HELP! Hard Drive Recovery Questions.

[funky_pat]

Skip the first paragraph below unless you want to know the reason I'm asking this question.

My Macbook hard drive has failed. When I try starting it up, it doesn't go past a white screen with a "no trespassing" symbol on it. I have tried using the reinstall disks but nothing happens and the disks just get stuck. The data may or may not be recoverable. The Genius Bar could not handle my case, so they recommended me to Tekserve. I went to Tekserve and they told me they would try to get the desired data off and place it onto an external hard drive. However, they said that if they got everything off that I wanted, then the charge would be something over $800. I have done some research and discovered that the price is most likely around the same (and can be more) wherever you go.

Before I shell out this amount of cash, does anyone know how data recovery works exactly?

To narrow this question down, I'm wondering specifically about two things:

(1) Why can't they just automatically get all of my data off, instead of asking me what specific data I want off?

(2) How secure is my data (can I trust that they won't be opening files, or even looking at file names that may suggest important private information?)?

 

[Lexluethar]

Data recovery is expensive. Especially for Mac's. Expect to pay around that much for Mac, and probably around 200 to 400 for windows depending on the issue. It is cheap if the drive is physically fine and you just lost the bootable OS on the drive. It means they can just use something like a live CD or hook it up to another computer that will recognize the OS format and pull the data off. Where it gets expensive is if the drive is physically damaged or the write head is broken. In this case they physically take apart the drive and have to take the platters out and use special instraments to read the data (expensive and time consuming).

1)because there is a lot of data on a drive, you could say all of 'my documents' if you wanted. Sometimes people don't really need anything aside from some school work or reports.
2)this is the chance you run, which is why you need to go to a reputable place (if the genius bar was referring you to them you are probably in good hands). You always run this risk, but it is run the 1% chance you get the crappy tech that looks at your data OR you lose all your data - choice is yours.