Data recovery from a hard drive is a risky idea; there are a lot of companies that aren’t exactly professional, and the layman can’t usually differentiate from a high quality company and the leagues of impostors that plague the market. Here are a few ways to tell if the data recovery company you’re looking at is going to be able to deal with a physical hard drive problem.
1.They advertise a very low price. Data recovery’s a really difficult and really, really expensive process, and can’t be done for really low prices. A low minimum is acceptable, but if someone’s advertising a flat rate of less than $1000, they probably don’t have the skills or equipment necessary for data recovery. Ideally, you should find a company that takes a look at your hard drive first before they give any sort of a price quote, and at that point you’re going to be looking at around $1000-2000 for most physical problems that hard drives experience.
2.They do data recovery without a clean room. Opening up a hard drive is incredibly risky because a single speck of dust can completely ruin the delicate platters that hold information. Any company that offers to do intrusive work on hard drives but doesn’t have a clean room (Class 100 is preferable, meaning that there are less than 100 contaminants per square foot of space) isn’t capable of performing data recovery.
3.They’re a new company. Data recovery isn’t the oldest business in the world, but established data recovery companies have been around for at least a few years. If the company you’re looking at opened up only a year or two back, they probably don’t know what they’re doing, or they may be scam artists that run software and recover about 10% of drives; these companies recreate themselves when they start to get a bad name for their unsavory practices. Most of the big data recovery companies have been around for about a decade, give or take a few years.
4.Their recovery rates are low or aren’t listed.
Some companies will try to tell you that the probability of making a recovery from a physically damaged drive is low, thus their 50% or lower recovery rates. Others simply won’t tell you their recovery rates. However, data recovery technology is pretty advanced, and the major recovery companies get from 70-90% of hard drives depending on the model and size of the drive and some other factors. Don’t go with a company that can’t tell you how likely a recovery’s going to be; they might damage your drive and they’re definitely not the best suited company to handle the job.
5.They don’t have a list of their past clients on their page. Data recovery companies are usually really proud of large companies or famous people they’ve recovered data for, because they’re given more credibility. A bad data recovery company is going to avoid listing past clients, especially major companies, out of fear of litigation for the poor job they did.
6.They’re not authorized by hard drive companies do open drives.
This is a big red flag. Any data recovery company that can reasonably prove that they have the capability to work on drives without causing damage is authorized by the major hard drive companies; they get stickers that they can place on hard drives to make sure that after data recovery, warranties are still intact. The hard drive companies have no reason to deny a company this right, unless the company causes damage to hard disks. Be sure to ask if your warranty’s still going to be good, whether your warranty’s active or not; your data recovery company should say yes. If they can’t, then keep looking.
The best rule of thumb is to use a bit of common sense and be on the lookout. Consider asking the company that made your hard drive (though I’m sure you’re pretty angry with them) if they’ve got any suggestions, and call around to some of major companies for pricing and to get a feel for how they run their services. Unfortunately, the data recovery industry is filled with companies that aren’t reputable, but if you’re persistent enough, you’ll be able to find a company that is.
Reference:
- One company I’ve had good experiences with: ESS Data Recovery A list of major data recovery companies found on Western Digital’s website: www.westerndigital.com
