Data Recovery
Big name data recovery services require shipping your device and often charge hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Our technician, Daniel, is passionate about saving your information, and has invested countless hours and resources into building his data recovery toolset.
If your drive is no longer mounting, data was deleted, RAID fell apart, or even if your drive has failed sectors, we can try to get your data back. We charge $149 for successful data recovery, plus $75/hour for technician time if your recovery requires it.
Types of Data Recovery
Unrecognized Drive
Even if your operating system fails to recognize a drive, it's possible our Linux recovery server can. If our server can see your drive, we can attempt data recovery!
Solid state drives that have completely failed controllers, are soldered to motherboards that cannot turn on, or have silicon that is degrading, will be referred to a specialized data recovery service we trust.
Failing Sectors
Once a drive starts logging failed sectors, recovering all of your data becomes tricky. The drive may be in read-only mode. It may get stuck at the failed sector and refuse to read the rest of your drive.
As long as the mechanical pieces (HDD), or controller (SSD) are functioning and the drive is responding well, we can use our data recovery server to methodically extract one sector at a time, often recovering most if not all of the user data on a drive.
Failed RAID
RAIDing drives together in a server or NAS drive is an excellent way to prevent data loss when a hard drive fails. Unfortunately, even this method of storage is not infallible.
If an enclosure has failed, RAID settings are lost, or a drive needs replaced, we have tools to rebuild the RAID data and get you back on your feet.
If too many drives have failed at once, we may refer you to a specialized data recovery service we trust.
Comprehensive Computer Repair: Data Recovery, Drive Replacement, and OS Installation
If the drive we're recovering data from is your computer's main hard drive, we can lump the data recovery fee into replacing the drive, reinstalling Windows/MacOS/Linux, setting up programs, and moving your recovered data back onto your computer. Truly a comprehensive service!
Deleted Data
It's true that deleted data is not always lost data! As long as the data hasn't been overwritten, there's a chance it can be recovered.
If you have or suspect you have deleted important data you need, STOP using the device immediately and bring it in for data recovery!
This method of recovery often produces duplicates and fragments of deleted files from ages past, so technician fees to remove duplicates, rebuild files, or sort recovered files may be incurred with your permission.
Restoring from a Backup
Regardless of your data backup method, we can help restore your files to your computer, server, or storage drive, and link the restored data to your software as needed (like QuickBooks or an ERP).
External Drives of all Shapes, Sizes, and Ages (like Maxtor, ~2002)
Inside the Repair Shop:
What is the Data Recovery Process Like?
Intake
When a device is brought in for data recovery, we will ask you questions about what the device is doing or not doing, any symptoms leading up to the data loss, and perhaps fixes or changes you have already tried. We'll also check if there are specific files or file types you are attempting to retrieve.
Evaluating the Drive
First, we will want to make sure the drive can withstand our recovery processes. Drives with failures that could be made worse without a clean room, micro-soldering, or controller replacement will be referred to a data recovery company we trust.
Copying the Drive
Our first true interaction with the drive will be to make a bit-for-bit clone of it. We have a myriad of tools to do this depending on how the drive is failing. This first step can take anywhere from a few hours to a several days depending on the drive size and type of failure. Once the copy is done, we will have an idea of how many sectors were readable, which is a clue as to how much or how little data we will be able to recover.
Working off the Copy
Because data reconstruction can be a hardware-intensive task, we work from a copy of your drive to actually recover files. This allows us to use faster, healthy hardware and specialized software to complete this step. This step alone can take days to complete on our data recovery server.
Cleaning Up the Files
Depending on the amount of data recovered, and if there are a lot of duplicates or corruption, we may offer clean up the recovery to reduce its size. For instance, we've had a 2TB drive produce over 4TB of data due to recovering deleted or fragmented files. If you opt into clean-up and duplicate removal, there is an additional $75/hr technician time fee; most clean-ups can be completed within 2 hours.
Copying the Data to its Destination
Once reconstruction and clean-up are completed, we will know what size of drive, or amount of space, the recovered data will take up. You are welcome to bring in a destination of your choosing (such as an external hard drive, solid state drive, flash drive, or computer), or we can sell you a storage device.
Disposing of the Failed Drive
We always recommend keeping the failed drive in your possession until you are confident all the files you need have been recovered. When you are ready to dispose of the drive, we can securely wipe and recycle it for you.