Anyone can look up the definition of a clean room on Wikipedia, but the reality is that clean rooms can be one of many different sizes, configurations, and classifications. The question is – what kind of clean room is suitable when the only thing standing between a data recovery technician and your valuable data is a speck of dust?

As noted in one of our earlier blog entries that briefly explains how a hard drive works, the magnetic read/write heads that work with the platters where your data is stored float a distance of mere microns over the platter surface. If your drive is opened by an inexperienced technician outside of a clean environment, small airborne particles can end up inside the drive, risking contamination. Should any of that contamination find its way into that extremely tiny gap, the heads could collide with the platters, scratching them and rendering your drive irreversibly damaged.

This is why a clean room is so important. A clean room is designed to filter and circulate air inside a controlled area, maintaining a level of air quality far cleaner than that of the air we breathe. While no clean room can remove all of the particulate in the air, nor are they considered a “sterile” environment, most certified clean rooms are efficient enough to maintain a level of airborne particulate that is less than a fraction of a percent that you would find in the air outside. To put this in perspective, outdoor air contains some 35,000,000 particles (dust, pollen, etc.) per cubic meter – our clean room cuts that down to just 100.

Our clean room is a certified Class 100 clean room, also known as an ISO 5-standard clean room under the ISO 14644-1 specifications. While there is no “industry standard” for data recovery, this type of environment meets or exceeds the standards for use in manufacturing and biological and chemical sciences.

A clean room can come in many sizes, from a small laminar-flow hood that you may have worked in during chemistry class in high school, to a large room with air-locks. The important thing to understand when considering a data recovery provider’s clean room facility is not the size of their clean room, but the quality of the clean room itself, and the experience of the technicians working in it. Don’t be fooled by data recovery companies claiming they have the only “certified” clean room in the country.

We know that when researching data recovery labs, a proper clean room is one of the most important things to take into consideration, should your drive need to be disassembled. We are confident in both our equipment and our experience, and we believe you will be too. Please contact us if you have any further questions about our facilities.

When should you try to recover data on your own?

If you’ve accidently formatted your drive or deleted files you didn’t mean to, prematurely shut down your PC, or have taken on an especially pernicious virus, then you may be able to recover your own data using any of a number of data recovery software products.

Some programs work better than others with specific problems or software to be recovered; they are not all the same. Each software solution uses different recovery algorithms to reconstruct data, and no two programs will provide the same results. Do your homework online before purchasing.

If you attempt your own do it yourself data recovery, then remember this important rule: NEVER RECOVER DATA TO THE SAME DRIVE. The recovered data will overwrite the hidden files that you are attempting to recover; this will severely limit your options if the initial recovery attempt is not a complete success.

When should you seek the services of a data recovery firm?

The answer is simple: Whenever the hard drive appears to be failing.

Here is a short list of some conditions or symptoms that may indicate a failing drive:

There are technical reasons why you do not want to attempt a recovery if you experience any of the aforementioned conditions. The short answer is that you may make things much worse by trying, and reduce the possibility of a successful recovery, even if you take it to a pro later on.

The “long” explanation has to do with the way that hard drives work. For those who are interested in detail, here it is:

Drives that have been dropped or otherwise damaged may experience a head crash, with damage to the platters that hold your valuable data. The heads of a hard drive are designed to “fly” a microscopic distance above the platters on a cushion of air created by the rotation of the platters. When the drive experiences physical shock, the heads may crash into the platters, which ruins the heads and will likely damage the delicate media as well.

If you are an old-timer, you may remember what happened if you bumped into your phonograph while a record was playing – the needle would skip across the record, and leave a permanent scratch. This analogy works for hard drives, too.

If you continue to operate a hard drive with a damaged head, it may compound the problem and make the drive unrecoverable. The heads will continue scratching the platters and metallic particulate from the platter surfaces will contaminate the drive. We call this “cascading drive failure.”

We often open up drives where it appears someone has tried to recover their own data only to discover that the special coating on the platters that holds the magnetic information has been converted into a powder that clogs the drive’s air filter and contaminates everything else, making recovery impossible.

