Why "Cheap" Data Recovery Can Cost You More Money And Your Data
With so many data recovery companies out there, sometimes it’s hard to determine which one is really best. While many consumers choose a provider based on referrals, or just a general comfort level, others simply shop for the cheapest price, and are taken in by $299 or less data recovery promises. Ultimately, this can cost you not only more money, but most likely your data.
This doesn’t mean you need to send your drive to the most expensive companies either. As many of them are way over priced. What we are talking about here is companies that charge $350 or less for ANY type of recovery (including drives that have physically failed).
To put it simply, data recovery is akin to major surgery. Choosing the cheapest doctor is not always the best path when it comes to something as serious as heart surgery. In regards to data recovery, your life may not be at stake, but your business might very well be. So why should you avoid some of the cheaper data recovery companies?
1) Many use “bait and switch” tactics. They will lure you in with unreasonably low quotes, just to get the work in. Then when you have sent them your hard drive you are told that the damage was much more serious and now the cost for the recovery is going to be 2 or 3 times what was quoted.
2) It’s all about volume. The vast majority of these companies are taking in as many drives as they can, and recovering data from the easiest cases using simple software solutions. If a job requires hard to find parts, or extensive work with some of the more specialized tools of the trade, then they simply proclaim that those drives are “unrecoverable”. Untold numbers of drives that contained vital business data, family photos, etc. have been tossed in the trash by their owners simply because one of these companies told them that their data was unrecoverable. The fact is, unless the platters of a drive are severely scored, or the data itself is heavily corrupted it is almost always recoverable. You just have to put in the time and effort necessary to do it.
3) Watch out for hidden charges. It’s quite common for companies to lure customers in with low prices, only to charge them for parts, additional hourly labor, evaluation fees, etc. Make sure to have in writing, exactly what the charges will be before you send the drive into them.
4) It is nearly impossible for any company to recover data for less than $350. Yes, you read right, it is nearly impossible for any company to recover data for less than $350. That may be a pretty bold statement, but it is absolutely true. Sure you can recover easy jobs that only require simple software solutions, but to recover physically damaged drives, it’s an impossibility and I would challenge any of these low dollar companies to prove me wrong.
The reason for this is not only the time and expertise that is involved but also the equipment, and even the parts. In nearly all cases where a hard drive has physically failed, specific parts are needed in order to complete the recovery. This is not just a matter of finding the same model drive. In most instances you have to find the same model, same country of origin, close to the same manufacturing date, same firmware revision, and a host of other parameters. Unless you have every possible drive variation in stock (which no company does), or you get lucky on Ebay, all of this translates into parts outsourcing, which means a company pays a premium for the parts themselves.
For example, looking at just one parts source, I can see that they have a Western Digital 80GB, model WD800JB-00FMA0 with a DCM of HSBACTJCH and a manufacturing date of March 2004. This simple 80GB drive is listed for $215.00. Why so expensive? Because it is exactly what a company may need to complete a recovery.
Now using the example above, how can a company guarantee a recovery price of $299 to a customer for any type of recovery? What if they didn’t have a parts drive on hand? What if the supplier above was the only one that had the drive they needed? You can see how a company would be inclined to deem this particular case “unrecoverable” as opposed to investing a lot of time and money into a job that would generate very little, if any, profit.
In closing, do your homework when it comes to data recovery. Cheap doesn’t always save you money. There are many reputable companies out there. Companies like ACS Data Recovery (www.acsdata.com), Salvage Data (www.salvagedata.com), Ontrack (www.ontrack.com). Look for companies that put their reputation and profit on the line. This means avoid companies who charge you X amount of dollars just to look at your drive. Look for companies that basically don’t get paid unless they recover your data. If these companies aren’t good at what they do, then they can’t be in business. Just keep in mind how much your data is really worth before selecting a data recovery company, doing so can often help you avoid losing everything.
Tips and Tricks to Protect Your Data
Data protecting is one of the most core issue which almost all the computer users usually face when they are connected to the internet. They have to face severe viruses and hacking attempts trying to gain access of their computers. For this purpose there are many tricks and techniques that people use. A fewer of them are discussed below.
A simple way to password protect your files is to apply coding to notepad available in the operating system features, this coding plants a .bat file which can be unlocked by password which is posted into the coding, save the .bat file by the name locker.bat, by clicking the .bat file and it will generate the locker automatically, now you can start moving your data into that locker and close the folder. The .bat file will also camouflage the data from the desktop and password lock it
But remember, the .bat file is easy to trace and the password can easily be breakable, thus resulting in important data loss. Hackers now days are pretty smart, they can easily hack our system and steal our data and just like us they also use different tricks to unlock our data and misuse it.
Other ways of securing your important files, photos, office documents and videos is to secure them with win.rar but win.rar is also not secure, if you want to secure data which is not much important, then win.rar can help you but still its not a secure way to use this technique to protect your files because at some stage they may or will cause you data loss.
