Data Recovery Services for all brands and all media

The data recovery process explained

Whether you have problems with data loss on your Raid 1, Raid 5 Server or with a normal single hard drive or other storage media like USB and Flash media, you might think about opting for a data recovery. Data recovery consists in getting the data recovered from a damaged storage media. This is brand independent. If the storage media is a IBM, Western Digital, Toshiba, Maxtor, Seagate, Hitachi; Samsung; Fujitsu ,LaCie you always can initiate a data recovery process.

The data recovery process

Normally with a data recovery you can have a free evaluation before going for the real data recovery. In a normal data recovery process you will receive a first a fixed quote after the analysis. The prices may vary from the type of damage you have sustained. Some data recoveries let you charge for the diagnostic, or for spare parts or for the return shipment and putting the data on a new hard drive or to any additional work that was not included in the first quote. Always be aware of hidden fees and make sure that you have value for your money.

After your approval you the data recovery company goes ahead of getting the data of the damaged hard drive. The data recovery company produces often a file listing where you actually can verify if you data have been completely recovered. After that they will store the data onto a new storage medium and the data recovery process is completed.

Sometimes you actually do not need a data recovery and it’s just a matter of running some DIY software and you can get you data back very easily. The best thing you can look for is for a data recovery company that has a certified data recovery process and that takes on the risk for the complete data recovery. This means that the data recovery does not charge you anything if your data can not be recovered

Raid Recovery Process explained

With a Raid 5 system things get complicated, with 2 hard drives down you might always need a data recovery since with two damaged hard drives you cannot rebuild the complete raid system. With a parity loss a Raid 5 system becomes an unstable system. Raid 1 is a different ball game since this system is based on a striped system. This means having the benefit of getting the maximum amount of storage space but the downfall is that the data is being written at once across the two hard drives. With one hard drive damaged the entiry data structure get lost and the data is not accesible any more.

A Raid data recovery is always more complex due to the fact that when the file system is damaged you need often to reconstruct all data and data files manually. You need to know for example the bandwidth of the raid system (with a Raid 5 system parity information is very important) because every system can write the data on the Raid system in different ways. Some Raid systems uses first a Linux partition and then rest of the drive other operating systems can be used.

It’s also a longer data recovery process than having a data loss on a normal single hard drive. The data recovery company needs to follow a normal data recovery procedure in some cases even several data recovery produces (in case when 2 or hard drives are damaged). After the recoveries are done the data recovery company needs to reconstruct the complete Raid system and needs to check its data integrity. A data recovery process for a Raid 5 system is always a time consuming process where the data recovery expert puts a lot of effort and knowlegde into play in getting the data recovered succesfully.