Data Recovery for my Apple Desktop - Would you recommend these guys?

Hi guys, so I lost all of my data on my Apple desktop and I really need to get it back. I'm not really a technical person but my friend recommended me this forum and told me to ask about your recommendations for data recovery.

I found these guys in Google: http://www.datlabsdatarecovery.co.uk but I'd love to get your opinion first. Have you used them before? Is there any other services you recommend?

Thank for you help in advance.

Welcome to our forums.

Professional data recovery can be very expensive. Before you do anything, can you explain what happened and give us some information about your Mac and which version of OS X it's running? Perhaps we can recommend another way of recovering your data.

As to which data recovery specialists to use, out UK forum members will have to chime in and give their opinion.

As chscag mentioned. Professional data recovery can be VERY expensive.

In the United States I wouldn't expect it to cost less than $500...and could be over $1000. I think you should try to get an estimate from this service before you even think about if they are good or not. If the cost is too high...it may not matter if they are good or not...if the cost is too much for your budget.

You didn't exactly say how the data was "lost". There are apps like "DiskWarrior" and "DataRescue" that can recover deleted data...and they can cost $100-$129 for each app. You can run them for free first to see what they can recover...then you have to purchase the app to actually get the data recovered.

- Nick

Assuming that a commercial recovery place may be required, what about the recent recommendation from Randy B. Singer and the good user results feedback on the $300 Data Recovery. Not sure if they service the UK or not, but I can't see why not:

http://www.mac-forums.com/other-har...ng-data-please-2.html?highlight=Data+Recovery

This place has set the industry on their ear:

"$300 Drive Recovery"
http://www.300dollardatarecovery.com

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http://www.mac-forums.com/other-har...ring-data-please.html?highlight=Data+Recovery

And a +1 recommendation for "DiskWarrior" and "DataRescue" — at least providing the HDD is still operational and spinning.



EDIT:
PS: I have no personal affiliation with the $300 Data Recovery place. Or "DiskWarrior" and "DataRescue" for that matter.





- Patrick
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Not sure if they service the UK or not, but I can't see why not:

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I can think of some reasons why not....

I'm not sure that the "300 Dollar Data Recovery" would accept a unit from the UK and would be willing to use oversea mail and fill out customs to get it back to a UK customer. But you never know. Anyway, it wouldn't hurt to ask them. Their web site has a live chat service which you can use to find out.

how about trying a recovery software...some of them seem easy to use (menu driven) I have not trying any of them... I am in process of trying to recover video files from SD card .. not sure which Software I will use yet. Best of luck.

Remo Recover Media
Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery
Data Rescue 4

edit; I did see some good recommendation by our Admins (chscag and pigoo3) on software in other posts Thanks.

It's time for another reminder about the importance of backup.

You've got loads of fantastic advice there. One thing I'd add is this to go back to chscag's first post. Please tell us as much as you can before you take more action.

If your looking at data recovery from a disk the more you use it from the point of failure the greater chance of data loss. A better understanding of what's happened may help us guide you

There are data recovery programs that are much cheaper. I have used Minitool Data Recovery twice now and been very pleased. I will qualify this by saying I used the Windows version as that is what I needed. It is not cheap $79 but much cheaper than a data recovery service.

I have had two different situations that I used it with. The first time, and I am embarrassed to admit this but, I inadvertantly erased a 1TB data drive. I was going for a USB drive and someone was asking me a question and could I hurry to fix their issue and well.... anyway the wrong drive got formatted. MiniTool got 100% back for me.

The second was a windows computer. The system drive's boot sector had gotten damaged and Windows 10 would not load. Let me just say that the fix and recover efforts that Windows 10 claims will work - did not! I ran MiniTool on the drive and was able to recover all the data on the 1TB drive. Originally when I offered to setup backup for his data told me he had nothing he really needed so don't bother. Right - until he lost all his data - then it mattered.

In order to use any recovery app you will need to have a second computer to run the app and attach the drive in target disk mode or put the drive in an enclosure.

Lisa

Looks like Olivia never responded back to this thread and may have used the data recovery company in the UK that she mentioned. We can assume this thread is over unless she posts back.

I should add that all of the data recovery experts recommend against using any of good data recovery programs. They suggest that they might make it impossible for them to recover your data if you end up needing to take your hard drive to a recovery service. I can tell you that Disk Drill is very highly regarded by just about everyone who has reviewed/tried it. e.g.

lclev said:

I have had two different situations that I used it with. The first time, and I am embarrassed to admit this but, I inadvertantly erased a 1TB data drive. I was going for a USB drive and someone was asking me a question and could I hurry to fix their issue and well.... anyway the wrong drive got formatted. MiniTool got 100% back for me.

Lisa

Click to expand...

I did almost the exact same thing the first time I lost data. I was using a dedicated word processor more years ago than I care to remember. I seem to recall that when formatting a new disk these systems used a different drive as the write drive than it did when you were actually writing data. Somewhere along the way I put the wrong disk in the wrong drive. I realized the error part way through the process but by then it was too late.

I've had my share of data loss when running Windows. The most data lost was on one of those miserable Iomega drives. Actually, I had two of them; one SCSI, the other USB. The USB drive mangled the data on a bunch of my disks. No way to recover the data either. To Iomega's credit they replaced the defective drive and sent me a new disk.

I had both the Jazz and EZ Flyer drives. Accidentally erased one of my wife's cartridges -- sending tens of MB of data into the digital ether. Fortunately this was in the LC II days and we had purchased Norton Utilities for Mac.Don't panic this is in the days when Norton was actually worth buying.

I managed to recover the data but it took forever.

Slydude said:

Accidentally erased one of my wife's cartridges...

I managed to recover the data but it took forever.

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And saved a marriage. Or at least someone had cold dinner that night. lol

- Nick

Don't panic this is in the days when Norton was actually worth buying.

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I hear you Sly. I had a whole slew of Norton stuff before Peter Norton sold out to Symantec. Norton Utilities, Norton Backup, Norton Disk Doctor, cloning software, etc. etc.

Ahhh…yes, the good old day of some outstanding programmers like Peter Norton and others like Steve Dormer (Eudora email client), ResEdit and Hypercard folks comes to mind, and many others.




- Patrick
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I too use to love Norton. They had a little program called Ghost that saved my bacon a few times. Loved the whole suite but when they sold to Symantec I saw the writing on the wall. So sad that now a days I recommend uninstalling Norton products. The quality is just not there anymore.

Lisa