Pricing and Costs of Data Recovery Services

Choose computer data recovery that matches your budget and your needs

Every business owner needs to be aware of their computer data recovery options. Data loss problems can range from the accidental deletion of an important file to complete hard drive failure. There are even degrees of hard drive failure, which can also determine how expensive it is to recover your data.

There are multiple factors that decide the pricing and costs of data recovery services. What type of program or service you need, and how much you can expect to spend, depends primary on how and why your data loss occurred:

1. Choose which unerase program will work the best to recover that important document.
2. Hire a computer technician to perform hard drive data recovery.
3. Ship your dead hard drive out to data recovery specialists.
   

 

Download or purchase a hard disk data recovery program

If you've accidentally deleted a vital business document, use your computer as little as possible until you enact your chosen solution. While it's virtually impossible to completely erase a file from your computer, there is a chance that continued activity can overwrite whatever traces of it remain.
Try: Lifehacker has an informative article that lists a number of free software utilities that can be used to recover an accidentally deleted file. Recovery Review isn't limited to free software, but it does give you a nice review of a number of different unerase tools, with links to purchase the product of your choice. You shouldn't have to pay more than $40 for a program of this type. Undelete software is one of the cheapest ways of recovering your data, especially if you're just looking for one or two files.

Call in an appointment with a computer service provider that offers data rescue

If your hard drive falls under that "I'm-not-dead-yet" category, oftentimes you can hire a technician to perform file recovery or data backup for you. This is more expensive than undeleting a single file, but vastly cheaper than sending out a completely dead hard drive to a data recovery specialist. As long as the drive will "spin up," a technician is usually able to retrieve anything you need off the drive.
Try: Geeks on Call America will perform backup and data recovery off of a hard drive for under $200. This is, of course, assuming that you have a reasonable amount of data. If you need a massive 60GB database recovered, you will pay for the extra time. Geeks on Call will come to your place of business at no extra charge. Geek Squad charges an initial in-store diagnostic fee of a little under $60, but their actual data recovery services start at about $250.

Send your completely dead hard drive out to data recovery specialists

If your hard drive is dead, Windows won't boot, and you are stuck without any hope of accessing vital business information, you can send your hard drive out to a computer data recovery service. This is the most expensive means of data recovery, but it is also the only way that you can recover anything off of a drive that is in complete mechanical failure.
Try: Kroll Ontrack is famous for recovering info off of the melted hard drive from the space shuttle Columbia. They are pricey--particularly if you need expedited service. You can expect to pay well over $1000 depending on the degree of drive failure and the amount of data needing to be recovered. DriveSavers Data Recovery is also extremely reputable. They will quote you up-front, and guarantee not to exceed the quote. You can fill out an estimate form online, or contact via toll-free number.

 

• The best way to not get stuck paying thousands of dollars for data recovery? Have a regularly scheduled backup. Google "online data backup" for just a few remote backup solutions.

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