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Posts on Jan 1970

Professional Data Recovery

As IT consultants, we work with lots of different organizations and have seen it all. We always preach the 3-2-1 backup rule. 3 Copies of anything you want to keep. 2 storage medias. 1 offsite backup location. This is a widely accepted backup practice and protects against almost any type of loss. Sometimes though, good backups are not there when a data loss occurs. Maybe there was critical data on an individual user’s PC when it should have been on the server. Maybe backups were setup a long time ago and have not been running for the last couple weeks or months. Sometime, backups show they are completing, but when they are needed for restoration, the data is incomplete or unusable. There are many reasons why an organization might need to rely on a failed drive for their critical data. Nobody plans to be caught in that situation but it happens.

When disaster strikes there is still hope. MCS has partnered with Kroll Ontrack, a data recovery service company, and we have had very good success getting our customers’ data back. Kroll Ontrack can work with all sorts of damage including, fire, flood, impact, circuit board failure, head crash, data corruption, etc. Even though some data might be damaged, odds are that most of it is still sitting on the disk’s internal platters. That data just needs to be found and pulled off. Kroll Ontrack offers clean room services when needed to pull that data off to a working drive.

There are tips that users can follow to increase their odds of a successful data restoration.

  • Turn the drive off. If there is debris inside the drive it will create a snowball effect, damaging the drive and creating more debris.
  • Don’t take the drive to anyone to look at unless they offer professional restoration services with a good reputation. There may be only one shot to restore your data so it needs to be done right the first time.
  • Do not place a fire-damaged drive in refrigerator to cool and do not try to remove the hard drive. Ship the entire computer for recovery.
  • Never attempt to dry water damaged media by exposing it to heat. Instead, place the media in a container that will keep it damp before shipping.
  • Do not shake, disassemble or attempt to clean any hard drive or server that has been damaged. Improper handling can jeopardize the data recovery process.

The costs for this type of recovery service can range from 100s to 1000s of dollars depending on the type of service needed. It is not cheap but sometimes it is the only option. If you would like the experts at MCS to check your backup plan or recover a failed drive, let us know.

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