For drives that have not been dropped, but are in the process of failing, a built-in feature that is designed to make the hard drive more reliable actually ends up making things worse.

During “normal” operation, hard drives may develop bad areas – called sectors – on the fly. Special software on the drive (known as firmware) attempts to move the data to a safe area, and mark the errant sector as “bad”, so that it won’t be used again. This process is known as “sector reallocation.”

If a head is in the process of failing, it may mistake good sectors for bad ones, and start marking them out and moving the data in an almost continuous fashion. Sometimes the list that keeps track of where the good and bad sectors are becomes corrupted, and data recovery becomes more difficult.

Another sign that you have a failure in process is when it takes an unusually long time to copy files from the drive. By the same token, if your recovery program estimates a completion time of days instead of hours, or you receive a warning such as “the process has slowed due to hardware malfunction,” then it’s best to quit while you are still ahead.

Take an expert’s advice: Don’t leave your data in the hands of amateurs.

The Internet is full of “instructive” videos about data recovery. There is no quality control of the information, and you may get bad advice as well as good. Very few of the videos provide contact information in case you run into trouble or need additional information.

Avoid “folk wisdom” such as putting your hard drive into the freezer, knocking it a bit just to “get it going”, and never take the lid off to look or tinker inside. All of these “remedies” are more apt to make your data unrecoverable.

At Data Savers, LLC, we use special hardware and techniques that are designed to optimally copy the data from a failing drive, stressing it as little as possible and minimizing the risk of further damage. We also turn off the drive’s sector reallocation feature in the process, preventing recoverable data from being overwritten. We then perform the actual file recovery from the copy of your data that has been written to another good drive, and thus avoid trying to recover the files directly from the bad or failing drive.

We know that every file on your drive is potentially important, and we at Data Savers, LLC use state-of-the-art equipment and expertise gained from extensive experience to give them back to you.

Data Savers, LLC offers no-risk, free evaluation of your hard drive if you believe it is failing. For more information, you can contact us at 1-866-MY-DATA-4, or use the other resources on our website such as our Free Online Diagnosis tool to get an estimate.

When you visit the folks, you find they’ve got a ton of family photos that they don’t have a backup anywhere. Maybe you’re replacing your old laptop with a shiny new notebook, or perhaps the kids are getting their own (they were good this year, right?), and you know that it might just not start up anymore one of these days. Or during the office party, someone spills a drink on the accountant’s computer and it’s got all of the year-end financial reports on it.

Whatever it is, wherever you are, make sure you have a backup! It’s great to get a brand new computer. It’s fast, it’s got all the newest software on it, and you can’t wait to start doing things with it. However, your new system isn’t complete without a backup solution.

So this year, give yourself and those you care about the gift of peace of mind – invest in extra storage for making regular backups, and always keep a copy of your important data in at least two places at once. Remind your friends and family members that data is never safe unless it’s kept in multiple locations.

And just in case something goes wrong, you can always tell them about Data Savers, LLC! Our affordable, flat-rate recovery fees can help bring back those cherished memories without breaking the holiday budget. Contact us today for more information.

Major flooding in Thailand, where several hard drive manufacturing plants are located, has slowed production to a halt and is causing major supply chain problems worldwide.

Hard drive prices have nearly doubled in recent days, and prices may continue to rise as supply shrinks. Some estimate that this problem is likely to continue through the end of the year.

Our hearts go out to those who have been affected by this natural disaster. Please consider donating to a charitable organization that is helping provide aid to the hundreds of thousands who have been forced out of their homes.

Most hard drives have one or more disks, referred to as platters or media, which magnetically store your file data. These platters spin at 4200 to 10,000 revolutions per minute. Tiny read / write heads fly above the rapidly spinning platter surfaces on a cushion of air, while accessing data on the media. You can visualize the internals of a hard drive working much like a phonograph record player, but this “record player” has two needles – one for each side of the media.

