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I've suffered a hard disk crash and need some help in recoving data from the disk. Can anyone recommend a computer shop / person from Perpignan to Prades (closer to Prades is better for me) who they know to be good at this sort of thing?

Thanks

Richard

Isn't you business buildeing websites? I would have thought you would have all the right connections in the computer field.

There is a technician in Ille sur tet on the main street .

RichardK wrote:I've suffered a hard disk crash and need some help in recoving data from the disk. Can anyone recommend a computer shop / person from Perpignan to Prades (closer to Prades is better for me) who they know to be good at this sort of thing?

Thanks

Richard

Try Stephen Shaddick. he lives in St Jean Pla de Corts 0630676716

O.val service.fr (Computer problems....) - email
Perpignan and surrounds - Phone: 06 24 65 81 49
For a rapid, reliable response to all your computer problems and glitches
Installation & Connection of computers and peripherals
Software and Internet training
Data saving and recovery
Fixing of problems linked to viruses or spywares
Computer repair & maintenance
Fixing of system blocking or problems with your internet connection
30 € TTC per hour. website

Patrick Boyle - website - email
Laroque des Albères - Phone: 04 68 87 17 35
Computer Help
Broadband installation, repairs, upgrades and advice.
See my web page for more details

Thanks for the replies Sue & Opas. Have you actually used these people and if so how have you found them? I'm looking for a recommendation.

Fortunately opas, designing websites and disaster recovery doen't go hand and in hand, hence - no, I don't have any connections in that area.

Hi Richard
Oval services retrieved nearly all my data when my carte mere fried a couple of years ago. Nice chap too.
Patrick is also an honest and straightforward guy as far as I know, tho don't know about his disaster recovery record.
Best of luck -I know what a disaster it is. I had scoffed at backup until then but learnt a hard lesson.

Richard
I have used Patrick Boyle with a HDD problem. He managed to save all of my files on this drive, which was a real saver. So, yes, I would say another good vote for Patrick.

Blackduff

I vote Patrick too.

Patrick is your man

We were very pleased when Patrick got us out of a bad place on the laptop

Patrick is good although Sorede Informatique (from €12.50 TTC) is also very good although M Pinot ne parle pas Anglais

John

Many thanks for all the replies everyone - I've slightly in awe at such helpfulness!

I've dropped it off this morning at a shop in Prades who seemed very knowledgeable - we'll see if their knowledge translates into getting all my data back! For reference here they are: http://illepointnet.com/ . They also have a shop in Ille somewhere I imagine.

Once I get it back, I'll report back on how they do for the reference of others who may suffer the same mishap as myself going forward!

Hi Richard

was your data retrieved, and how much did it cost?

Hi Chris - we're still waiting. Initial diagnostics weren't good, and hence this week it's been trawled through byte by byte. We're supposed to find out how things are going today.

Richard, sorry for this late post but I would recommend a weekly back up on an external drive. If you then suffered a HDD failure, a new HDD could import your last back-up.
I haven't used Windows for a number of years and can say that I use Apple's "Time Machine" each week and back-up to a Hitachi G-Drive Slimline 500Gb drive.
One general word of advice for anyone reading this post;
When you next change your P.C./Laptop, seriously consider specifying a Solid State Disk Drive (AKA Flash Drive). They are more reliable, quieter and boot-up a lot faster. Some of you may say "too expensive" they're not if you only buy the capacity you need. I know of someone who had a 750Gb HDD and only used 110Gb of capacity!
MacBook Air 13" 512Gb SSD, 8Gb RAM, Intel i7 Dual Core.

Smiley G wrote:Richard, sorry for this late post but I would recommend a weekly back up on an external drive. If you then suffered a HDD failure, a new HDD could import your last back-up.
I haven't used Windows for a number of years and can say that I use Apple's "Time Machine" each week and back-up to a Hitachi G-Drive Slimline 500Gb drive.
One general word of advice for anyone reading this post;
When you next change your P.C./Laptop, seriously consider specifying a Solid State Disk Drive (AKA Flash Drive). They are more reliable, quieter and boot-up a lot faster. Some of you may say "too expensive" they're not if you only buy the capacity you need. I know of someone who had a 750Gb HDD and only used 110Gb of capacity!
MacBook Air 13" 512Gb SSD, 8Gb RAM, Intel i7 Dual Core.

