23 Aug
2004
23 Aug
'04
2:11 p.m.
So here I am... doing backups of an 80GB Maxtor drive when it craps out in
the _middle_ of the backup. :-(
From my digging around this morning, there appears to
be a problem reading
the reserved area that results in it being detected by the BIOS
as a "Maxtor
ROMULUS" (the class of drive).
From further digging, it appears that I won't be
able to shake this thing
loose without professional help. I got 25GB of data off of
it before it
died, but since I don't have a directory, I can't even evaluate if it's
worth $$$ to get the rest.
So... before I proceed, I was curious who on the list has used professional
data recovery services, and who does a good job at a good price. I've already
written to a company in N.Z. that has a base rate of under $300 NZ + recovery
media (DVD-R, CD-R, blank drive...) I've seen companies ask 400 Eur. and
up to $700 US.
Obviously, I'm not in a hurry now... it's still about 2 months to the first
plane.
Thanks,
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 23-Aug-2004 23:00 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -85.7 F (-65.4 C) Windchill -127.3 F (-88.5 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 11.6 kts Grid 036 Barometer 676.1 mb (10772. ft)
Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
23 Aug
23 Aug
2:36 p.m.
>>
>> So... before I proceed, I was curious who on the list has
>> used professional data recovery services, and who does a
>> good job at a good price. I've already written to a
>> company in N.Z. that has a base rate of under $300 NZ +
>> recovery media (DVD-R, CD-R, blank drive...) I've seen
>> companies ask 400 Eur. and up to $700 US.
As pert of my "real" work. I have to recover clients drives regularly. I
have used DriveSavers soo many times that I finally became an authorized
service provider.
Not the cheapest [although free if they cant get the data], but I have had
only one drive that they could not read [the platter was complete toast!].
Contact me off list if you want me to get a price quote.
David
david(a)dynamicconcepts.us
3:26 p.m.
On Mon, 23 Aug 2004, Ethan Dicks wrote:
So... before I proceed, I was curious who on the list
has used
professional data recovery services, and who does a good job at a good
price. I've already written to a company in N.Z. that has a base rate of
under $300 NZ + recovery media (DVD-R, CD-R, blank drive...) I've seen
companies ask 400 Eur. and up to $700 US.
If you can get 80GB of data recovered for NZ$300 + media then you are
stoked. I'd send hard drives from here in the US for that price.
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
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4:01 p.m.
On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 05:26:21PM -0700, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
On Mon, 23 Aug 2004, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Oops... misquoted price... $360 NZ + media... still...
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 24-Aug-2004 01:00 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -86 F (-65.5 C) Windchill -131.7 F (-90.90 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 14.6 kts Grid 042 Barometer 675.5 mb (10796. ft)
Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
So... before I proceed, I was curious who on the
list has used
professional data recovery services, and who does a good job at a good
price. I've already written to a company in N.Z. that has a base rate of
under $300 NZ + recovery media (DVD-R, CD-R, blank drive...)
If you can get 80GB of data recovered for NZ$300 + media then you are
stoked. I'd send hard drives from here in the US for that price.
4:16 p.m.
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Yep, still. Also, I meant I'd send drives from here in the US to NZ for
that price. That's an absolute bargain.
BUT: what's their track record? Have they got references?
I've used a place local to me called Data Recovery Group (they also have a
locations in Canada, Illinois, Michigan and North Carolina. I've had a
good success rate with them but they are not cheap (they average $1000 per
HD).
--
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
[ Old computing resources for business || Buy/Sell/Trade Vintage Computers ]
[ and academia at www.VintageTech.com || at http://marketplace.vintage.org ]
If you can get
80GB of data recovered for NZ$300 + media then you are
stoked. I'd send hard drives from here in the US for that price.
Oops... misquoted price... $360 NZ + media... still...
4:30 p.m.
On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 06:16:46PM -0700, Vintage Computer Festival wrote:
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Yep, still. Also, I meant I'd send drives from here in the US to NZ for
that price. That's an absolute bargain.
BUT: what's their track record? Have they got references?
Dunno... I've sent them an e-mail. We'll see if they respond.
I think part of the low price is that this is an ordinary problem with
Maxtors that does not involve platter scraping to recover from. It's
a corruption at some level (scrambled data and/or dodgy sectors) of
the reserved area that includes block translation, etc.
For a drive with an arbitrary problem, I can easily see the costs
mounting.
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 24-Aug-2004 01:20 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -86 F (-65.5 C) Windchill -127.7 F (-88.8 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 11.7 kts Grid 042 Barometer 675.6 mb (10792. ft)
Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
If you
can get 80GB of data recovered for NZ$300 + media then you are
stoked. I'd send hard drives from here in the US for that price.
Oops... misquoted price... $360 NZ + media... still... 
24 Aug
24 Aug
5:05 a.m.
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004, Ethan Dicks wrote:
On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 05:26:21PM -0700, Vintage
Computer Festival wrote:
Which chaps are you using in the Motherland?