To gain higher levels of capacity, most drives have more than one platter, and more than one pair of heads stacked on top of one another.

When you save a file to your computer’s hard drive – say one that’s 1 megabyte in size – the drive will begin to write data on one platter side, using one head. Perhaps after 50 kilobytes of the file has been written, the drive will stop writing on the first platter side, and start to write on the second, for another 50 kilobytes. This platter / head swapping process continues until the file is completely recorded. For our example, the drive would write twenty chunks of your data, cycling through the heads and platters. It works this way because only one head can read or write at a time.

The process by which these heads and platters switch is part of performance tuning that happens at the factory when the hard drive is built. The result of this high performance tuning is stored in the hard drive manufacturer’s special programs area called firmware. Firmware controls the behavior of the hard drive, but unlike many electronic gadgets that store firmware on a chip, hard drive firmware usually resides on the platters of the drive. The existence and operation of the firmware is deliberately made invisible to the end user.

When saving a file to the hard drive, the hard drive also has to record the physical location of the file and any extra information about the file (i.e. modified date). The file system is responsible for maintaining this map of file info to physical location; it works kind of like the table of contents in a book.

If the file system gets damaged, the hard drive may not know the name or location of some of the files, and they will no longer be accessable to you. Incidentally, when a file is deleted from the hard drive, usually only the entry is removed from the file system. Without an entry indicating that a physical location of the drive is occupied, that spot where the file’s data was saved is now available for future files to overwrite.

There are, quite literally, many moving parts all working together when saving a file to your hard drive. If any component doesn’t do its job correctly, then the drive will not be able to access the data, and in those cases your best solution is to already have your data backed up!

Mike Bulmer, having served as a Mac Genius at the Apple Store at Lenox Square in Atlanta for nearly three years, brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to Data Savers.

Mike received formal training at Apple’s training facility for AppleCare technicians in Austin, Texas. His certifications include Apple Certified Macintosh Technician, Apple Certified Product Professional, and Apple Certified Support Professional. He is also familiar with other operating systems and platforms.

Data Savers, LLC welcomes Mike aboard, especially for the benefit of our Apple customers.

The purpose of the project was to improve workflow, enhance on-site security, and expand the facility to accommodate for growth.

Additional workstations have been added for technicians, significantly increasing the capacity of the facility to better serve Data Savers LLC growing base of business.

A brand new reception area and customer service desk welcomes local clients, providing them with an inviting and comfortable location where they can drop off their equipment for service and interact with the technician that will be doing the work.

For the thousands of clients who ship their equipment to Data Savers, a new shipping and receiving area with heightened security measures is evidence of Data Savers’ commitment to their clients, earning their continued faith and confidence.

Lastly, for the service providers who see their Data Savers team regularly, there is a new updated conference room where Data Savers technical seminars will be held. The Data Savers staff looks forward to educating service providers about the advancements in storage technologies and how they can better educate their own customers on data recovery in general.

Jon Yaeger, the founder of Data Savers, LLC noted:

“We have been steadily growing since our inception, to the point where our previous facility was restricting growth. These improvements will enhance each customer’s experience, as well as provide a more efficient and productive work area. They also overcome our operational limitations and posture the company for continued growth.”

One of my hobbies is restoring or modifying vintage audio gear— particularly amplifiers and such that use vacuum tube technology. In my opinion, the sound of this ancient technology usually surpasses what today’s iPods and home stereos deliver.

By the 1970s, solid-state transistors generally replaced the glass tubes. (Old folks may remember pulling tubes out of the back of TV sets, and taking them to Radio Shack or Rexall Drugs to test them on a mysterious machine with lots of sockets, dials, and lights).

Among the parts that regularly fail on old gear are the electrolytic capacitors— devices that are made to store or filter electricity. These may be small aluminum “cans” that are filled with rolled-up waxed paper, aluminum foil, and chemicals., sealed with a layer of bitumen. They can get hot; ooze goo, or explode without warning, and ruin other parts in the process. The safe course is to replace them all.

