The prospect of having your data recovered at a little to no cost sounds very appealing especially when some companies are charging what may seem like the full price for a new computer, but consumers need to be careful when it comes to cheap data recovery businesses and offers.
First and foremost, data recovery is not a cheap thing to do. It requires many tools and replacement parts. A new hard drive alone can cost about $100 so any so called cheap data recovery for under that price is probably just a pipe dream. Legitimate data recovery is probably going to cost at least $350 for the cheapest cases and although there are many companies that claim that they can do it for less they are probably trying to pull you in to a scam or worse, the loss of your data.
A common tactic with low cost data recovery businesses is the bait and switch technique. With this technique a company claims that they can recover your lost data for a small fee, after the drives have been shipped and the data recovered (if they have the skill to do so), they state that the problem with the drive was much more severe than initially expected and therefore charge a much higher price. This is the case with many online businesses that require you to send your disk drives in for cheap data recovery.
Another problem with data recovery services is the companies that do the recovery are often trying to do the largest volume of repairs that they can and thus focus on the easy cases to fix. Often times this leads them to tell the customer that has a more difficult case that their date is not recoverable, when in all actuality it is but the company is not willing to do it for the quoted price.
The cheapest data recovery is prevention. There are several important steps that can be taken to ensure a data recovery service is not needed. Portable hard drives can be a perfect way to back up and save important files that could be in danger with file loss. These cost around $100 and can be used with file backup programs that come with most operating systems.
The best bet when data has been lost is to find a legitimate local or online business and work closely with them on your cheap data recovery needs. It is important, as with everything, to do research on the companies that offer these services and ensure that the work they do is worth the price that is paid for their services.
The Data Recovery Cost website has additional information that you might find useful.