My Macbook laptop just recently starting having problems and is no longer recognizing the hard drive for whatever reason. Apple can fix it for me by putting in a new HD but I would very much like to save the files that I know are still stored on the old HD. Does anyone have any recommendations on a good mail away or local (to Northen Virginia) data recovery service? How much is this probably going to cost me?
Data recovery is a specialized service, there aren't going to be many local places that have a lab to work on it. Most places will perform a free diagnostic and give you a free quotation. You can probably expect to spend anywhere from $500 – 1400 for software recoveries and $900 – 2200 for hardware recoveries. I've used CBL in the past and them managed to save my data. It was a heads problem and cost me $1500. http://www.cbltech.com
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Before you go there, see if a trick in a PC will work on this MAC. Open up BIOS,( F1, or DELETE as SOON as you push the power button),hold it, and see if BIOS Setup Utility comes up. Standard CMOS Setup, press Enter, see if your harddrive is listed,…NO? Scroll down with Up/Down arrow keys to Primary HDD, press Enter. Use the Minus,(-), key until AUTO comes up, now hit ESC to return to the main screen, where you started from, press F10, and enter y, press the Enter key. See if operating system boots up. Just want to see if your HD can be saved so you can download info from it, before you get new one. Recuva, try this freeware,(www.recuva.com)
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Before sending your machine away, try this.
Reboot your mac with the installation disk that came with it. Go immediately to disk utility and see if it can read your hard drive. This little program may be able to revive it.
Another option: do you have another mac lying around? At work? A friend's? If so, connect both macs with a firewire cable. The working mac should be able to see the other computer's hard drive. If it does not, get a recovery utility from versiontracker.com. (They have many listed that give you a trial period, or maybe even a free one.)Install the program in the working mac. Have it scan for the hard drive on the macbook.
Option 3: Get yourself a program like DiskWarrior (or similar hard drive utility)on a CD. Maybe it can help get your drive back in shape.
Good Luck
BTW, here in NYC, they charge a bundle for data recovery. They know a customer's data is usually more important than the computer itself, so the charges are pretty steep. I'm sure in Northern Virginia it's not much different. We checked on prices once and the cost was (if I recall correctly) around $1000 for a 250 GB drive.
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Data recovery is a specialized service, there aren't going to be many local places that have a lab to work on it. Most places will perform a free diagnostic and give you a free quotation. You can probably expect to spend anywhere from $500 – 1400 for software recoveries and $900 – 2200 for hardware recoveries. I've used CBL in the past and them managed to save my data. It was a heads problem and cost me $1500. http://www.cbltech.com
References :