Question:
Data Recovery Help - How do I choose a service provider ?Answer:
Background of Data Recovery VendorsAsk for qualifications and experience of the data recovery company. You are going to pass the valuable data drive to someone whom you can trust so you need to perform your qualification process actively.
Do not deal with un-named individuals hiding behind an anonymous web site.
Check the main trade of the company. Do they perform other trades ? Is data recovery their only specliazed trade ?
How about Internationally Renowned Data Recovery Company?
Another irony is if you think some reputable data recovery companies with "big names" seems to be the right choice, consider the following facts:
It is extremely difficult to establish a full-fledge data recovery lab with all the necessary spare parts and skill sets. Some international data recovery companies, in an attempt to establish overseas presence, the so-called overseas lab is nothing more than a one or two man team in an office equipped with some pc. If you realize, even the best data recovery companies ( I mean, simply the best) only have a few full-fledge labs around the world. This is not surprising as it is not easy to spread such rare and skillful resources everywhere. More over, the skillful engineers are extremely mobile.
Typically these companies may tell you "we perform recovery here, but for more complex case, we will send the drives to ....". A lot of times, your case is likely to be complex case anyway.
Generally, most of the data recovery companies with good names are only strong geographically due to reason of resource constraints.
Being just the "rep" offices, it is unlikely they will have operational clean room and the parts so if you really ask, you will get the answer such as "our clean room is somewhere in the next building " or " we could not disclose" etc.
Try to ask for the job to be done within 24 hours and you will soon find out from these "rep" offices that you need to pay for this and that and probably the job still have to take many days, if not weeks to complete.
It will be good to find out from them the number of head counts in the company. The best thing is to go down to see the office and satisfy that the company is what you could trust. Remember, you only have one chance of recovery.
Can they Offer any References? We mean "Qualified" References!
There is no use listening to a data recovery company who tells you how good he is. You should hear this from some one else. If you have a chance, ask for some customer testimonial. Look through the web site for similar info. Do not be taken in by references such as big "ABC" company because any one could quote such references without obligation. Any one can quote thousands of such well-known companies anyway. You need to have solid references at least by personal names and companies. If that is not possible, ask around and you should at least get some clues.
What is Your Success Rate? The Other company quoted 99% success rate so he must be better.
Do not be taken in by such number games. If some one tells you they have a 90% recovery rate, the next round they will tell you that your job is unfortunately unrecoverable and you belong to the other 10%. Recovery is a complex issue and rescue attempt. The success rate really depends on the conditions of the media, how the user has handled the media after failure, the mode of failure and the make of data media etc. It is essential not to overwrite data or damage the data platter so recovery will eventually be possible.
A lot of such recovery rate is based on certain disk model or category of recovery. You may want to know that recovery of 2.5" notebook drive has a far better chance than 3.5" desktop drive. Certain disk models are more favourable than the other due to some technological differences. In some disk model, nearly 100% recovery rate is possible. In others, it could be less than 10%.
Will they Outsource the Recovery?
Some companies actually outsource all jobs. It is really not too bad if they outsource the job to a competent data recovery company but it will be disastrous if this does not happen.
What Happens if you don't Get Your Data Back?
Some companies will charge you for the recovery fee, diagnostic fee etc even if they are unsuccessful. The more desperate and urgent you appear, the higher fee will they charge. You should not have to pay for the recovery when nothing was recovered. In fact, you should not pay when your required data is not recovered, even if they are successful in recovering your not so important data.
How will your Data be Returned to You?
Not all companies give you choice on your return media, and there may be hidden changes for your return media. Make sure you can ask the data to be delivered using a CD, DVD, or hard drive.
