Anybody have success with data recovery companies?

[Lateralus]

A coworkers external hard drive has died and it won't even spin up, have anybody have any success at companies that do data recovery?

There seems like there is a ton of companies out there, I'm looking for a good recommendation.

Thanks!

[fumanstan]

I have, although I imagine it will be hard for a specific recommendation based on your location. It costs a few grand, but the few times we've had to bring a drive in at work they were able to recover everything we needed.

[Lateralus]

I have some data recovery tools here and I will try it out first, but the way the end user is talking the drive does not even spin up; if the electronics are dead that is past my ability for recovery.

I'm in Pennsylvania, and the end user already has a quote from Seagate for $1200.

[stevevt]

Freezer trick!

(Use the Google.)

[4KRG]

I thought at one point seagate owned ontrack or something like that, so if he has a quote from seagate, this may ultimately be the same company :)

http://www.krollontrack.com/data-recovery/

Use them all the time due to people being too lazy/stupid to backup their data. Maybe 1 out of 100 they are not able to recover ALL the data, but they always get something ;) Very pricey though.

[X]

Freezer trick!

(Use the Google.)Yeah, especially for no-spinup. Maybe the oven trick or the kick trick if the freezer doesn't work.

I'd sure take it out of the enclosure first and see if it works in another one.