Avoiding A Data Recovery Scam

Data recovery is a very important service, and provides a way for businesses and individuals to recover files lost due to hard drive failure, data deletion, and other serious circumstances. Unfortunately, there are some companies out there which offer data recovery, but are unable to perform the services. In fact, choosing one of these companies can be disastrous, as it can place your data at an increased risk.

Avoid data recovery companies that offer extremely low, standard rates for all hard drives that they receive. These companies are likely to be scams, as there are thousands of potential factors involved when dealing with hard drive data recovery on a professional level--it’s nearly impossible to make money by offering low standardized rates. Good data recovery companies will perform an evaluation on every hard drive that they receive. This evaluation will let the hard drive owner know what had occurred when the data had been lost, and will provide an accurate turnaround time and in some cases a price quote. Scam data recovery companies provide no such evaluation, or only provide extremely general information.

Scam data recovery companies may not have a class 100 clean room, which is a necessary tool for performing physical data recovery procedures. They may also lack the necessary tools to perform other common data recovery tasks, including firmware repair or hex editing. In general, scam data recovery companies will only run software on a hard drive to try to recover data. This is a bad idea, as running software will run the hard drive, and if the hard drive is suffering from a serious physical issues like a head crash, running the drive will result in further data loss as the heads come into contact with the platters. Reputable data recovery companies won’t use software until they’re able to make a clone of a hard drive.

Before you select a data recovery company, be sure to check its website and speak to its customer service team, and ask about past clients. You can never be too careful with your data, and data recovery is a complex process. Take the time to select a knowledgeable, well known company.