External harddrive quit on me- repair in the area?

does anyone know if any of the mentioned companies laptop repairs/verona's/geeks-on-wheels do retrieve data from a hd which has just stopped working? or of any other local company? they all seem to be focused on pc rather than mac, not sure whether that matters.
any ideas? or i will try and call them in the morning.
many thanks
schnake

I've had Mac HD data recovery done by Micro Anvika's service centre in Alfred Place (behind Tottenham Court Road).

Details here:
http://www.microanvika.com/about/default.asp

thanks james.
what a relief.
i will drop by there tomorrow.
schnake

if your data is VERY valuable then i would beware of using a non specialist.

Done correctly a HD recover can be expensive and the upper end cost will depend on the extent of the damage to the drive. Done incorrectly, data which might be restored may instead be destroyed with no future prospect of recovery.

google for Hard Disk Data Recovery service.

of course the problem may be minor and you might 'get lucky'

its your data and you know the risk e.g. what it will cost to replace it. you should budget for and resource the HD recovery process appropriately

2c

I assume that you have tried Apple's own disk utility? Outside of that, what do you mean by stopped working? If the drive isn't spinning up and you are sure the power supply is working etc. then the only way to get data off it will be a data recovery specialist and that is big £££s. If the disk is damaged, but still readable in part there are utilities, like Norton, that might enable at least some of the data to be recovered onto another disk. If the disk is just corrupted, but still physically sound Diskwarrior is a good bet.

One other possibility, if you aren't planning to spend loads on data recovery services, is to put (in a bag) in the freezer for a few hours.

http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-6255-5029761-2.html

Sorry to hear about your drive,I'm not convinced about going to Micro Anvika.They are great for selling you hardware,bear in mind they would most probably sub contract work like that out.So a premium is charged.True Data recover is done in laboratory conditions(dust free)

Disk Warrior is considered to be the best hard drive diagnostic program for macs

http://www.alsoft.com/DiskWarrior/


Also try Paul Ellis a mac specialist

http://www.thedigitalplumber.co.uk/

nigel wrote:

Sorry to hear about your drive,I'm not convinced about going to Micro Anvika.They are great for selling you hardware,bear in mind they would most probably sub contract work like that out.So a premium is charged.True Data recover is done in laboratory conditions(dust free)

I'm not talking about walking into one of their showrooms, but I have found their service centre (tucked away in Alfred Place) helpful on both occasions I have used it.

And I hadn't bought the hardware from them - they were just the only place I could find in central London where I could get some faulty hardware looked at over the counter without sending it away or going to somewhere like Croydon.

I have also used Honeylight in Wandsworth - http://www.honeylight.co.uk/

data recovery is not listed in their services

did you use them to recover data from a failed drive?

if not then why are you putting a plug here?

Data recovery is listed in Honeylight's services. If instead you are referring to Mikro Anvika, I have used them as well as James. They were fine, and extracted pretty much all of my data although not quite everything (they seemed to struggle with archived emails from Apple's Mail program, but extracted all word documents, excel spreadsheets and powerpoint slideshows - in other all 'mainstream items'. I didn't have photos stored on that machine, because iPhoto was then very new, so cannot comment on that). They were quite pricey, but then what price do you put on your data? If I recall, I took the machine into one of the showrooms on Tottenham Court Road and they took it from me and delivered to the service centre.