Sometimes money is the issue making the ability to pay for data recovery out of the question. It is a real issue when you consider that data recovery is not going to be a small fee. If this is your situation, you may start to look for either free or extremely budget-conscious (cheap) options. While there are some good places out there to ask for advice in dealing with this, there are also some places you should not consider turning to… period.

Let’s take a look at some of them, okay?

The Guy Who Knows A Guy

We all know him. But does he really know what he’s doing?

Going to the guy that someone knows is never such a good idea. That’s because you are taking a huge risk trusting all of your critical data with someone who may not be a data recovery engineer. Even if he has enough knowledge to take your case anyway, do you want to take the chance that either he steals some of your data (credit card info, passwords, etc.) or has no clue what he is doing and destroys what data could have been saved if you had gone to a professional in the first place?

Your best bet is to follow up on references from people you trust who can give you testimonials regarding their experiences.

Public General Forums (Like Quora or Reddit)

Sure, there are some really smart people out there who will post valid and correct answers to questions regarding data recovery. However, there are as many users out there who can easily post incorrect information. That is why it is safer to just stay away from these types of forums for data recovery advice.

You will encounter some forum members who are more interested in selling you their service than actually solving your problem. You have to be able to filter their answers to see what they are truly trying to do. However, there are also legitimate, specialized forum sites that deal just with data recovery issues.

A good place to start is HDDguru.

Computer Repair Shops

This should be an obvious one for you. They fix computers, not hard drives. In general, computer repair shops not only do not have the expertise, but they rarely can afford an actual hardware unit like the PC3000 with all the components and monthly updates. The computer repair and data recovery industries are like night and day. They are two completely different things.

Finally… YouTube

YouTube is fast becoming the go-to platform for anyone who is seeking a simple, quick and cheap DIY solution to their problem. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of videos recorded (produced) and launched (uploaded) by amateurs.

These amateurs who post data recovery DIY videos often have nothing to do with the data recovery industry. Most of the videos posted by these so-called experts don’t even cover the full process from start to finish. So you are not getting a true tutorial video that will save your precious data.

The last thing you want is to be in the situation where you end up scratching your hard drive platters because you decided to watch a good-looking guy in a lab coat who seemed like he knew what he was doing. In many cases – most of the really serious cases – data recovery is most certainly not a do-it-yourself project you can complete on a sunny afternoon in the garage.