The problem is that exact replacements often are unavailable. In order to preserve the “look and feel” of the old gear, one strategy is to remove the guts inside of the can, and re-stuff them with smaller, modern parts. It’s a nasty, difficult, and time-consuming job.

I located an older fellow in North Dakota named Everett Hoard, who ran a business called Frontier Capacitor. He was willing to saw open, disembowel, and re-stuff and re-seal the old cans for a paltry $30 – $35 each, including parts. His craft was as much art as science.

I sent a few batches of old cans to him, and was always pleased with the price, quick-turnaround, high quality, and friendly service.

Recently, I promised to help a friend restore a Pilot amplifier from the late 50′s, and I assembled an assortment of cans to send to Everett. I didn’t hear anything for a few weeks, and figured that he was simply busy.

After weeks more passed, I called and was surprised to speak to his sister, who told me that Everett had passed away suddenly at the age of 89, while parked in his car. I gave her my FedEx® account number, and asked if she would kindly return the parts freight collect. I assumed she had a lot on her mind and didn’t expect to get them back.

After a few more weeks transpired, I called the old number and it had been disconnected. I wrote off the old parts and decided to go with “Plan B.”

Much to my surprise, the old parts eventually showed up at my office, along with a personal, full-page letter and a bunch of brand new smaller capacitors that could be used to re-stuff the cans.

The letter was typed by one of Everett’s friends and colleagues; a “retired repair man of 30 years currently working for the Postal Service.” The man had acquired Everett’s extensive parts inventory and gave me a “satisfaction guarantee.” He shipped them on good faith.

I was amazed that— with all of the things that a grieving family has to do— Everett’s family found a way to fill outstanding orders for the benefit of his clients. Although the new proprietor is not offering to rebuild old parts, he is providing a valuable service.

The people at Data Savers, LLC hope and plan to be around for a long time. In any event, we share the Hoard family’s commitment to loyalty and providing exceptional customer service even under the most arduous of circumstances.

Data Savers LLC was nominated for their innovative approach of keeping their clients informed through their online feedback system, CustomTrack™ that features two-way communications between clients and Data Savers’ technicians.

In explaining CustomTrack, Data Savers’ Director of Sales and Support, Evan DeLaney stated, “This new system automatically sends emails to clients that include regular and detailed updates about the various steps of the data recovery process. These milestones include diagnosis, locating a new donor drive, repairing the drive, imaging the drive, recovering the file structure, and transferring recovered data to the target donor drive.”

“This type of transparency is extremely rare in the data recovery industry,” added company founder Jon Yaeger.

The hard drives that store this information are low-priced marvels of engineering and technology. Most people take them for granted and never give them much thought until a problem occurs. Frankly, I am amazed that they work at all, or for as long as some do.

Based upon what our clients tell us, there are some very common misconceptions about the nature of hard drives and the process of data recovery. We thought it might be helpful and interesting to offer our perspective. However, we are a bit like a hospital— we tend to see only “sick” patients. There are millions of other hard drives merrily humming away and doing their job— for now.

The Hardware

If you have read this far, chances are you have seen a hard drive, or at least what one looks like from the outside. Mechanical drives come three basic shapes and sizes. Most desktop computers use 3.5″ drives; most laptops use smaller 2.5″ drives. Other laptops, and most high-capacity portable storage devices (like iPods®), use very tiny 1.8″ drives.

Newer marvels of technology, called solid-state drive, have no moving parts and are less likely to fail if dropped. The mechanical reliability comes at a higher cost and a reduction of speed. These devices are in some laptops, cameras, and other consumer products.

Myth #1

Solid-state drives are immune from failure.

Reality

You might think that an expensive solid-state drive would be immune from failure. You would be wrong, as these can fail prematurely, too.

The capacities of these drives— the amount of data that they hold— ranges anywhere from 20 gigabytes (GB) to 2 terabytes (TB), which is the same as 2000 gigabytes! This is a fantastic amount of information. If a single typewritten page uses about 2K of data, then our “tiny” little 20 GB drive can hold about 100 million pages!

