Car’s Thumb Drive Data Recovery Settles Case

Ed Patterson was in a car accident where another driver ran a red light and collided with his vehicle in an intersection. The other driver accused him of being at fault and hitting her when the truth was the other way around.

Fortunately, Ed’s car was mounted with multiple cameras recording to a single thumb drive, which meant the vehicle recorded the entire incident from various angles! But unfortunately, it didn’t occur to Ed to gather the thumb drive for the recordings until the next day, and when he did collect the thumb drive and review the footage, all he found was video footage from after the car had been towed.

Ed was referred to DriveSavers, and our dedicated flash drive data recovery engineers were able to find the footage he needed in the free space of the thumb drive.

The data DriveSavers sent back to Ed had everything he needed. He took screenshots from the recovered footage and added annotations identifying the other driver’s car and the order of events. In the end, he won the case!

Watch Ed’s video for his telling of the story.

Transcript

My name is Ed Patterson. I’m 77 years old. I was a photoengraver for The Chronicle for 35 years.

I’m not really savvy about computers. So when I had a problem with data being lost on a memory chip, I had no idea what to do or where to go or even what to say.

What I needed help with was the thumb drive from my car. I was in an accident. I was in a collision. Somebody ran a red light and got me. And I didn’t have the foresight to take the thumb drive out right away. So I didn’t get the thumb drive out of the car until the next day. And when I went to the tow shop, the videos I had on the thumb drive were people walking in front of the car in front of the garage that was in. And so I had to get those files that were overwritten.

With the videos, I was able to take screenshots and annotate them. Yeah, the data I needed was evidence that the other person ran the red light, and what the camera showed was that I pulled up to the intersection, there was a red light, and you can see the white line of the crosswalk.

I was waiting for a left turn arrow. The red left turn arrow turned to green. I proceeded through the intersection. And then you see her approaching. I’m most of the way through the intersection, and she comes zooming in and collides with the rear of my car. I was able to stop her car the instant before the collision and get her license plate. And then, I was able to forward a little bit and watch her fender crumple as she collided with my car.

So this is the part of the car that was damaged during the collision. All of this had to be replaced. And all of the mechanical parts inside there had to be replaced also. In fact, it cost enough to repair this car that I could have bought a new Toyota Camry.

So I went to a computer expert, who was the iPhone Repair Guy. And so he said he couldn’t help me. But if anybody could, these people can. And he handed me a pamphlet for DriveSavers.

I called DriveSavers. They said, well, we don’t know. But bring the thumb drive up, and we’ll see what we can do. So I took the thumb drive up right away. And five days later, I got a phone call from them saying, “no problem—it’s all there.”

The documentation was really good. And without DriveSavers, that would not have happened. I think those engineers are probably the best in the world at what they do—they’re amazing!

I think that everybody should know about DriveSavers. I think that DriveSavers should be on everybody’s list.

Fortunately, I was able to talk to the guy that’s in charge of DriveSavers. He was just the nicest guy to talk to. He’s a funny guy too. So if you ever get to talk to him, I appreciate the opportunity.

So when I got up there, everybody was very helpful. There were considerate. They were just nice people, reassuring to me. They said, “if anybody can help you, we can help you.”

And so I came back home and waited.

I am really a satisfied customer if there ever was one. DriveSavers was the ultimate goal. DriveSavers was exactly what I needed.

Thank you, DriveSavers.