Data recovery recommendations in Ottawa?

November 2, 2005 2:33 PM

Can anyone recommend a data recovery service in Ottawa?

A close friend left me a panicked message saying a) "a virus has wiped out my computer" and b) "I've lost my M.A. thesis." I've concluded now is not the time to futz around -- professional help should be enlisted to salvage whatever is salvageable.

Any recommendations?

(Oh, and thanks!)

posted by docgonzo to computers & internet (5 comments total)

Not the specific you were looking for, but Easy Recovery Pro is damn good and would do the trick if the file is still anywhere on the drive. It's saved me more than once - and at the same time has shocked me by recovering things long long deleted - I've run it on purchased drives with some frightening results; things just don't get completely and utterly deleted anymore, just a matter of finding them again. Good luck to your friend.
posted by DrtyBlvd at 2:45 PM on November 2, 2005

There's these guys but have not used them personally.
posted by dreamsign at 3:07 PM on November 2, 2005

I don't think you need professional help yet. Basically, it sounds like a software problem - assuming that is the case:

What you need to do is put another hard drive in your friends computer and use a drive imaging program to copy the entire original drive. Then take the original drive and put it in a nice safe drawer until you have done everything you can with the image.

Try moving the new drive to a working system and see what you can find using the methods described in the MS Word Disaster question. Or, try booting from a live CD like knoppix.
posted by Chuckles at 3:24 PM on November 2, 2005

Sorry, should have included some more:

The MS Word steps may be helpful even if your friend isn't using word.

If the steps described are a complete mystery to you you will need help from someone with appropriate skills, but if you have any idea at all about this stuff it should be very straight forward and risk free. (There are many AskMe threads about drive imaging but I will have to leave a search for later).

You might be able to find a local computer store that could help, or a friend that knows about computers. If you were in Toronto...

If it is a hardware fault professional help might be the appropriate answer.
posted by Chuckles at 3:36 PM on November 2, 2005

If it just trashed the boot sector or something (which is likely), any computer store should be able to handle it, yeah. The one I happen to know of is Crawford, on Merivale. They'll probably do it for $50 or so.
posted by sfenders at 3:57 PM on November 2, 2005