If you are looking for cheap data recovery, you will probably looking for it for quite a while. If you haven’t lost data yet and are reading this then back your data up. I can’t stress it enough so I’ll just add it here. Data recovery is never cheap but backup usually is, save your important files before you have to look for a service to get your files back.

Data recovery prices highly depend on the type of media and cause of data loss. Hard drives are prone to mechanical failures and they usually mean the end of your data as well. A stuck or broken hard drive is really hard to repair to the point where data can be retrieved.

Software causes are a tad easier to fix, if you feel adventurous enough, you can do it yourself at home, and why wouldn’t you feel adventurous, you haven’t backed your important files up, have you? Professional data recovery software costs an awful lot, in the ballpark of hundreds of dollars. There are free solutions to the easiest and least complicated issues like deleted FAT table or missing partition table, but if your problem is any more complicated then I suggest you find an expert.

Expert data recovery specialists make a good living off data recovery. It means that they’re probably better at getting data back than I am, because I don’t make a living off data recovery. If I would ever lose an important file that worth more than hundreds for me I’d probably set out to find and expert right away.

One of the reasons is that they’re probably going to be more successful at getting my documents back. Another very important reason is that they’re going to be able to tell if I was trying to open the hard drive, or getting data back with an invasive method and they can either deny doing any service on the device or raise the fee by a substantial amount.

I would hate both, so before I break my hard drive or file system even more I’d set out and find a specialist nearby. Major search engines are great at this. Don’t jump at the first data recovery service you find. There are plenty in any major town with a few hundred thousand people. Always ask for an estimate describing the problem you’re having.

There are extra services like “no data recovered no fee”, which you should consider before even handing your hard drive over for examination. After examination you should be able to have an exact written quote. Don’t agree to begin the process before being aware of the final bill, this helps you avoid overcharges or unpleasant surprises in general.

The best defense is a good offense. If you want to have a truly cheap data recovery, don’t have any and save your important files. At least two different types of media is advised, and I’d suggest you sign up with a free online backup service as well. These services offer a few hundred megabytes or a couple gigabytes of space for free, but that’s going to be plenty for a few small files and directories.

I personally use dropbox because it’s 2GB for free, and it integrates with windows XP nicely. I just throw my files every once in a while at the dropbox directory and it synchronizes automatically. The thing I like about it the most is that I can add other computers to my account and it allows me to synchronize data between separate computers on top of having my files backed up neatly.