Geek Squad to the rescue?

Just an update to anybody who cares about my external hard drive situation (I sure as Hell do!) My spirits were somewhat uplifted when my work laptop responded to my hard drive a tad better than my home laptop did. But nonetheless I was still unable to extract any files. Finally I had the IT guy at work see if he could work any magic, but he wasn't too optimistic. He did some scans that were beyond my understanding, and it didn't look good.

So finally I said, "Let's just try Geek Squad." Yes, it would be more expensive, but you know what? There are a number of files and photos on that don't exist anywhere else (including photos of friends and relatives that have since passed), to be honest $250 is well worth it if they can recover these items. I was a bit hesitant to go, mostly because I was afraid of getting bad news. But Friday night I finally went, and I was almost unsettled by how confident and nonchalant they were about the situation. The technician took my hard drive, checked to see if the items could be recovered, and returned a few moments later to tell me they would be able to recover the files, but the hard drive is on the way out. I told him that at this point I could care less about the hard drive, I just want to recover the files. Again, quite confidently, he said they'd be able to do that.

And it all seemed just a bit too good to be true. They said they would be able to recover the files AND replace my hard drive (putting all of the files on the new one) for less than $150 -- sure, still a nice amount of money, but $100 less than I expected to pay. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And, to an extent, it did. As we were finalizing everything, the guy tells me that he just has to check how many recoveries they have to do before mine. He returns a few minutes later to tell me they have about 15 to do, which means the won't get to mine for another 3-5 days. I had already gone a week or so without it, and about a day or two ago I had pretty much given up all hope, so I was more than willing to wait that amount of time. But then he tells me that since this thing is so close to dying, in that amount of time the items could become unrecoverable, and if that happens there's no refund. He told me there was an exceptionally small chance that would happen, so I'm sorta banking on the fact that this is just a condition he legally has to make me aware of.

Of course, if this wasn't a reputable organization I would wonder if this was some sort of scan. Basically going behind the scenes and telling people items can be recovered (which you don't see for yourself), and then later on saying that if something happens during the waiting period there's no refund.

Anyway, I'm going to be pretty nervous and anxious for the next 3-5 days. Well, moreso than usual.