The fact that the Thai company IDR is experienced and willing to quote for repair suggests they have a pretty good idea of their chances. To my mind, the Russian in Phuket is a wuss; he wasted me a week asking for it to be sent down, only to chicken-out of the recovery, despite being described the full symptoms in advance.

That might be true or it might not be. For me I value experience and knowledge over "yes, yes sir, I can do it" promises. Therefore your outcome is really interesting. If this company can not recover your data, is the data on the HDD still available for some other company which is considerably more costly.

This case is also interesting as very few of the IT professionals will ever have to go through it as they do keep their backups in the order that there is no need for hard drive recovery. It's also interesting to see how the recovery will be made in the future when we all use SSD's.

As far as I can find out - there are no recovery possibilites from SSD's. I have had several fail on me and none were recoverable and the data was lost. Fortunately I had them backed up on whirly-drives. FWIW I abandoned SSD's except for non-critical or easily backed up stuff.

(OP) Result of IDR's analysis after 10 working days at their Bangna Office:

HDD: SEAGATE Model: ST31000333AS S/N: 6TE04FHW Capacity: 1.0TB

(After 4th day) We would like to inform you about the data recovery status update that now we on processing for fixing the damaged area on the platter inside your hard drive because your hard drive has a lot of scratched on the surface of platter, so it take time for fixing that damaged area.

Due to the condition of your hard drive has a lot of damaged so it was the factor that make the difficult for recover process and it was the factor that decrease the recoverable chance. Anyway, we will try to perform recover process and inform to you for the summary result within this week or faster than that if the process finished.

(After 10th day) We would like to report you for the result of data recovery that "the recovery unsuccessfully". After we tried to fixed damaged area on the platter but unsuccessfully. We put all best effort in to it but can not fixed. We really sorry for your unsuccessfully case. For this case don't have any service fee from us.

*** Please come to our office for receive your hard drive back within 15 days after that we need to destroy your hard drive. ***

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So, unlike some cherry-picking recovery merchants, at least IDR opened it up and tried their best. It's a disappointing result for me, especially as the drive had been sitting -- unmoved and unmolested -- on my desk in the UK for 5 years before suddenly failing without warning. Okay, lesson learned! And no more Seagate / Maxtor hard drives!

My next question: after this, is there any point in trying to clone the damaged platters with another identical drive, as discussed in the thread above, the purpose being to try to read them from new heads?

Is it worth collecting the drive at all for future attempts at recovery? A poster above suggested contacting the manufacturer for their own recommended or in-house recovery service. That sounds potentially very costly -- possibly more than the data is worth.

http://www.seagate.c.../data-recovery/ https://services.sea...quest_form.aspx

No data, no charge. No office in Thailand either!

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And no more Seagate / Maxtor hard drives!

You can't trust any brand. "In Backup We Trust."

My next question: after this, is there any point in trying to clone the damaged platters with another identical drive, as discussed in the thread above, the purpose being to try to read them from new heads?

No.

Is it worth collecting the drive at all for future attempts at recovery?--------------------------------------------------------

No. Time to fold.

Is it worth collecting the drive at all for future attempts at recovery?

No. Time to fold.

What, no chance at any price? Let's see what Seagate says. I'd better collect it and await my inheritance!

Well, being a wuss I clearly saved time and money on this not very promising case About 10 days, according to IDR...

BTW, there is no way to "fix damaged area on the platter"...

Well, being a wuss I clearly saved time and money on this not very promising case About 10 days, according to IDR...

BTW, there is no way to "fix damaged area on the platter"...

You cherry-pick easy cases and don't open-up faulty drives to SEE what is wrong.

From Phuket Data Wizards' Site: First of all, we are the data recovery specialists. Lost your data? If your favourite data recovery software was unable to help — don't give up! Call us to rescue your valuable files from the faulty hard drives (even if they are not recognized by the computer at all).

All BS as far as I am concerned. At least the valiant Thais opened it up to physically-analyse the situation and report. You are merely smug that you didn't 'waste' 10 days and have your own interests at heart rather than the customer's.

Using factory diagnostics mode in many cases we don't need to open the drive to see what is wrong. On the other hand, I saw so many cases when "data recovery" companies were too eager to open it in less than ideal conditions and ruined the recovery possibility. The first rule here is "do no harm".

Sent from my Desire HD using Thaivisa Connect App

Of course I do hold my company interests before customer's! Every sound company does. The ultimate goal of the business is to make profit, you did not know?

Sent from my Desire HD using Thaivisa Connect App

Of course I do hold my company interests before customer's! Every sound company does. The ultimate goal of the business is to make profit, you did not know?

In my business the customer's interests always came first. On several occasions I have worked at a loss in order to get the best result for the customer and it has always paid dividends in the end, either as repeat business that did show me a profit or as good word-of-mouth advertising, or both.

I think your attitude neatly sums up absolutely everything that is wrong with the sort of farangs one often finds working in Thailand: they are interested only in themselves and their (usually small) bank balance, and b*llocks to everyone else.

@BlackPuddingBertha: perhaps with a UK pension I will become a philanthropist myself

Sent from my Desire HD using Thaivisa Connect App

@BlackPuddingBertha: perhaps with a UK pension I will become a philanthropist myself

I couldn't say. I'm nowhere near the official retirement age, though I retired at 50 on my own resources.

If ever I get to 67 (which is over a decade away) and actually receive a UK pension I will let you know if it affects me at all.

Well, being a wuss I clearly saved time and money on this not very promising case About 10 days, according to IDR...

BTW, there is no way to "fix damaged area on the platter"...

You cherry-pick easy cases and don't open-up faulty drives to SEE what is wrong.

From Phuket Data Wizards' Site: First of all, we are the data recovery specialists. Lost your data? If your favourite data recovery software was unable to help — don't give up! Call us to rescue your valuable files from the faulty hard drives (even if they are not recognized by the computer at all).

All BS as far as I am concerned. At least the valiant Thais opened it up to physically-analyse the situation and report. You are merely smug that you didn't 'waste' 10 days and have your own interests at heart rather than the customer's.

Really sorry to read about the outcome. Unfortunately data recovery from a dodgy hdd is a bit of a black art. You mentioned that the drive was not spinning up to speed, so I am at a loss as to why they didn't swap the disc with an identical new one - as I suggested originally. They talk about a damaged area on the disc, but that does not make sense alongside a disc not running at the right speed....

My advice -- fwiw -- collect the drive after they re-assemble it and try someone else. A proficient linux user will give you some good feedback. Most of these "experts" are running proprietary software on windows -- not a good solution in any case....

Edited to add a comment from a conversation with friends about your case ---

Call the FBI and say that there's child porn on it