Established data recovery companies such as Disklabs and DSI offer the latest clean-room technology promising a full recovery of nearly 99% of lost data. Data recovery companies of CBL and Vogon International provide storage and data recovery solutions to small enterprises -- international market and the basic consumer. Thus, these corporations end up setting the service model for consumer choice. Usually data recovery companies are built around three guidelines:
Customer base
Technology being used
Pricing
Companies such as Vogon International provide data recovery services to both big businesses as well as small manufacturing enterprises. In other words, every data recovery company has a niche market which dictates market usage and function. This means that a personal user is not likely to recruit the services of a data recovery company which supplies data recovery services to big businesses. Similarly, every company in the data recovery business has its target audience and caters to them alone.
The second criterion is that of data recovery technology used by the company. This includes the varied procedures of evaluation and recovery ? clean-room technology and the machines used in dusting the clean room. A user or business is able to gauge the professionalism of a company just by looking at their brochure. Companies such as Ontrack and CBL employ the best practices of 100 Class clean-room technologies. This means that the clean-room where the damaged disks are opened is stripped clean of any microscopic air and bacterial pollutants. The intensity and magnitude of clean-room technology determine the success of the data recovery process.
A third criterion which helps to build the service model of a functional data recovery company is that of pricing and data recovery evaluation. The data recovery company has to provide the user with a price quote of the entire process including free evaluation of amount and type of data lost and the amount and type of which can be recovered. This guideline decides the niche market of the company including the technology being used. A user has to look for certain factors ? the existence of these factors ought to send warning signals to the user about the company.
Duration of Existence: Data recovery was firmly established as a lucrative business only since the 1990s. But, in order to recover data from damaged drives, a user ought to look for data recovery companies which have been in the business for more than a year. The user has to choose a data recovery company which is firmly entrenched in the data recovery business ? makes use of known established recovery procedures. A user should stay away from a new data recovery company as there is a trend of renaming bankrupt notorious data recovery companies.
Reputation: A user has to check out the reputation of the company on many fronts ? employee, consumer, and technology and price level. Are previous customers satisfied with the data recovery service provided by the company? Are the employees committed and focused? Can the customer trust and rely on the company for the security of his or her data? Many new and small data recovery companies keep a copy of the recover red data and later sell it to other willing consumers. Thus, individual private data is compromised. A user has to consider this ethical and legal issue very seriously. Usually, reputable companies destroy copies of recovered data ensuring that the consumer has sole authority over recovered data. This determines user choice of a data recovery company to a large extent ? data security and maintenance of privacy. Users are also advised to look at the previous record including testimonials and client record of the company.
Pricing and Free Data Evaluation: Many new and recently established data recovery companies charge very less for the entire recovery process. This is not possible as data recovery is a costly affair requiring immaculate skilled professionals and the latest technology. When this happens, it puts a question mark on the type and level of technology being used. A user should not consider a data recovery company which provides a free data recovery evaluation of less than 50%. Usually, it is possible to have a full recovery of data lost. In addition, the entire process should not cost less 1,500 pounds ? the amount varies in accordance with the customer type. Data recovery companies charge more for huge businesses amounting to more than 3,000 pounds. Small enterprises and personal consumers are often charged less than 1000 pounds.
Finally, technology level decides consumer choice. Usually data recovery companies use precision-scanning technology combined with clean-room technology. But some small data recovery firms do not have a clean-room. This raises doubts about the company's function and recovery process. Will the data recovered be infallible or will it be prone to constant errors? The absence of a clean-room means that there is no guarantee of disk safety and data recovery. Chances are that the entire disk might get corrupted destroying huge chunks of protected data even though a small portion of the disk was damaged when the user gave it for recovery. Thus, technology determines amount of data that can be recovered. It also determines the speed at which data can be recovered.
All was well with Oman until June 5, when the tropical cyclone Gonu anchored itself inland. Wind speeds exceeded 240 km/hr and cyclone Gonu was classified as the worst cyclonic storm ever recorded in the North Indian Ocean. The most intense cyclone in the Arabian Sea had brought in its wake severe rainfall, thunder storms and giant waves which forced evacuation of 7000 people from the coastal areas of Muscat.
