Mandalyn Martini, a high school math teacher from Layton, Utah, recently shared her story of data loss and recovery. After storing 15 years of priceless family photos and important documents on an external hard drive, she faced a devastating moment when the device stopped working, leaving her unable to access memories including her daughters’ baby pictures.
What to Expect from Data Recovery Part 1: Initial Call
What should you do when your hard drive fails?
If you are one of the unfortunate many who haven’t taken precautions with a backup, then you’re most likely going to need professional help. That’s especially true if the data in question is valuable and hard or impossible to recreate.
There are thousands of places in the world that attempt data recovery, from your tech-hobbyist neighbor to local computer repair shops to many different professional data recovery companies.
Just like any other profession, it’s not a level playing field. Prices, and capability, are all over the map.
In fact, as a pioneer of data recovery since 1985, DriveSavers has the most experience and the best resource for information on this subject.
Here’s what questions you should be ready to answer when you call us at 800.440.1904:
- What type of device or devices has failed?
- What data would be important to recover? Do you know the specific types of files and the names of any folders/directories they are supposed to be in?
- How and when did the failure occur? What were the symptoms?
- What, if anything, has already been done to try and recover your data?
- What is the storage capacity of the failed device?
- What operating system was used with the device that failed?
- Is the data time sensitive? Is there any specific deadline for returning the data?
How to Proceed
We’ve worked out much of the details over the years to help customers navigate this process.
In many cases, the first step toward recovery is a free evaluation. This no-cost checkup gives our data recovery engineers the opportunity to examine the equipment in order to determine recoverability and pricing. Click here (Part 2) to see how the evaluations work.
Click here for more general information on choosing the most capable data recovery service.