OK, listen up. I think there is an important lesson and a caveat in here. A while ago my hard drive (external, 1TB) gave up. Panic station after going to the first computer shop that is most local. Got told that is is a major and most unlikely that any data could be recovered. The drive did not even communicate with the computer in the shop, so the guy did not want to touch it. I was told that if the data on the disc was super important, the only option would be to send it to this company in Auckland who do forensic data recovery at a charge of $1000 per GB!!!!!!!!!!! So I went home and asked a few people (thank you guys for all your help, you know who you are:-) and looked at other specialists throughout Christchurch. Ended up going somewhere into suburbia South of the airport and where the box was opened, drive taken out, analyzed in the back room and got the same verdict: drive stuffed but data could be recovered much cheaper if I would be happy to send the whole thing to China by DHL. They would open up the disc in a special dust free room, retrieve the data and send all of it back electronically, the guy here would then put it onto a new drive and only (!) charge about $1000 plus postage for all of it. Well, quite a bit cheaper than the first option, but I still felt that for that money, I could almost buy a new computer (which I also needed to do), so went home to sleep it over and possibly figure out another way to live without thousands of photographs depicting our last 7 years. Next day, I went to a few electronic shops to see what other opinion was out there re data storage. Yes, I get it: first lesson - back up everything at least twice. WP 1TB externals are supposed to have good longevity someone say, another guy reckoned that usually give up after about 2 years! So I am still the none wiser, to be honest. Now the big thumbs up: Noel Leeming saved the day! Not just did they have what appeared to me a very patient and knowledgeable computer sales person, but he also did not mind listening to my data storage saga and simply said you can leave it with us, I will have our technicians look at it and if they can retrieve any data, put it onto another device for $99. If they cannot retrieve anything, it will not cost you anything. I could hardy believe my ears - and all this even before I had told him I needed to also buy a new computer! So, end up story, they just rang, all the data has been retrieved and is now on the new external storage device. Technician coming out on Friday morning to install new desc top computer and I am looking forward to being part of the Apple crowd by the end of the week! Caveat: especially if you are in an emotional state and general panic mode about the potential loss of family photos - shop around before you spent mega dollars for some complicated data retrieval that might not be necessary. I am astounded as to the different levels of expertise that seems to be out there at the various computer shops.
Posted on: Tue, 08 Apr 2014 23:29:40 +0000