jeffhwang

Not only the price, the time it takes unless you're willing to "buy priority". If you want to risk the data on the disk just to save over some files, depending on the error a hard drive can get a short revival after a day in the fridge.

im busy also crying over a lost Drive..a few months ago i lost my 2 Tb drive to a malfunction, my computer picks it up but lloses connection ..so i cant recover it myself, but my dad is in It and says that if i find another drive like mine , we can swap out that main bored for power with this one and it should work...
 
Allthough i doubt we got the same problem, thought i might share it.
sorry for going about your topic :\..

Yep, that's the way they handle some problems on recovery companies. However you have to find a disk from the same series as minor differences exist between them. And also you need a special screwdriver that stops once the screws reach "perfect stability", or it'll be uneven and the platters will wobble.

Dropped drive = physical damage = $$$ for recovery

Unless you have some irreplaceable data on there, it wouldn't be worth it to do a recovery.

Remember this advice to keep your data safe:
"If it's not backed up, it's not data you want to keep."

If it's a removable hard drive consider getting an SSD instead, those are much more shock-resistant (they have their own disadvantages, but being irreparably damaged in one drop isn't one of them.)

CGs should not be that hard to find, they should be on nyaa.
As for VN saves its not that big of a problem either unless you play gameplay VNs, because for normal non gameplay VNs you can mostly just CTRL through the stuff in few minutes (should take you max 30 mintues per VN to get you where you were if you remember).
 
You can ask people to help you getting to some specific position if you don't exactly remember where in the VN it was.

Indeed, re-downloading everything will be free and who knows maybe you don't even want some of the older stuff.
Data recovery for few terabytes of data will cost you thousands of $.
 
I lost my drive with TV series and anime too and at first I thought how it sucks but then it actually didn't bother me that much (I got the drive exchanged since it was still in warranty but not sure if you can do the same since it will be obvious that it was your fault you broke it if you dropped it). Be glad that it wasn't a drive with some unfinished work or something that you didn't backup somewhere else.

I looked at the prices at some Finnish recovery service and it is 500€-800€

TotalBiscuit paid $2300 for data recovery for few terabytes of data and not all of it was even recovered perfectly - that would be equivalent of full drive of anime/movies.

If it's actually broken and doesn't get detected if you try it in a couple of PCs I would say best just throw it and download everything again. Data recovery services are expensive as hell.