4 Tips for Getting the Best Deal on Hard Drive Data Recovery

Hard drive data recovery is expensive, and finding a deal on data recovery is tough. However, there are a few ways to make an expensive case a whole lot more affordable.

Here are a few tips for getting the best possible deal on your hard drive data recovery case.

Don't mess with the hard drive. This is a big one: data recovery companies will instantly charge you more if you've opened your hard drive or if you've ran it for hours trying to get it to work. The reason is that the chances of a successful recovery decrease with every uneducated recovery attempt.

As soon as your hard drive goes down and you realize that you need data recovery, call in the professionals. You'll shave a few hundred bucks off of your costs.

Be friendly. The people that you call to set up a data recovery case have some amount of control over how your case goes, and mean people get higher prices and longer turnaround times. It's not fair, but...wait a minute, no, it's actually pretty fair. Be kind to the people you're soliciting for help and they'll be kind to you.

If you feel that a data recovery company is being unfair, take your business elsewhere, but don't yell or get mean. It simply doesn't do anything for you.

Negotiate. Maybe you're a professional web designer or a fantastic carpenter. Whatever you do, see if you can get a better deal on hard drive data recovery by trading your talents. I used to work at a data recovery company, and in many instances, we'd work with our clients to get their cases done. If someone could offer us a service or a product that could help us in our trade--or just a few tins of really good cookies--we'd try to help them out and get them a lower price. Don't be afraid to try to negotiate.

Talk to other data recovery companies. The data recovery industry is extremely competitive. Google ads for data recovery cost a few bucks per click, and each year, data recovery companies spend millions of dollars on research and other investments that are designed to increase the value of their services. If you're trying to get the best deal on data recovery that you can possible find, you should take advantage of this competition.

Call around to a few data recovery companies and get a few quotes if you can. If you've already had your hard drive professionally evaluated, tell the price to other major data recovery companies and see if they can beat it. Start a bidding war--it could save you hundreds of dollars off the price of a hard drive data recovery.

However, you should stick to major data recovery companies, because many of the smaller companies won't be able to handle your case reliably. The best data recovery companies in my opinion are Datarecovery.com, Ontrack, and Drivesavers. And no, nobody paid me to say that--these are just big companies that have been in the industry for decades. If you find other data recovery companies, check their credentials before sending them your hard drive.

Do you have any other tips for finding the best deals on hard drive data recovery? Post below.