Very frequently, I get phone calls from people who have sent their hard drives into data recovery labs that boast having a class 100 clean room and a high success rate. After sending their job in for a free evaluation, they are either quoted a price that is far beyond their budget will allow or they are told that their data is unrecoverable. In many cases, the high price is necessary to cover the company’s high overhead and the data is unrecoverable because the technician determines that the amount of work involved to recover the data costs more than the amount that could be quoted.

If you find yourself in a situation where the quoted price is far beyond that which you can afford or you are told that your data is unrecoverable, seek a second opinion. Most reputable data recovery service companies offer a free evaluation and quote. It only makes sense to explore all your options before giving up on your lost data files.