Data Recovery, what, when and why would you need it? Is it a con?

What do data recovery technicians do? Do they simply plug the drive into some wonderful piece of kit that automatically recovers the data? Do they wave a magic wand and have the data moved directly from your drive to a new one? Is it a con?

The answer is no. Data recovery is a black art, being able to recover data from drives that have failed requires skill, precision and patience. Data recovery technicians have to be able to manipulate drives, open them up and repair small components to enable the safe recovery of data.

Data Recovery must take place in a clean environment, this can be a clean cabinet or a full clean room. This prevents further damage to the drive, as dust and hair particles can damage the integreity of the data which means that the data will be lost forever. Therefore data recovery technicians require a wide range or tools and also hi-spec facilities to enable them to carry out their work efficiently.

Some customers feel that they are paying way over the odds for data recovery, and many compare it to the amount they originally paid for the entire computer system. However customers fail to understand the amount of skill and work that goes in the data recovery process and also the number of hours they spend in the lab and the amount of legwork needed to be done to ensure that the customer is happy data they have retrieved.

Hard drives fail for a number of reasons. The main reason being that they have been dropped which has a dramatic effect on the hard drive and its ability to read the data. Data recovery specialists typically see this type of drive failure on a daily basis and work hard to recover that data by using specialist recovery techniques known only to the data recovery industry.

Drives that have been dropped tend to have a 50% chance of recovery due to the highly sensitive nature of the internal components of a hard drive, therefore data recovery technicians may take time to rebuild the drive to provide it with the best chance of recovery. Re-building the hard drive from its basic components may take days or even weeks. However the time and care takenn over the damaged drive reaps many rewards when the data has finally been recovered.