesome. Turn around was one week. and they were much much cheaper than PC world.
I don't know if Angry Smurf has an axe to grind with this company but I didn't experience anything like the "customers" in his links.
All good.gif)
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Slint1000 3,596 posts
Seen 8 hours ago
Registered 13 years agoI remember reading this thread at the time and those links Angry Smurf put up and thought 'That is a bad company, don't use them'.
Having just clicked on his UID though it shows he has one just post, which is almost proof he probably works for a rival or somesuch -
MrDigital 1,885 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 11 years agoIn all fairness, although he does only have one post, he does provide evidence. They either are a shit company and evildunksta got very lucky, or they're the victim of some attempted corporate whack with all of those negative reviews on many sites. -
Slint1000 3,596 posts
Seen 8 hours ago
Registered 13 years agoEither of those things could well be true, but he also hasn't been online since the day he posted those links.
That doesn't necessarily mean anything in itself; it does add to my suspicions of the guy. -
PearOfAnguish 7,573 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 17 years agoKami wrote:
the only place in the world that thinks Steam isn't legal...
I want to hear more about this. -
MrDigital 1,885 posts
Seen 6 years ago
Registered 11 years agoMy guess is that he talked to someone at a call centre who didn't know his stuff. -
evildunksta wrote:
Cheers for the update.
Bump - update
All sorted now. I used Fields Data Recovery. They were awesome. Turn around was one week. and they were much much cheaper than PC world.
I don't know if Angry Smurf has an axe to grind with this company but I didn't experience anything like the "customers" in his links.
All good -
angry-smurf 2 posts
Seen 11 years ago
Registered 11 years agoAny logical data recovery can be done with software tools for free, so if Fields recovered your data then I'm happy for you. Just be glad it wasn't a hardware fault.
If you believe that all the "customers" in the links I showed you are all fake then I would have to say you are irrational; believe what you want to believe.
Its up to you to use your judgment, you can Google the company and read what 100s of people have to say about them, or take a risk and use them. I am trying to warn you not to make the same mistake I made of using them because they advertised a low price. But if you are paranoid and think I'm saying all this for material benefit then by all means recommend all your friends and colleagues to Fields, I am sure that they will thank you for it.
Slint, you accuse me of working for a rival company - did you read the links? Did a German consumer magazine pay me to post here, did trading standards pay me to report the complaints against them, or the CCJs registered against their company?
Just because I don't have time to post here it does not mean that I am wrong - think man think.
I could equally accuse you of being connected to Fields, since they do try to discredit people who complain against them rather than deal with the complaint directly, that is their MO. -
Ello ello ello! Wos all this then?
/plods
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