How to Find a Good Data Recovery Company
Posted by Dallas IT Solutions at 5:08 pm
by Phil Dotree
As hard drives are made larger and larger to accommodate the growing need for data storage, more and more important files are stored on the devices; everything from family photos to critical business files.
When a hard drive goes down, it can be a disaster for the computer owner.
Luckily, the growing data recovery industry has emerged to help get data back from damaged drives. By essentially reconstructing the drive to a working condition, data recovery engineers can pull essential information off of a hard drive for a price, of course.
As with any service, though, there are good and bad data recovery companies, and a bad data recovery company can render a drive completely unrecoverable. If you have a failed hard drive, it’s essential to look for a few specific things that will ensure that your drive’s in the right hands.
Make sure the company has a clean room. This is absolutely essential in order to work on hard drives with physical problems.
A clean room is exactly what it sounds like; it’s a heavily filtered, strictly controlled environment which allows an engineer to open a hard drive and work on it. Hard drives can’t be opened in a normal room because even a single speck of dust can permanently damage the delicate magnetic platters that hold the drive’s information, so if you’re looking at a few data recovery companies, always ask if they have a clean room.
Find out how long the company’s been in business. Reputable data recovery companies have usually been around for at least five years or so; there are some decent companies that have been in business for less time, but generally speaking, the longer the company’s been in business, the more time they’ve had to develop techniques and learn what works and what doesn’t.
Ask about past clients. If a data recovery company has several major recurring clients, i.e. Fortune 500 companies, they’ve probably got some decent qualifications. Major companies do their research, and only continue to use a company if they find some merit to them.
This isn’t an absolutely necessary qualification, but it’ll help to give you some peace of mind when making your decision.
Look for hidden fees. Different data recovery companies will charge different rates, and in a lot of cases, different rates for the same services; for that reason, it’s good to call around to gauge pricing before making a decision. Be sure to ask about all fees, though; lower-end data recovery companies find ways to sneak in charges in the form of “clean room fees” and other hidden costs. Make sure you’re aware of all the financial risk you’re taking on before sending your hard drive in to any particular data recovery company.
Make sure the company doesn’t void your hard drive’s warranty. Even if your hard drive is out of warranty, ask if the data recovery company you’re considering is authorized by hard drive manufacturers to open hard drives and recover them. Hard drive manufacturers often have strict criteria for evaluating whether a data recovery company is up to snuff, so usually you can trust their judgment.
Only use a company that practices nondestructive methods. Some data recovery companies may immediately run a drive through a series of programs designed to pull data off of drives with light failures; the problem with that method is that if the hard drive has a problem of a more severe nature, the act of running the programs could damage the drive permanently. Good data recovery companies only practice nondestructive methods that stand no chance of causing additional damage to a hard drive.
Most computer users would rather never pursue data recovery, but if your hard drive’s in the right hands, it can be a pretty painless process. Remember to do some research and choose based on qualifications as well as price; after all, your data’s valuable. Don’t trust it to a company that can’t handle it.
For more information on data recovery, call Tech Central at 972.996.6650
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