A chain reaction occurs every time you start your computer. One of the most critical processes in this chain is the hard drive responding to the read requests and providing readable data to the processor. If even a small portion of the data is not readable, the computer may halt and be unable to continue the boot process.

Yes, plenty. If a hard drive has failed mechanically, we will not be able to recover your data. We are partnered with a company that specializes in these types of recovery, but they are relatively expensive and the recovery can take days or weeks. If your drive has failed mechanically, we will tell you after the initial inspection and refer you to these folks.

Occasionally, we will attempt recovery on a data that has been so badly scrambled, that what we do recover just isn’t usable. In that event, we charge no more than the initial inspection. How can we fairly charge you if we can’t provide positive results?

We give it back to you. If it’s mechanically damaged, we can recycle it for you. If not, it usually has some life left and requires only reinstallation of your software. In some cases, we may be able to resolve the software corruption and the drive is usable after reinstallation.

We perform an initial analysis of your drive to determine whether we will be able to recover your data. If not, we charge for the analysis (see chart below) and advise you further. If we believe we can recover your data, we notify you and provide an estimate of the recovery costs. Most data recovery can be completed in 1-2 hours.

Once we receive your authorization to do the work, we’ll copy your data to either optical media (CD or DVD) or to an external USB drive, depending upon the amount of data to be recovered. We have CDs, DVDs, and USB drives on hand that you can purchase as part of the recovery process. If you have a USB drive and would rather we use yours, we’ll be happy to do so. Because we are a service provider, rather than a retailer, we sell media and equipment as a convenience to our customers and not as a primary line of business.

We complete most data recovery jobs within 72 hours. We can reschedule other work for those emergency rush jobs that must be completed within 24 hours. Because we must work additional hours in a day to complete all of our work and turn your recovery job around quickly, there is an additional charge for rush jobs.

Yes! If we perform the initial analysis and tell you we can recover your data, we will. If we are then unable to successfully recover that data, there is no additional charge past the initial analysis. Keep in mind that we’re essentially performing emergency surgery, so there may be some individual file corruption on those that we do recover, but if we’re unable to recover any files, we won’t charge you for trying.