Where did you find this information. I haven't seen anything saying that SSD drives are reliable. I can tell you something for certain, if your SSD stops working, kiss your info goodbye. It's not easy to recover data when a SSD is dead.

Blackduff

blackduff wrote: I haven't seen anything saying that SSD drives are reliable. I can tell you something for certain, if your SSD stops working, kiss your info goodbye. It's not easy to recover data when a SSD is dead.

An interesting article here: http://hexus.net/tech/news/storage/4493 ... lure-rate/
I would certainly back up to a hard disk. Personally I have set up LuckyBackup on my Linux system so that it automatically does a backup to a second internal hard disk at first switch-on each day. I then backup to an external disk once a month or so, just in case a power surge kills both disks. Perhaps I am being a bit overcautious but it has paid dividends on one occasion.

I believe that LuckyBackup is now available for Windows and Mac as well as Linux and is a free download.

Russell.

After the last post I made, I searched to find if I was right or wrong. I found that I'm both. Depending on who says if SSD are reliable, the source gives different responses. Tom's Hardware gave a good report about reliability but Computer World's report said that SSDs are wonderful. Some reports say that the SSD drives tend to slow down as they get older. But, other sources said opposite. I think that time is going to give the real results.

My post that it's going to be difficult to recover data from a SSD when it dies. But, I did find a company which says they can recover all of the data from a dead SSD. Their site is nice and looks like to be capable recovering the data ~ but the price is the cost may be high.

I've two hard drives within my desktop machine, which are partitioned into drives from C up to U, which protects some hacker jumping into one of the drives. Major attacks on my drive C can be reloaded without changing my other data on drives E ~ U. I also have an external 1T drive passing from the USB 3.0 card to this USB 3.0 external drive. The only problem is that I'm not dedicated to backup my drives weekly/monthly/longer. Laziness lets me think I can wait a bit more first.

I'm sure that Smiley's Mac setup is great but I just don't like the thought that Mac only has the perfect way to backup the data. Reliability is proven over time and the SSD drives haven't been in the machines yet.

Blackduff

blackduff wrote: I'm sure that Smiley's Mac setup is great but I just don't like the thought that Mac only has the perfect way to backup the data.

It certainly hasn't. If you want a really good system try setting up a RAID 1 controller for your two disks. It will write all data to both disks and if one fails it will just continue working. You can then swap the faulty drive and it will rebuild it. Linux has done this for over ten years and Microsoft introduced it in Windows 7.

Russell.

When you've suffered a disk crash and possible data loss I have to say it does rather make you grit your teeth when someone (Smiley G) comes along and tells you what you should have done!

Still....I've no doubt there was no malice intended & no offence was taken.

That said, it's vaguely pleasing to be able to say that his solution isn't actually good enough. Taking a weekly backup in itself won't help you unless you know that you can restore the backup. I was actually taking a daily backup but when I came to restore it...well...things didn't quite work out as I'd expected due to user error elsewhere in the process.

The best solution - regular backup to whatever disk you like AND periodically restoring a file or folder just to make sure you know things will work if and when you need it to.

As for me....my disk is having a short break in a 'clean lab' in the UK having the heads replaced. Sigh...

RichardK wrote: As for me....my disk is having a short break in a 'clean lab' in the UK having the heads replaced. Sigh...

Sounds expensive! Good luck.

Russell

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brucereid33 wrote:To recover data from your crashed hard drive , Kernel for windows data recovery tool is an effective software that recover and repair corrupt data from hard disk flawlessly. To know more visit: www.recoverlostfile.net

Doen't help if the heads are f****d!

Russell.

Although a little late....I thought it might be useful to report back on what finally happened with the data recovery. We did manage to get it all back at a cost of £1,050. It's was an expensive learning experience, however, a similar service in France would have cost much more so in that respect we got of lightly.

Here's who we used: http://www.retrodata.co.uk/ incase it's useful for anyone else.