Drive manufacturers are continually pressing to make drives smaller, faster, cheaper, and with higher capacities for a given size. While these are noble goals, sometimes reliability suffers in the process. We say that those who take their chances with the latest technology are living on the “bleeding” edge.

Predicting Hard Drive Reliability

Myth #2

Hard drive manufacturers, in their product specifications, advertise a figure termed MTBF, or mean time before failure. It is supposedly the average time (in hours) that the product works before an incapacitating fault occurs. A typical claim might be 500,000 hours, which translates into more than 57 years!

Reality

We see many drives that fail in less than one year.

MTBF figures are simply guesstimates and extrapolations, which have absolutely no bearing on how long you can expect your hard drive to last. For example, there is no hard drive model that has been in operation for 57 years, and so there is no real field data to determine actual “average” lifetimes.

People always ask us what is the most reliable hard drive. Although we tend to see failure patterns among certain models, we feel that no single drive or manufacturer is head and shoulders about the rest.

Secret #1

The simple fact is that all hard drives fail eventually, and rarely give adequate warning!

Expert Tip #1

Our advice is: get two drives of your choice, and back up your data to both of them. The more places that your valuable data exists, the less heartache (if any) should one of them fail.

Inside of the Sanctum Sanctorum

Mechanical drives have motors, platters, and heads, which exist inside of a sealed, air-conditioned chamber. The simplest drive may have one head and one platter; the most complicated have eight heads and four platters.

For an analogy (for those of us who are old enough to remember), imagine a little tiny phonograph player, the difference being that the drive motor is spinning at 7200 versus 33 or 45 RPM. Instead of a needle contacting the surface, you have a head assembly that rides just above the metallic surface on a tiny cushion of air. Instead of a single needle and record side, you may have as many as four platters with eight heads— one on each side.

Data is stored on the platters, and the heads delicately seek across the shiny surfaces when reading or writing. Special marks or tracks are written to the platter by the factory to tell the heads their position.

Some drives park their heads on a ramp, while others simply reside near the center during periods of inactivity. The drive shown in Figure 1 has its heads parked in a ramp.

When a drive starts and the platter motor reaches the required speed, the heads fly over the platter surface, and an actuator changes their position. The actuator works a little bit like a loudspeaker cone in response to signals that it receives.

Figure 1: Inside of a Failed Laptop Drive

Secret #2

If a hard drive has multiple heads and platters, the circuits and the computer are not fast enough for all to read at once: only one head reads at a time. Therefore, it is necessary for the heads to switch reading from one platter to another.

Let’s say that you have just recorded a long movie to your hard drive. The movie file may be recorded with head #1 first. Then after a few minutes, into the recording, head #2 takes over and reads or writes to a different platter surface. And so forth.

Switching heads in a drive solves one set of problems, but creates new ones for the data recovery process, as we shall describe.

A thorough description of how hard drives work would span hundreds— if not thousands— of pages. Drives use complicated algorithms for error correction, analog-to-digital conversion, and thermal calibration, among many other necessary functions. When you consider the electronic sophistication and mechanical precision that are a part of every hard drive, it is amazing that they can cost less than $100.00.

Myth #3

Some people believe that there is a magic machine for data recovery that will simply read any hard drive platter.

Reality

While there are other technical reasons that would make this task extremely difficult, the fact that a hard drive’s files are spread over multiple platters presents a huge challenge. File pieces would have to be identified and then linked up, like gluing together shards of broken pottery.

The signal that a head receives while floating above a platter rotating at 7200 RPM is tiny indeed, so a preamplifier circuit is necessary to boost it to a useful level. The head and preamp circuit connects electrically to a printed circuit board located on the bottom of the drive. Components on the circuit board manage the entire process, including communicating with the rest of the computer.

A data recovery company will first try to repair a drive’s mechanical, electrical, or firmware flaws before attempting to recover the data. Problems that remain may reduce the quantity or quality of the extracted data.

