Has anyone used a specialised data recovery company to recover information from a damaged external hard drive and can recommend one please?
I've done all I can do with it and after Goggling the problem, it seem that I need to send it away for more professional attention in a clean room.
Many thanks.

Is it that the drive is faulty or deleted data that is too disorganised for the usual utilities (eg piriform recuva).

If you are talking about opening up the drive and you really need the data you are talking about someone like Seagate Seagate but you are talking about big bucks.

I have used another company in the past but can't remember who it was and too many are coming up in google to trigger my memory.

Last price I heard of was £2000 for deep level (though the data was worth much more than that and it was urgent), highest price where I've actually known the customer was around £800. Could well be cheaper or dearer now, there are a lot more in the market. I also know a few people who have paid around £200 with successful outcomes.

Thanks for that. The drive is faulty and needs specialised attention. I've seen a company charge £200 but wasn't sure if it was cheap or expensive.

Brother in law sent an external hard drive away about 9 years back now and paid £195 so £200 does not sound over the top now. Sorry I have no idea who he used.

I was quoted £300 at a place in Heswall, good but very pricey. Didn't bother, lost a lot of pictures.

Define "damaged", a lot depends on what the damage actually is.

The cost is linked to the capacity of the drive.
So a 1TB drive is going to be costly, where as a 50GB drive should be considerably cheaper.

I would get a few quotes.

Only you can put a value on what you have lost.

* One think I will say is do you due diligence, look for reviews from various companies as you may only get one shot at this. If its a physical problem my first point of call would be the Hard Drive Manufacture.

As its an external drive, there can be many points of failure from cables to connections. What are the symptoms ?

Good luck in your quest, it would be interesting to learn what you done and the cost ?