Data Recovery Process
I. What is your role as a customer in data recovery process? How can you expedite it?
If the quote for expected to be delivered after recovery files is matching to your budget expectation, then the whole process is going to be the fast and straightforward road from starting submit-the-order point to its final destination – receiving the saved data back on your computer.
Quick start button will lead you through the process of an immediate quote for the data recovery cost, and if you comply with it - then continue on to the new case submitting form.
Submit a new case: we are to assist you with any questions you may have in regarding to the data recovery process from the moment, when you securely submit a new case online, or talk a data recovery expert. Either way, you'll get a Job Number and instructions about how to ship or bring in your failed device to us. Don't forget, when filling out the online form, to make your selections of:
- Regular or Emergency turnaround time
- Shipping/receiving, and/or drop-in locations from the drop-down menu
- List of most critical files to recover first
Ship your media to one of our Data Recovery labs: Safely pack your device for shipment by following the instruction and send it out to the lab.
Job status is available online 24/7. You get an instant access to monitor your data recovery case and get the latest updates about every step on data recovery process. The recovery results and reports will be sent you via email: large reports, containing examples of recovered data and voluminous lists of retrieved files can be downloaded from lab's secure server for your thorough review.
Get Data Back: If you are satisfied with the recovery results - proceed with the preferred payment option of your choice. Your data will be dispatched with no delay right after the cleared payment is received.
II. In-Lab Data recovery process
When broken hard drive or other medium arrives at our lab we start by diagnosing if the failed device is functional or needs to be repaired. When the physical parts have to be replaced – the failed device will be opened in the special clean room facility - equipped with all required drive repair tools and operated by expert team of experienced data recovery engineers. The damaged and defective internal drive parts, including head assembly, may have to be replaced in order to gain access to the data. In case of stuck motor bearing, the entire disk pack must be swapped to the new spindle. The electrical components also require thorough attention and must be checked and repaired by knowledgeable microelectronic integrated circuit assembly specialist.
After the required repairing is done to the failed device and the access for data reading is gained, every sector will be scanned and the information transferred to the raw image of your disk onto new hard drive – this procedure guarantees that the data on your original failed drive always remains unaltered. All recovery work is performed on a mirror clone-drive.
Simultaneously, with sector-by-sector copying, there is a running process of analyzing the raw image and retrieving the actual files from it. This process involves the good knowledge of operating system and begins with the repairing or reconstructing the damaged file system structures, such as boot record, partition table, master file tables, file allocation tables, index records, directories, etc. Depending on how bad the damages to the surface of the internal disk platter(s) inside the failed hard drive we may have to retrieve individual files by re-reading the same sectors a few times - one by one.
By your request we can filter and sort out the corrupted files to the separate location. All important files then are tested to ensure its functionality. A full report will be emailed you immediately once the recovery process finalized.