Data Recovery, crashed cf card photo hard drive...

[shilala]

Originally Posted by grateful1

Ontrack gave you that quote but usually the price comes in lower AND you don't have to pay the price upfront.
Pay the initial cost (I think $100) then they will send you a file with a listing of what was found and you can decide from that.

There are also software programs that you can use:

'Smart Recovery 4.5' and 'Recover Files' are two that we've used with some success.

If they are that important...go with Ontrack.

This is a microdrive that won't spin up. It's a mechanical issue, not a lost file issue or corruption issue, so software is useless. I can recover deleted stuff from hard drives all day, it's not a big deal. It's very simple, really.
Ya can't recover anything from a hard drive that won't spin, short of taking out the disc and placing it in another hard drive. It's sheer hell and has to be done in a clean room or a hepa tent.
Big hard drives are hell to swap platters. Now imagine a hard drive that's the size of a compact flash card. That's what I have. If it were deleted files on that card, I could get them all back in a few minutes. Not the case.
If I had any dexterity left at all, I'd go ahead and put my microdrive platter in a new microdrive and recover it. I just can't do it, I'm too old and shaky.
Point being, software is useless.
We're still deciding if we're willing to pay a thousand bucks for the pics. They won't go anywhere while we make up our minds. We may have enough pics from the family's pics that we're happy. I'm hoping that's how it shakes out. Wish us luck.