Dammit. I never watch this subforum, sorry.
If you haven't already bit the bullet, try Gillware (
Data Recovery | File Recovery | Deleted Hard Disk Recovery ) ... we refer folks to them at my work, and have heard very good things -- they also tend to be cheaper than most other places, and offer up-front quoting.
Though from a quality standpoint, one should be able to count on a decent product not to fail to a degree, no?
So, USB drives bad, SATA drives good?
Sadly no. Hard drives will always die. Some hard drives will die before their rated MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) - that's why it's a mean/average. Some hard drives will defy logic and last for 10 years. It's a crapshoot.
However. I can attest that at my work, we are seeing far more rapid failure, and especially abnormally early failures, on almost all SATA drives, in both 2.5" and 3.5" size. Remember that USB drives are a box with an interface board with.... you guessed it, a SATA hard drive inside of it.
Anything that can be considered truly "important" data should be stored in 2 places at all times. So if your laptop is low on space, and you primarily store your files on an external HD, it should be automatically backed up to another external HD.
I have a file server with a 500gb drive, and am buying another 500gb drive to keep a mirror copy onto. I am also buying 2 1-TB drives to add 1 TB of storage, and keep a mirror of that as well.
It sux, I know, but ... unless it's truly "throw-away" data.... It's a PITA to keep good backups, but it's the only real way.
Finally, just a PSA reminder..... Dell, Apple, Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi, Sony, blah blah blah...... Remember, at all times, that Data Is Not The Manufacturer's Responsibility. It sucks, it's true, but it's the policy all the way across the board.
Nobody here threw the cranky card, but people here @ my work throw that card, day after day. So a reminder: You can't just insist "Well, my Dell died, so it's Dell's job to get my files back" or... "My Seagate died, they should have to pay the recovery cost" .......... it's limited liability, it's standard practice, and it's not their problem. It sucks. But it's how it is.