There was a guy (A single person outfit) in Palmerston North who fixed my
bosses harddisk back in 2000.
My boss always had it hanging out the side of his case, and one morning he
trips coming into the office (If you imagine Ozzy Osbourne without the
blue glasses and somehow with an impression that he understands the IT
sector, that'd be my manager) and in righting himself on the desk, pushes
the harddisk up against the case. Logic board kisses the PC case, whizz
bang sparks, blue smoke and all the odours that make your stomach churn
when you smell them.
We ended up sending one of our Helpdesk dudes up there with it (A Boy
Racer, specifically picked, who did 130kmh the entire way). The chap up
there (Sorry, don't remember the name, but perhaps location will help) had
a spare harddisk of the same type, and just swapped the controller boards
to get the data off.
I think we paid something under $300NZ, actually. But that was four years
ago now (Man, that makes me feel old).
You might try him too;
JP
On Mon, 23 Aug 2004, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Oops...
misquoted price... $360 NZ + media... still...
-ethan So... before I proceed, I was curious who on the
list has used
professional data recovery services, and who does a good job at a good
price. I've already written to a company in N.Z. that has a base rate of
under $300 NZ + recovery media (DVD-R, CD-R, blank drive...)
If you can get 80GB
of data recovered for NZ$300 + media then you are
stoked. I'd send hard drives from here in the US for that price.
4:15 p.m.
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 09:05:14AM -0500, JP Hindin wrote:
On Tue, 24 Aug 2004, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Alan Peacock at Peacock Technologies?
Peacock Technologies Ltd. P O Box 1759,
Palmerston North, New Zealand
Phone +64-6-354-1025, Fax. +64-6-354-1027
Data recovery from disks, Media conversions
Computer forensic investigation and reporting
WWW Site home page: http://www.ptech.co.nz
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 25-Aug-2004 01:10 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -87.4 F (-66.4 C) Windchill -127.1 F (-88.40 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 10.2 kts Grid 084 Barometer 675.4 mb (10800. ft)
Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
On Mon, Aug 23, 2004 at 05:26:21PM -0700, Vintage
Computer Festival wrote:
Which chaps are you using in the Motherland?
There was a guy (A single person outfit) in Palmerston North who fixed my
bosses harddisk back in 2000. On Mon, 23 Aug 2004, Ethan Dicks wrote:
Oops...
misquoted price... $360 NZ + media... still...
-ethan So... before I proceed, I was curious who on the
list has used
professional data recovery services, and who does a good job at a good
price. I've already written to a company in N.Z. that has a base rate of
under $300 NZ + recovery media (DVD-R, CD-R, blank drive...)
If you can get 80GB
of data recovered for NZ$300 + media then you are
stoked. I'd send hard drives from here in the US for that price. 
1:04 a.m.
On Mon, 2004-08-23 at 23:11, Ethan Dicks wrote:
So here I am... doing backups of an 80GB Maxtor drive
when it craps out in
the _middle_ of the backup. :-(
For giggles you could try the old tricks of either warming the drive up
first then trying to access it, or it that doesn't work, then keeping it
cold (a pan of icy water sat on top of the drive works well, assuming
you don't spill any). I've brought drives back before now with
electronic faults using both approaches so that they'll run long enough
to get the data off.
Not going to help if it's corruption of the physical data on the
platters, of course, but maybe worth a try. Unless the drive's suffered
a head crash I can't imagine you'd make anything worse by trying.
From my digging around this morning, there appears
to be a problem reading
the reserved area that results in it being detected by the
BIOS as a "Maxtor
ROMULUS" (the class of drive). data recovery services, and who does a good job at a
good price. I've already
written to a company in N.Z. that has a base rate of under $300 NZ + recovery
media (DVD-R, CD-R, blank drive...)
That does sound good; typically prices are about twice that over here -
not sure about the US.
cheers
Jules
11:51 a.m.
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 10:04:03AM +0000, Jules Richardson wrote:
...or it that doesn't work, then keeping it
cold...
Hmm... I wonder where I could get a lot of really cold air?!?
:-)
-ethan
--
Ethan Dicks, A-130-S Current South Pole Weather at 24-Aug-2004 20:50 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400 Temp -83 F (-63.9 C) Windchill -121.2 F (-85.09 C)
APO AP 96598 Wind 10 kts Grid 062 Barometer 675.5 mb (10796. ft)
Ethan.Dicks(a)amanda.spole.gov http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html
12:07 p.m.
On Tue, 2004-08-24 at 20:51, Ethan Dicks wrote:
On Tue, Aug 24, 2004 at 10:04:03AM +0000, Jules
Richardson wrote:
Ha ha! Sure, just throw the drive in a plastic bag and pitch it outside
:-)
cheers
Jules
...or it that doesn't work, then keeping it
cold...
Hmm... I wonder where I could get a lot of really cold air?!?
:-)
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