What is the best inexpensive handheld video camcorder?

What is the best way to recover video from a camcorder that had it's hard drive formatted?

• I accidently formatted the hard drive on my camcorder. I had over 60 GB of AVCHD raw video (.mts) file. I haven't recorded anything to the disc since. I have used a few different recovery software programs. However they can only find from 300MB to 400MB. What is the best software that will find these files? If not how much does it roughly cost to have somebody recover for me?

• Answer:

  If you've already tried several software packages to recover this - and they were unsuccessful, then you can try sending it out to a professional "data recovery" firm. Companies I've dealt with include Kroll Ontrack (try their software, too if you have not already) - cost: $100 to evaluate, then (call them for an exact quote) - probably between $400 - $2000 depending on complexity of job. For the $100, they tell you exactly what files they can recover, and how well. They don't charge any more unless you are happy with the recovery - They are a multinational company, and have always been excellent performers for me. Drive Savers - free examination, same basic prices for final job total (again, call for exact quote) they required us to give them a purchase order or credit card in advance, but promised (and DID) call us before charging anything. They told us what they could / could not recover before moving on. AFAIK, they are in California, but shipping is pretty quick. i360 Corp - Chicago area.. I'm not sure of pricing - the only job I've ever sent them was a Western Digital drive that was under warranty. Shipping & service were great. Check with all companies for exact price quotes and ask for discounts - if you are a government / large firm employee; student/insturctor ; AAA member, special credit cards, IEEE, anything.. even just 10% from a $1000 price tag is a huge discount. I'm personally not familiar with that filetype, so I don't know if there are companies that specialize in this sort of thing more. I just dealt with these larger firms because I needed to know the disks & data were safe. There are lots of cheaper recovery services.. but I don't know why I should (or shouldn't) trust them. Good luck, and happy new year.