Actual data recovery is very expensive. 500$ actually sounds on the cheaper side to do it properly. I would suggest buying a diffrent external enclosure and using that in conjuntion with the freezer trick. Also do not take it to a local place because they will not be able to recover your data properly.
Also dual layer dvd's are about 8 gigs. Standard single layer dvd's are 4.7gigs.

What about this place:
Data Recovery Services, Hard Drive Data Recovery, RAID Array Data Recovery, ADS Data Recovery Experts

I mean, I could ship it to them... but they're on my way home from work... seems pretty legit. I think I'll stop by and check it out.

Free evaluation, and if they cant help you they dont charge you sound decent enough.

If you can stop by I would definitely do it.

how serious is any home user about the integrity of their pr0n collection?

I've had the 323 for ages and it's been peachy. if a drive fails, I put in a new one and it writes everything back over.

and I also run synctoy on my my docs every night--so all the important stuff is triplicated.

I am very serious when it comes to my pron, dont even joke about it.

Yeah, I learned the backup lesson the hard way. Lost pretty much everything to a head crash on an old CDC 300 MB hard drive about 15 years ago. Since then, I'm a religious zealot about backups.

Over the years I've gone through phases. First it was QIC tape, then Syquest, then I lucked into a free Maxoptix Tahiti (with several cartridges) which lasted for years. Eventually though, it got to the point where primary hard drives were so damn big that there just weren't any affordable backup devices that came close to their capacity. DLT is awesome, but pricey, and I liked random-access.

When I upgraded my hard drive the last time, I took the old 120 GB unit out and placed it in an external (USB) enclosure. From time to time I hook that drive up and do a backup of all of my critical data; tax and investment records, porn, archived email, bookmarks, design files, etc. I don't even bother with the apps and the OS, just the data. Takes about an hour. Once that's done, the drive goes into a small fireproof safe which sits on the floor at the other end of the house. If I had a basement, it'd be on the floor there. My thinking is that should the house catch fire, I don't want it sitting on a shelf six feet in the air and then falling to the ground when the shelf collapses. The safe is waterproof, and rated for storing computer media other than tapes / floppies. Fortunately I haven't needed it thus far.

Then your fireproof case heats up from the heat and toasts your hard drive inside.

Safety deposit box that shit, Joe.

I looked at their site and they looked pretty legit. If it is on your way home I would definately check them out and let do their magic.

It's supposed to not do that- hence the point of being a fireproof safe rated for holding computer media. Realistically speaking, I live on a major road with reasonable traffic (well, for North Port anyway) and I know from past experience that the fire department's response time to my house is pretty quick. So while it might get a little scorched, I don't expect it to be sitting in burning jet fuel for hours.

(knocks on wood)

I thought about that, and also about keeping it at my sister's place. Trouble with either is that I know I'm sufficiently lazy that it'd greatly decrease the frequency with which I actually run backups, which somewhat defeats the purpose of having the device in the first place.



Curiously, I just ran across this device which while expensive, is pretty cool: | Sentry® Safe | QA0005 FIRE-SAFE® Waterproof HARD DRIVE - 250GB

That just means it wont catch on fire. ;)

I guess a good compromise position would probably to do two backups. Keep the one I've got now in the safe and update it frequently, and use one of my other externals as an offsite backup, with the understanding that it won't get updated often, but will survive a total cataclysm at the house.

I have the 320gb drive in my macbook and a 1TB external that i use for Time Machine backups. Works well thus far, I have a drive with about 400 unbacked up vacation photos that I can't retrieve. I might try the freezer technique.

PS flash memory is VERY CHEAP. when you fill up your 4 gig card, buy another 3 for $10 or something silly.

I dont know how many times I see twofer tuesdays with flash cards of various types on woot.com for under $3/gig. ninja edit. drinking makes math hard.

I went to Fry's and bought a $12 2.5" IDE enclosure... same result, it spins up a few times, squeeks a little, and then shuts off.

I stopped by the Shop I linked earlier, and I may drop it off there tomorrow. With their free estimate, at least I can find out whether it's recoverable or not. If it is, then I know I'm safe and it's just a matter of money. If it's too expensive, I can take the thing home and sit on it until I feel like looking at those pictures. I have a pretty bad feeling it's gonna be around $500 though... just gut feeling.

qft

SamNavy: I read all these posts. I've been fixing computers for 15 years, so here is what I would do in your shoes:
1. Find a friend (locally, or if that's not feasible then I can help you) who is comfortable working on your hard drive.
2. Swap the drive into another computer directly, circumvent the enclosure variable.
3. Run a bunch of diagnostic software on the drive.
4. Rescue your data.

Here's the good news: if this method doesn't work, then a data recovery service can still help you with industrial-grade software and techniques. It's not like using the aforementioned consumer-grade tools will cause any irreparable damage. So you might as well go for it or have a trusted friend go for it before spending serious dough.

Thanks for the advice. I think it's a 44?pin connector on the drive... can I buy over-the-counter software and somehow plug it into my desktop to work on it? Would I need to remove my desktop's drive, plug this one it, and somehow then use the software? I'm a little clueless, but I can follow directions... or is this something I should leave to some one who isn't clueless and doesn't need directions?

If the drive doesnt spin up you are boned no matter what you plug it into.

Spend 500 bucks and go get the data professionally recovered.