RTS Data Recovery

My external Mac drive suddenly failed on me and would not mount on my computer. I had 25 years of work (2 TB) and no backup. I had someone come out to help me but he was a PC person and was not familiar with Mac. He was unable to do anything. I made several calls to Data Recovery companies. While most were closed or closing and wanted me to bring my drive the next day, RTS Recovery was open late hours and Paul was incredibly helpful. After working on my drive through the night and getting it to mount, the data was coming off the drive corrupt. Paul was able to send my hard drive out to be rebuilt and the data was successfully recovered. The things I like best about this company are
1. Paul — he was amazing — helpful, informative, sincere.
2. The pricing — First off, if they cannot retrieve the data there is NO CHARGE. That says ALOT!
3. Pricing. While other companies quoted me more than double «worst case scenario» prices. I was a worst case scenario and was relieved that it cost me ¹⁄₃ the price I was quoted by many other companies.
Thank God and Paul, I now have all my data and am back in business. He even backed up the new drive onto another new drive for me so I start out with everything on 2 drives.

I thought I had lost it all. I couldn’t get any computer to read my external hard drive, which is where I had put all of my information. I googled for ways to fix my issue and I just got complicated, elaborate, lengthy steps to «try» to fix it. I took it to geek squad and they told me they had to send it away and that it was going to be really expensive. Finally I was counselled to look for a data recovery place, which is probably what geek squad was going to do anyway, and I found RTS. I called and was able to set an appointment pretty quickly. Dropped off my hard drive and they called me soon after and told me what they were going to be able to do. They were able to save my stuff. I couldn’t have been more satisfied.

I had almost two GB of information on a jump drive where I had created all of the course work for four classes that I teach at a local university. I showed up for class and all of a sudden the computer would not recognize that my drive was plugged in. Luckily I had a back up that got me through that class, but I quickly realized I had only backed up about half of three of my courses and none of the fourth. I panicked and began searching for ways to recover my data. I found the RTS website and put in request for a quote. They called me within minutes to discuss what I needed. They assured me that they could most likely recover the data and the cost would be $ 200. I sent the drive off and within hours of receiving the notification that it had been delivered I received a phone call to let me know they had already recovered my data and it was immediately made available for me to recover from a cloud service as well as mailing me a hard copy of all of the information. This service is outstanding! I will recommend them to everyone!

Paul was very helpful and didn’t seem at all to be taking advantage of me, someone who doesn’t know much at all about how all this hard drive stuff works. He gave me discounts when he could and they were able to retrieve my information. The Apple store somehow messed up my glide pad (?) (mouse for a Macbook) so it was very difficult to use and Paul went above and beyond and fixed that for me as well at no cost.

