[baylisa] Re: Hard drive recovery recommendations

[Asheesh Laroia]

On Thu, 19 Jul 2007, Marco Nicosia wrote:

> Guy B. Purcell (guy at extragalactic.net) wrote:
>>
>> On Jul 18, 2007, at 12:29 PM, cerise at armory.com wrote:
>>
>>> For what it's worth, it's my experience that there are almost no
>>> local places.
>>
>> Fortunately, your top recommendation *is* local:  <http://
>> www.drivesavers.com/contact.html>  ;^)
>
> Once in the past, I used Lazarus Data Recovery in San Francisco.
> My drive was hopelessly toasted, but I felt that they were competent,
> and gave me good value for my money. Anything else, and I wouldn't
> bother mentioning them here.
>
> LAZARUS DATA RECOVERY
> 379 Clementina Street
> San Francisco, CA 94103
> http://www.lazarus.com/

Wow, that was extremely local.  I literally walked from work to the place 
during lunch to give them my drives.

I talked with the guys there, and they knew what they were talking about 
as well as had much more sane prices.  For a recovery of the RAID-1 set 
that used to store my personal data, $3800 that DriveSavers wanted to 
charge me sure gave me pause.  Another thing to note is that William Chang 
at Lazarus used to work at DriveSavers; he used the phrase "I built that 
company up".  Now he says he belives in karma and doesn't think that 
charging the DriveSavers prices is the way to go.

The first price quote at Lazarus was $1600, which was astonishingly low by 
comparison (but not implausible like the $350 from places that just run 
Norton Disk Doctor).  So far they've had to do mechanical work in a clean 
room to get my drive to start going again and told me they're succeeding 
so far.  I don't mean to count my eggs before they've hatched, but I do 
feel pretty confident that whatever data Lazarus gets back, they'll get 
back as much as the best in the business can.

Also, he complimented me on the amateur work I did: replacing the logic 
board and putting the drive in the freezer in an anti-static bag.  That 
was nice to hear. (-:

So I wanted to leave this public positive note about them, and deeply 
thank Marco for mentioning them.  If you search the Web for Lazarus Data 
Recovery, you'll discover that Apple Computer now recommends people talk 
to them too.  Knowing that gave me more confidence in trusting a small 
local shop like them.

As a note for the others, too, if you don't have much money (like me, less 
than a month into my first job out of college), tell them that; they may 
find ways to give you a discount.  For example, DriveSavers took 30% off 
for me when I said I could wait an extra two business days as 
compared to their regular "economy" service.

-- Asheesh.

--
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree.
Indeed, unless the billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all.
 		-- Ogden Nash