For instance, suppose that a drive has four heads, but one of them is defective. If data recovery is attempted on the drive “as is”, then a maximum of 75% of the drive’s data can be retrieved. Once the bad head is replaced, then it may be possible to recover 100%.

Drive manufacturers do not sell spare parts for repair. The only source of heads and other parts is another drive that is deemed to be a suitable donor. Sometimes the match must be very close in terms of date of manufacturer, part number, firmware used, etc. There are hundreds, if not thousands of drive models to choose from, and finding a matching drive is often a challenge.

Therefore, recovery of data from a drive that needs physical repair will cost more than a drive that is somewhat operational.

Secret #3

The intricate operations of a hard drive are controlled by software called firmware, which resides on special tracks on the platter called the service area, and sometimes in a small memory circuit on the circuit board. The firmware and the service area are invisible to users; special, expensive equipment is needed to view and work with them.

Here is a partial list of tasks performed by firmware:

• Communicate with the computer.
• Do a self test and stop or start the drive accordingly.
• Position the heads on the media (platters).
• Control the switching of heads and reading / writing of data.
• Manage defects on the drive.
• Compensate head position for variations in temperature.
• Perform error correction.
• Keep a log of problems and other data.

You can see how important this hidden software is. A problem with any of those functions will result in partial or total drive failure.

Secret #4

Each (modern) hard drive is unique.

Modern hard drives are tested or “burned in” at the factory. The platters are tested for defects, and bad areas (the smallest unit is a sector) are kept on a list and marked out and rendered invisible, so that the drive appears to have zero defects. In actuality, some drives have thousands or even tens of thousands of factory defects!

During the testing process, drives are custom tuned for optimum performance. These custom parameters are known as adaptive data, and differ from one drive to the next. Often it means that parts taken from one drive will not work with another, making data recovery more difficult.

What Causes Hard Drive Failure

Many factors will cause or accelerate hard drive failure. Heat is bad; the cooler you can keep a drive, the better. Fluctuating or noisy power supplies can harm drives, as can mechanical shock.

If a spinning drive is knocked or dropped (as in a laptop), the heads, which normally fly a minuscule distance above the media, can slap and self-destruct or leave scratches upon the platter. This is a severe drive failure, which is illustrated in Figure 1. The photograph shows a ring of damage close to the hub. The particles kicked up by a crash can contaminate and kill other heads or lead to more media damage.

When a drive fails with a head crash, a typical symptom is a series of repetitive clicks that can be hard when the drive is started. The clicks occur because the damaged head(s) cannot find the service area of the drive.

If the service area of the platter is also damaged, then recovery may be impossible.

What should I do if my drive has failed or is failing?

Hard drives do wear out with use. They develop bad or unreliable sectors that are normally marked out, without the user’s knowledge. However, the internal maintenance process is not foolproof, and bad sectors may remain. Bad sectors give symptoms include clicking or unusual slowness while copying files, and software malfunction.

Serious failures often occur without any advance warning, although sometimes may be preceded by the same symptoms as bad sectors, chirping noises, or other unusual sounds.

Secret #4

If you think your drive may be failing, the best thing to do is to stop what you are doing and take your drive to a pro who can image, or make a copy of your drive, using special hardware designed for the task. Trying to copy files off without an imager may stress a failing drive to a point where it becomes irretrievably damaged.

Various software programs are designed to diagnose hard drive failures or recover data. If a diagnostic program reveals bad sectors, the came caveat applies: stop what you are doing immediately.

Secret #5

Data recovery programs should never be used on a failing drive, e.g. one with bad sectors; the results may be unpredictable and often harmful. Data recovery programs work well on hard drives with logical, not physical faults, such as accidental formatting, directory damage, etc.

Resist the Temptation…

Expert Tip #2

The amount of time and effort that you should spend trying to recover your own data should be inversely proportional to the value of the data. In other words, if you don’t care about the data on your drive, experiment as you wish. However, if the data is important, consider the services of a data recovery professional.