I was Assistant Editing a docuseries shooting on a 5D and a c300. I arrived on set and the DP handed me the card to unload. It wouldn’t read. nothing was showing up. NOTHING. After many panicked hours of trying different card readers and checking other cards, we figured the CF card was bad. We could NOT afford to shoot a whole additional day. In a state of alarm, I asked my DIT friend who they recommended for looking into a bad CF card. They actually recommended this place in WEHO. Not Long Beach. I think a lot of people might be confused by that. It appears there is one RTS in WEHO and in Long Beach, and it appears they are owned by the same company, but according to Unilocal (at the time) the office in Long Bech was the only one open past 9pm on a Friday night (thank God!!) so we called the one in Long Beach, figuring they’d be less busy than a recovery place in hollywood, near all the studios. We were right.
Call the number and try to speak with Paul if you can. I believe his extension is 37.
I explained my situation and he he said he could take a look at it that night if I could get there by 1030pm, and that they usually take a few days to review data (understandably, I’m sure I’m not his only client).
I raced down to Long Beach from Hollywood. It was a little hard to find, it’s basically a huge condo-​looking white tower next to other huge white towers. and the entrance you want is in the back of the building, drive down the little hill (if you’re on the main street) and turn left. The next little entrance that looks like a private apt parking garage is it! Pull in there (park anywhere) and tell the sector guard you’re there to see Paul at RTS. Then you sign in and Paul will come down from his ivory tower of helpfulness and take your drive and give you a rough time estimate.
In my case, he took it up, the security guard offered me a styrofoam cup of water and some bbq potato chips from his stash (thanks guy!) like I was in the waiting room of the ICU instead of some fancy condo skyscraper. They have a little rec room down there you can watch tv or nervous scan old books on the book shelf. I recommend insanely checking your phone every minute to see if Paul has somehow saved your career. Up to you.
20 mins later Paul called me and said he was able to see *something* on the card. Which is a positive sign. He asked if I could wait another hour while he ran tests. I said yes (I’d rather stay than drive all the way back). He ran more tests and later called. He had found media on the card, but it wasn’t copying off. He told me he’d need to run some more tests on it, with equipment he doesn’t usually use, in the morning, as it was 1130pm (past closing time). So I left, encouraged that he found SOMETHING on the card, and after he assured me I hadn’t accidentally (somehow) deleted it. He can see if files have been deleted or damaged. It was the latter. Which apparently «happens all the time». Terrifying!
TIP: TAKE YOUR DAMAGED DEVICE, LAPTOP AND WORKING EXTRA HARD DRIVE WITH YOU. He asked for a hard drive to put the possible recovered data on, and we were able to test it on my laptop in the lobby.
Next day: I get a call from Paul saying he wasn’t able to save the data. It’s showing as .mov files now (yay) but it won’t copy or move. He said the last idea he had was to send it to his associates in Sacramento who can (apparently) do a deeper scrub of the data and mail back a stick. I asked how much that would be. He said «For a CF card recovery we charge $ 200 plus tax. If we do not recover the CF card, we don’t charge you anything. To send this card overnight to Sacramento would cost an additional $ 30 (or whatever UPS is going to charge). We can try to upload it to a server but since this is a lot of data and you are short on time, I would recommend having my counterparts buy you a thumb drive and have them mail that to you directly if they are able to restore the data.» Pretty dang good deal.
Then Paul shipped the damaged CF card to Sacramento and that evening they were able to recover the files and PLAY them without error. The next day they were delivered and converted as usual. Very very thankful for Paul’s sense of urgency on our shoot. Highly recommend him, he could have totally raped us but he didn’t.

My drive suddenly failed on me around dinner time in Friday. Most other recovery services were closed and I did not know what to do, and I found RTS does a weekend job as well. I contacted Paul Hersh immediately and he recovered my precious and valuable data within the weekend. They know what they are doing and I am satisfied with the results.
Thank you again!

Check around, the prices don’t get any better that these. I checked with another company they gave me a range of $ 900-​$ 3600. I ended up paying less than that with RTS, and I had a very complicated recovery.
Paul and his colleagues kept at it until everything was fully recovered, then he apologized for having it take so long! (It was eight days, more than reasonable)
I chose them because they were local, but I would hire them regardless of that in the future.

I was working on my notebook when I did a restart and the 500 GB internal hard drive started chirping like a canary. What a depressing feeling as you recall your last backup date, and your mind begins to grasp just how much stuff has disappeared into thin air. Getting it back is now Job #1 and the first thing is is to make sure you don’t give it to some hack who tries to recover the data and can’t but charges you for trying. After doing some research, I found RTS. After talking with Paul I regained some piece of mind and confidence that he could probably recover my data. He quoted me a fixed fee and if he couldn’t recover the data, there would be no charge. Paul kept me informed during the recovery process and a week later I had my data back. What more could you ask?

prices seem a bit steep. $ 200 to fix 1tb drive, or $ 900 for data recovery on drive 1tb.
do like that they called me at 2am shortly after I requested a quote tho.

Came in on Monday morning couldn’t access my server. Friend recommended RTS. Sure enough they were able to recover the data in a few days, kept in touch with me during the whole process. Everything recovered, service exceeded my expectations. Would defiantly recommend.

I am very grateful to have found Paul and RTS Data Recovery. I had been carrying around some important documents on a 4gb USB flash drive and one day it went out. The tech guy at my job couldn’t recover the data and I was quoted close to $ 1,000 by a few other companies. RTS was able to check out the drive the next day and they recovered 100% of my data for a fraction of the price that the other guys tried to charge. Great company, highly recommended!

If I could give RTS Data Recovery more than 5 stars I would! It is such a horrible feeling to lose so many important files off of your computer or a hard drive in my case and RTS Data Recovery saved the day. Paul was amazing to work with, he got back all of my files in less than a day at a great price. I called around to a couple places that left me feeling a little hesitant especially with such an important task and I am so glad I went with RTS. I would highly recommend them to anyone who has lost files, failed drives, etc.