Advice needed from a computer wiz

quote:

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What would this forensic data deal actually do to retrieve these pictures, and any idea what the success rate would be? I have no idea with any of this. The money aspect sucks but losing all the pictures is even worse of an option.

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Assuming the drive appears to be dead and/or corrupted, they will attempt to retrieve the images from the disk using special hardware and software. It's nowhere near guaranteed though. Unless you are comfortable spending a couple thousand, just consider it a lesson learned and move on.

I'm assuming it's a spinning hard drive. If so, is it clicking? Sometimes, a small circuit board can be replaced for $15 with a part from eBay, and the tech may not have known that. But if it's clicking, it's called the "click of death" for a reason.

If it's not a spinning hard drive (SSD) there may be an issue with missing partitions, etc that can be logically solved, but it doesn't sound like that's likely the case.

If it makes you feel any better, the images you have in your head are superior to whatever picture was taken in 1988 anyway. I scanned all of my baby and kid pictures from the 70s and 80s by hand a few years ago, and have never, not once, opened any of them.

The drive is dead. I know it will be expensive. It does nothing

My guess is it looked something like this:

That's a hard drive dock. If it is NOT clicking, replacing a part like this might work ($60.)

Prepare your wife to come to terms that the pictures are gone (unless someone else has them in iCloud, etc.) You can spend thousands to recover a drive, and still not get any data off of it.

ETA: I am going to find someone that will quote me on working on this and give them all the info I can. The computer was thrown out and all that is left is the hard drive. Will update in the future of the outcome
Thanks

We use Gillware. They do not charge until they can get the data.

It will probably be a few grand. They will send a list of files first to prove they have the data.

Just going to use this to remind folks if the 3-2-1 of file storage/backup.

3 copies
2 types of media
1 off site.

It’s a 2000 ish model HP tower computer from Best Buy. I’d doubt it was very technical by any means

If the drive is truly dead, then unfortunately the quote isn't out of line. A $4,000–$5,000 estimate usually means they're expecting a clean-room recovery with significant mechanical work, things like replacing failed read/write heads, repairing firmware, and making multiple imaging passes to recover as much data as possible. Those jobs require specialized equipment, donor drives, and can take many hours. The encouraging part is that family photos are often among the easiest types of files to recover if the platters themselves are still intact. Unlike a database or operating system, a JPEG can often be recovered even if parts of the file system are damaged.

So far I have called quite a few places that advertise forensic services. No help to this point. Have one more source and that will be the end of it