Competent data recovery can be expensive, but so is the value of the time needed to try to reconstruct the data on a failed hard drive.

Nonetheless, sometimes our customers try to do their own “recoveries”, and usually make matters worse. For example, we had one client who took the trouble to secure a good donor drive for parts so that he could replace the heads. He wisely performed the operation within the confines of a university’s clean room, a special work area that has highly filtered air to prevent tiny or invisible particles from ruining a drive.

Although he did an admirable job for a first attempt, the head swap was not perfect, and there was damage to the platters as well as a failed head. The unfortunate thing is that his failed drive did not need a head swap, and so he got back about 80% of his data, versus 100% had he diagnosed the fault correctly.

Most other experimenters try less extreme measures. Here are some other common myths:

Myth #4

Placing the hard drive in a freezer may fix the drive enough to recover my data. Well, actually this has helped in a few cases. But the chances of killing a drive are much greater than helping it, especially with the precision tolerances of today’s drives. Freezing a drive is asking for disaster.

Myth #5

Maybe my drive just needs a jolt or a sharp tap to put everything back to normal. This myth has some basis with ancient drives, but with today’s products, it will cause nothing but further damage or destruction.

Myth #6

All you have to do to recover my data is to swap the platters into another drive. Platters are swapped only if the motor has failed. Even so, it is an exacting process: if one of the platters shifts even a millimeter relative to another, the prospects of successful data recovery are remote.

Myth #7

If the drive’s circuit board has failed, all I need to do is to swap it with a compatible part.While it is true that the boards of some drive models are interchangeable, simply swapping boards among most modern drives will not work. This is because most circuit boards containadaptive data for a particular drive.

It is no myth that it takes special tools, training, and lots of experience to meet the technical challenges of recovering data from hard drives. If your hard drive has data worth recovering, use a pro to get it back.

Myth #8

You get what you pay for with data recovery; therefore, I should use the most expensive recovery service if my data is quite valuable.

Reality

The equipment required for expert data recovery in hard drive failures is expensive and somewhat standardized. While the techniques and processes used to recover data do vary, they most likely do not vary by the same degree that “advertised prices” vary.

Expert Tip #3

Things to consider when selecting a data recovery firm:

Unfortunately, there are no generally accepted industry standards for the quality or capabilities of data recovery firms. The skills and experiences of data recovery firms range from inadequate to expert. Negligence or incometence can permanently ruin recovery possibilities, although some drives are so badly damaged that they are deemed unrecoverable by anyone.

How can a consumer select a suitable candidate among hundreds of providers? An established reputation along with a reasonable length in business is certainly a place to start. Other cues include:

• Use a search engine on the firm’s name to get a general feeling of the character of a company as well other pertinent information.
• There are local and national consumer rating services (such as Kudzu®) which provide client feedback about services rendered. See what you can find.
• If you already deal with a computer service provider, ask them who they use and why.
• Call a firm and get a feel for integrity and customer service. Beware of companies that quote a wide range of prices for their services without clearly describing reasons for the differences.
• Ask the firm what their success rate is for your drive, and try to gauge if they are being candid and honest. Bear in mind, however, that certain models and failures present challenges to any recovery firm. Note also that historical success rates will not necessarily determine the outcome of your particular recovery.
• Steer clear of any firm that guarantees they can recover your data without qualification or before they have had the opportunity to inspect your drive.
• Endorsement by hard drive manufacturers such as Western Digital® or Samsung® is a big plus.
• Ask how the data recovery company will return your data to you. If you have a lot of data, you probably want it returned on a hard drive instead of stacks of DVDs.
• Ask if the hard drive company images your drive (i.e. makes a copy of the data) before they attempt the recovery. Avoid any firm that does not make an image first. Also, ask them if they use software to make this image, or if they have hardware designed and dedicated to this task. The use of a hardware-based imager is almost always better, but the gear costs more.
• Lastly— and most importantly— go with your gut. A good service provider should do their best to try to answer your questions and to provide excellent and friendly customer service and support throughout the entire process.