Widespread destruction and flash floods due to the cyclone Gonu knocked down communication links and isolated thousands for hours. Oman faced power outages and business losses to the tune of $ 4 billion. Such a storm was rare in North Indian Ocean and even rarer in the desert areas of Oman. Classified as a class 5 cyclone, Gonu brought along High winds, great gale force, storm surges and tornado activities coupled with power outages and transportation difficulties which made rescue efforts come to a standstill. 20,000 people were affected while another 27 were reported missing four days after the storm dissipated. Waves as high as 10 metres forced large amounts of water to the coast making the ports inoperative including the main port of Sohar.
The failure of both the Oman desalination plants triggered massive drinking water shortages in Muscat as the first plant Ghubrah, lost supplies of natural gas, halting production; while the second, Barka, sustained damaged switchgear due to flooding. These plants provided water to Muscat's 631,000 residents and surrounding areas when they were functional. Violent winds, incredible waves, torrential rains and floods associated with this phenomenon gripped the immediate neighbors of Oman including United Arab Emirates. The storm grazed the Oman coastline before finally crossing over the Gulf Of Oman and entering Iran. Roads, trains and almost every system of transport was disrupted due to water logging and land slides.
The cyclone Gonu, which means a bag made of palm leaves in the language of the Maldives, finally dissipated (even after a tropical cyclone is said to be extra tropical or dissipated, it can still have gale-force winds and drop several inches of rainfall) as it headed inward towards the heart of Iran leaving a vast trail of destruction behind. People returned to their homes and life began to crawl towards normalcy. Traders returned to trucking oil barrels .Offices opened up -- but computers did not!!. Water logging, torrential rains and mud had jammed computers for good. Drives had crashed and so had the data. Data backups had either backfired or were corrupted badly.
The computers were confronted with a multitude of problems. The data loss was due to system crashes and power outages. Grime and moisture rendered the hard disks useless. Lives were taken hostage to data recovery and it was in these situations companies contacted various Data recovery services. At Stellar, we received extensively damaged disks. Time is critical to data recovery therefore, being the proud owners of India’s first - Class 100 clean room, we swung into action immediately. The efforts to salvage data began at war footing.
Stellar data recovery experts and clean room technicians worked on the drives till the data was fully retrieved. Hard disks were cleaned; data was recovered and saved on the media chosen by our customers. Damaged parts like read/write heads were replaced from our exhaustive inventory .Sophisticated equipments and trained hands of our recovery experts together lifted any traces of data they could find. Although this involved many complex procedures like drive dissection and analysis, drive imaging etc: most data was recovered with full file structures.
During the recovery process, our team encountered a number of challenges like:
Lodging of water in the disk drives Bent/ broken spindle motors, Damaged platters, Scratching of platter surface due to mud, Crashing of hard drives due to physical impact of water, Damage to read/write head etc. Ignorance of data safety measures aggravated the problem in most cases.
To prevent this we are giving below a few precautions in case you have suffered similar drive damage. Do not attempt to put on your system. It may result in short circuits and data loss. Do not try to dry your system as drying may leave residue on your platters causing electro mechanical damage. Freezing the drive is not an option, do not consider it. Immediately put off any systems showing signs of damage and pack the affected drives into shock proof material to send them for recovery.
Intelligent, timely and prompt data recovery is possible only if adequate measures are taken. Any strange noises and sounds from the computer shouldn’t be ignored. Data backups must be maintained and updated. The data that has been recovered must not be restored to the affected drive. In spite of all this, if you still lose your data, never attempt to carry out the repair yourself.
Data recovery can revive both you and your organization. But it must always be done by professionals. Stellar has over 15 years of experience in data recovery software & services. It made sense for the Gonu victims to approach the best in business to bail them out from their worst data horrors. Armed with the “never say die" attitude, Stellar Information systems always welcomes its customers and sincerely hopes to find solutions for all their problems. We did the same for them and their drives were up and running within no time.
Life may take sometime to normalize in the devastated Gonu .But we can still feel proud of ourselves for doing what few others would. Returning people to their offices and giving them hope where no one could.
Both James Walsh & Andrew Watson are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
James Walsh has sinced written about articles on various topics from Small Business, Binding Machines and Divorce and Infidelity. James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. For more information on computer crime and see. James Walsh's top article generates over 368000 views. to your Favourites.
Andrew Watson has sinced written about articles on various topics from Software, Data Recovery and Software. Andrew Watson a student of Mass Communication doing research on . Andrew Watson's top article generates over 40500 views. to your Favourites.