The third and I personally think the safest way to password protect your important data is to use folder locking softwares, there are many softwares available only for password protecting your personal files and folders.
Data protecting softwares uses advance encryption standards to protect your files which means no hacker can hack your data even if he is able to hack into your computer, no virus can affect your personal files even that virus crashes your system, Hence, these folder locking softwares protects your data. These data securing softwares assure you the security of your personal data and piece of mind.
In my opinion using those sub standard techniques to secure you data is just waste of time because they aren’t secure, I would prefer using software that assures me the security and privacy of my personal data even if I had to pay for it.
Data Security is Always a Priority
Although we still use rows and rows of file cabinets and mountains of folders to store company information, a lot of the information we store is kept in soft copy. Most companies keep their files in huge databases for easy searching. If they suddenly get lost, deleted, corrupted or stolen and the company doesn’t keep any back up, then your company might take months to recover from a large scale loss. You might lose that one important account because of someone in the office downloading something he isn’t supposed to and the big account goes down and goes to someone else.
This is why your company or any company for that matter requires a data recovery system. A professional data recovery system is a must have for any company no matter how big or how small it is because ultimately, a company will always need to go through, store and collect information and there will always be a risk. Data recovery is not a total assurance of safety, but it will keep total loss of files and information close to nil. So even if some files catch fire or if flood breaches your office, you will have a certain level of security and assurance.
So how do you set-up a data recovery system? First of all there are the easy ways to store files, which is transferring them to other devices. There are lots of physical devices that you can keep around the office so that you have back up. You can store these files on external hard disks that have up to a couple of terrabytes worth of disk space. There is also the option of copying the files onto DVDs or Blu Ray Discs. Despite the advantages of these systems, they also have disadvantages. They might be easily lost or they could be damaged and rendered unreadable.
The best storage solution is an online data back up that can potentially store several terrabytes worth of information and can be used as a database. These professional data recovery companies use RAID. This is short for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks. Most companies actually use a set-up called RAID 6 which is specifically made to house thousands of terrabytes worth of information and has data recovery that can survive the lost of two discs. The only downside to it is that it had a more complex RAID array. They have high up-time and can provide whenever back up is sorely needed.
The information is given top priority and can only be accessed by select individuals. Although you can’t have total security and back-up, online data recovery proves to be the best solution that can keep disaster losses at a minimum. Although RAID 6 might sound like the most secure method because it mirrors files to decrease chances of loss, there isn’t a total assurance of safety. The only upside is that it can keep the worst from happening close to 0%.
How to Restore Deleted Data From iPod Or iPod Touch
If you own an iPod of any sort then you would’ve come across a time when you accidently deleted the wrong song or lost your whole iPod’s data due to corruption or formatting. Yes I know it isn’t a very pleasant sitution to be in and it leaves you wondering “can I restore deleted data on my iPod”. Well luckily for you, you actually can so to learn how to restore deleted data from iPod or the iPod Touch continue reading below…
You see the iPod’s hard drive is very similar to a computer’s hard drive, and just like a computer it doesn’t immediately erase deleted data. Instead what happens is that the data that is deleted gets marked and its space becomes listed as available re-usable space, however until that space is overwritten your old data is still there and can be recovered.
So essentially you have a small window of opportunity to recover you lost data, although you must act fast and try not downloading or uploading any new stuff onto your iPod if you wish to successfully recover your files.
Now to actually restore the deleted data from your iPod you are going to need to download the appropriate software which allows you to do so. Since windows don’t provide you with any utilities, you are going to have to look towards third party software designers.
There are many great data recovery programs out there that can easily recover your deleted iPod data if it is still recoverable. These programs are spefically designed for recovering deleted data and there are programs especially for the iPod, so even if your iPod is corrupt, frozen or formatted you still should be able to get your lost data back.
So if you were wondering how to restore deleted data from iPod or iPod touch then all you need to do is download the appropriate software, run the program and your problem should be solved. There is a program that you can download for free to check to see if your data is actually recoverable, visit the link below to download…
Welcome to this non-profit Data Recovery blog,I'm Frank and hope you often check back regularly for new blog content on data recovery software reviews, techniques and news .Recently there is a discussion in forum about data recovery,so it gives me idea to made this one,that will surely surefire.It has complete information about Data Recovery, Data Recovery Software, Hard Drive Data Recovery, Data Recovery Tool, Laptop Data Recovery, Computer Data Recovery and a lot more about this stuff.When we think in terms of a need to recover data it is seldom due to a minor cause such as an accidentally deleted file.As you might know, a simple data loss case can be recovered via some logical data recovery software, however, comes to the case that the flash memory.Hope my blog will help you with your problems about this stuff and get good tips.Free to leave comments too.