Do I need to pay for corrupt data recovery?

dpetto wrote on 5/19/2007, 11:42 AM
Hello Everyone, as I stated on another Vegas forum, I'm sorry that this is not a Vegas question, but because I value your information I need to ask your opinion on this.

I just paid $400 to have data restored from a hard drive that crashed. I was given the recovered data on a removeable hard drive. To make a long story short it appears that 99% of the data is corrupt. Included are Vegas files, DVDA files, Photoshop files, wav files, mp3 files, etc. Looking at the files they appear to be o.k. (icon, file size & file type) but very few will open and those that do are screwed up (example-a wave sound file playing messed up video from another project that has a completely different name).

My question is this-Is it right that I should have to pay for this? Isn't it the responsibilty of the proffesional computer service to at least check some of the data to make sure it's good before they spend the time retrieving it all? In my mind it seems appropriate that I should pay them something for their effort to retrieve the data. But they should be responsible for making sure that what they are giving me is useable. I know they probably don't have all the software to open all the different kinds of files, but certainly they could have at least tried opening the files that should play in the windows media player or even the Microsoft word docs.

I really could use your thoughts on this one!

Thanks
Dave P.

Comments

Tim Stannard wrote on 5/19/2007, 12:49 PM
Have you actually discussed this with the firm that did the data recovery? On what basis was the recover - no fix, no fee? Or $400 no matter what? If the latter then you've not got a leg to stand on. If the former. my guess is they'll refund the money.

As for files appearing OK, any file with a .doc extension within a system configured for Windows and Word will (unless someone's been playing around) have a Word Icon and a file type of "Microsoft Word Document" (if you don't believe me, just rename a known working Photoshop psd file with the.doc extension and see what that shows) And a file length is just that - a number of bytes. This means absolutely nothing in terms of how usable the file is.
GlennChan wrote on 5/19/2007, 2:22 PM
Why don't you call them up and see if there is something they can do about it? There might be a chance that they can do something. "Hey, most of my 'recovered' data is corrupt, can you please help me figure out what's going on?"

2- Regardless of what their official written policy is, sometimes if you ask nicely you can get a refund. Tell them that you don't think it's fair that you are getting charged for a service that has not really been delivered (since you have no useable data), but don't accuse them of anything and don't bitch them out. Does that sound reasonable? Just talk to them nicely.
dpetto wrote on 5/19/2007, 3:09 PM
Yes I do plan on talking to them about this issue and I plan on being nice and calm. Getting all crazy and nasty usually doesn't solve much. Maybe there is something they can do, but if not, it sure doesn't seem fair that I should eat the whole expense.
johnmeyer wrote on 5/19/2007, 3:11 PM
I have done a lot of data recovery for various people, using the OnTrack tools (it's a several hundred dollar utility). There are hundreds of ways that discs can fail, but if the disk directory gets ruined, then the situation you describe can often be the result. However, there are "tricks" that good data recovery companies use to minimize these problems. You definitely need to talk to them about your disappointment with the results, and have them explain why so few files are usable. As part of that discussion, ask them what else they, or another data recovery outfit, can do.

In the meantime, don't do anything to your original drive, since further data recovery may be possible.
alltheseworlds wrote on 5/19/2007, 7:15 PM
Did you try freezing the original failed drive ? Sounds stupid, but a few hours of freezing, then a quick reinstall to your PC (look out for condensation) will often get the disk working again for a couple of hours...
johnmeyer wrote on 5/19/2007, 8:03 PM
Did you try freezing the original failed drive ? Sounds stupid, but a few hours of freezing, then a quick reinstall to your PC (look out for condensation) will often get the disk working again for a couple of hours...

I discovered this on my own about five years ago, and it does work. I'd recommend using just the refrigerator (40 degrees F) to start. The freezing is pretty brutal. But, it really can work. You generally get about 30 minutes before the drive goes bad again -- at least that was my experience.
GlennChan wrote on 5/19/2007, 11:27 PM
In my experience... my hard drive fried because it overheated (no cooling, and a drive underneath it was putting out heat that rises up). I did the freezer trick, but eventually the drive stopped working (somewhere around 45 mins, but I can't remember). But all that I needed to do was to leave the drive at room temperature... because it worked perfectly fine after that.

I'm guessing what's happening is that thermal changes change the size of the platters... eventually they are too big/small and the drive fails to work. Some drives do a thermal re-calibration every once in a while.

2- According to this article on unconventional ways to recover your hard drive, the freezer trick does work... for a while.
http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-6255-5029761-1.html