Kelly, For data recovery programs, I'll echo what Mike said... I've used OnTrack and it's worked pretty good. Another really good one (that I've also had luck with) is SpinRite ($89) from Gibson Research Company - www.grc.com/sr/spinrite.htm.
Data recovery service companies tend to be very expensive. I sent in a couple of drives recently (hmm...one was a Seagate 36gb SCSI and the other was a WD 80gb SATA (I wonder how I forgot about those in an earlier email)), but they can also work magic. The price is usually dependent on your time frame and the size of the drive. The faster you want the data back, the more it's going to cost. If you don't need the data *tomorrow* then, you can save a little bit on the cost. Figure the cost will be from $500 - $3,000 (depending on the size of the drive). Most repairs seem to run in the $1,300 - $1,700 range. Most companies will tout how they'll get your data back or they won't charge you anything. That's nice, but not realistic. Unless a drive has been really, really, really hammered, they can still get something back. Also, don't worry too much about finding a place local to you - unless you want to drop off the drive in person. Almost all of the data recovery places will ship the drive (and will accept shipments too). I did a quick google search and here's the 3 top hits (not including the CPC links): o First Advantage Data Recovery Services www.datarecovery.net - 877-304-7189 o Ontrack Data Recovery - www.ontrackdatarecovery.com - 800-872-2599 o DriveSavers - www.drivesavers.com 800-440-1904. I've used DriveSavers - www.drivesavers.com (1-800-440-1904) about a dozen times over the years with companies where I've worked and in my systems consulting business too. They've been in business for about 20 years (IIRC). They used to have a picture of a drive that had been in a house fire - you could sort of tell it had been a drive at some point in time and they were able to get data from - it was pretty amazing to see. We chose them since they used to have a location about 5 miles from where I worked. Larry -----Original Message----- From: Computer Guys Discussion List [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kelly J. Morris Sent: Friday, September 12, 2008 4:21 PM To: COMPUTERGUYS-L@LISTSERV.AOL.COM Subject: Re: [CGUYS] Help! Fred Holmes wrote: Fred - >Is there any chance that when you were drag/dropping the files to the external hard drive, all you were really doing was creating shortcuts/aliases to the original files in their original locations? > > I don't think so. After dragging-and-dropping the folders to the external drive, I tried to open a file and discovered that it was no longer there. That's when I saw that everything that I had dragged-and-dropped had been moved, not copied, to the external drive. Since I was getting ready to delete the SuSE installation anyway and I could easily access and manipulate the files on the external drive, I proceeded to delete the SuSE and install Ubuntu in its place. I made the mistake of saving Windows to the same external drive before deleting SuSE and installing Ubuntu. >If the files have real value to you, don't mess with the external drive at all. You may just do more damage. It will be very costly, but one of the commercial/professional data recovery services is your best bet. If files have merely been deleted in which case the directory entries are deallocatend and the files still exist, there are simple utilities for recovering data. But if the FAT itself is gone, data recovery is difficult and tedious. > > Where do I find the data recovery untilities? Is there a data recovery service that you recommend? I live in Prince George's County, Maryland. Many thanks. Kelly >Fred Holmes > >At 06:04 PM 9/12/2008, Kelly J. Morris wrote: > > >>mike wrote: >> >>>From windows or ubuntu, have you tried showing hidden files? From either is >> >> >>>there unaccounted for space 'missing' on the drive...as in the linux files >>>aren't showing up but they seem to be taking up space? >>> >>> >>> >>Mike - I had the same idea but there doesn't seem to be any missing space. Thanks. Kelly >> >> >> >> >>>On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 10:49 PM, Kelly J. Morris <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>>>Greetings. I have just managed to lose all my data. >>>> >>>>In preparation for upgrading my Linux installation, I bought and installed >>>>a WD USB 500 GB external drive. I copied all my data from my SuSE 9.2 >>>>partition to the external drive. I rebooted to my WinXP HE partition and >>>>saved my data to the same external drive. I then deleted the old SuSE >>>>partition and installed Ubuntu 8.041 LTS where SuSE had been. I rebooted >>>>into Ubuntu and looked for my folders on the external drive. They are not >>>>there or, if they are there, I can't see them. Only the Windows folders >>>>remain. >>>> >>>>I assume that, when I saved the Windows folders to the external drive, they >>>>wrote over the files that were already there, i.e. the folders from my >>>>previous SuSE Linux installation that I had saved there. It was not a case >>>>of space - I had saved about 75 GB of files from my SuSE partition and only >>>>about 10 GB of files from Windows (that I rarely use). >>>> >>>>Is there any way that I can retrieve my files? >>>> >>>>TIA. Kelly >>>> >>>> >>********************************************************************** *** >>** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** >>** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** >>********************************************************************** *** >> >> > > >*********************************************************************** ** >** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** >** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** >*********************************************************************** ** > >----------------------------------------------------------------------- - > > >No virus found in this incoming message. >Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com >Version: 8.0.169 / Virus Database: 270.6.21/1669 - Release Date: 9/12/2008 2:18 PM > > > ************************************************************************ * ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** ************************************************************************ * ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
