SALVAGEDATA Recovery

I will very rarely leave a bad review on anything. I’m easy to please and am willing to pay for quality services. I was extremely disenchanted by how I and my external hard drive were treated throughout the entire process.
My external hard drive very randomly stopped being recognized by my PC. It had never been dropped and was still perfectly intact with the fan running and still turned on just fine. I just couldn’t get any computer to register that it existed. I was pretty bummed about the ordeal. I started researching recovery options. Saw great reviews for this company so I figured I’d give it a fair go.
I packed up my external hard drive in multiple layers of bubble wrap and nestled it in a very snug box then sent it in to be evaluated. I figured the $ 45 return shipping fee would be justified considering the evaluation was free.
Boy, was I wrong. The person dealing with my case was inefficient, hassled me, was continuously rude, and acted like I owed them my business. I brushed it off so I could find out what was wrong with my hard drive. They sent me an email saying a lot of generic crap not even pertaining to my drive but concluded a one sentence diagnosis saying it was the PCB. No explanation on how they would fix it just an estimated $ 250 – 500 to clone the drives contents onto another hard drive.
Seeing as that was far too much for my budget considering the drive wasn’t burnt out or physically damaged. I declined and requested my drive be sent back to me. This is where the person in charge of my case started belittling me. She was flabbergasted that I didn’t want to pay these outrageous fees. Was rude in her emails and inferred I was completely at fault. She wouldn’t take no for an answer and was practically holding my drive hostage. I had to request 3 times for my drive to be sent back to me. Finally she called and took my payment for return shipping.
I assumed my drive would be sent back to me as nicely as I sent it into their facility. Bubble wrapped and in a snug box. No. Not at all. They haphazardly threw it into a non padded UPS shipping bag. It came back to me with a cracked case and a tangle of cords. Thankfully the internal drive was intact.
After much frustration. I took the hard drive out of the case seeing as the case was damaged and ordered a SATA/​PATA/​IDE Drive to USB 2.0 Adapter Converter Cable for 2.5 /​3.5 Inch Hard Drive /​5 inch Optical Drive with External AC Power Adapter. When that came in I plug my naked drive up to my computer and was able to access it. So basically SalvageData would have gotten $ 250 – 500 for something that could have been accomplished for $ 9.
I would not recommend a company that knowingly rips people off. I wish I had trusted my technical knowledge more because then I could have avoided this whole fiasco.

Very happy with the recovery of my hard drive and the assistance of Salvage Data’s customer service. The office manager went out of their way to help me and provide me with the answers I needed. The pricing was fair and lower compared to other services. They came recommended from a friend.

Having been in the IT business for over 20 years, I have used several different vendors for data recovery. They were fast, albeit expensive, but 15 years ago one of my clients paid $ 2,500 for recovery that took 2 weeks. The 3 rules of data… backup, backup backup!
server fried on Monday, and I had the files in my hand on Friday.

Great service and very happy with the results. Was pricey but not nearly as pricey as it could have been with some other places charging $ 1200 – 1500 for data. My whole external hard drive crashed which I had everything on but was dumb and never set up automatic backups. The cost of my data was priceless on a 1T Drive by Seagate. I called around and priced several places. I even tried Seagate themselves but unless you signed up for the extended backup and warranty plan, the time was 3 months before you can get your data back. With Salvage Data, they price the service based on the time you place on them to get the data recovered. I went with 7 – 10 days and it was $ 600 and they supplied a new Western Digital drive and mailed it to me.
When I opened the package, and plugged in, the data was in EXACTLY the same organization as it was on my computer. I have had this happen to a Memory Stick previously like 8 years ago and paid $ 500 to get it back and when I did, the data and files and folders were not organized the same and took me days to get it renamed and organized.
Overall, these guys were very good, professional and simple. I dropped my drive off. It was back in my hands in 10 days. They didn’t charge until the job was done.
I highly recommend this company based on my experience. If you think $ 600 is a lot, I would be anxious to hear where you got a better deal than Salvage Data.
BTW, if you have not already done so, you need to sign up for a subscription service for live back-​ups of your data. In my research there were several top services but I found that Backblaze was best at $ 5 a month for unlimited data and computers in your home. Constantly backs up your data. For $ 60 a year given I have had a drive crash about every 7 years, its worth the expense and trouble and am sorry I didn’t do it after my last mishap in 2007. Overall, in 7 years I have spent about $ 1100 in data recovery. I would have spent less than half that had I been using an online service.