Even Hard Disks with Physical Failures Can Be Rescued
Source: PC3 Corporate, September 2006
Archived interview | Source shown on this page: PC3 Corporate, September 2006. The discussion of using software after deletion, overwriting or formatting, together with the 20-minute assessment, two-week-to-one-month recovery period, prices from $2,500 and seven-in-ten success figure, belongs to the historical interview. It should not be used as current do-it-yourself recovery guidance, a quotation, a completion deadline or a guarantee for an individual case.
★ Even Hard Disks with Physical Failures Can Be Rescued
When it comes to traditional hard disk data loss, users may think of accidentally deleting or overwriting files, but for today’s users these are only minor problems, because there is now plenty of free software online that can recover the data from deleted files or formatted hard disks. Such data rescue, however, does not involve the physical side of the hard disk. For example, have you ever had a hard disk make clicking noises so that its data could not be read, or a motherboard that could no longer recognise the hard disk? At such times, users can consider the data rescue service of Vector-Myung (Vector Data Recovery).
Solution
If a user’s hard disk is unfortunately damaged, for example when a laptop is accidentally dropped on the floor or a server hard disk fails with bad tracks and so on, and there is no backup of the data, Vector-Myung’s data rescue service comes into its own.
Enquiry phone 2117-9706
Company website www.vector.hk
Q Our reporter
A Benjamin Wong, General Manager of Vector Data Recovery
Two services offered
Q What services does Vector Data Recovery currently provide? What advantages do you have over other data recovery companies?
A Vector Data Recovery is a data recovery service company with the largest cleanroom environment, and it has branches throughout Asia, including Japan, Malaysia, India, Thailand, Russia and China. We are one of its branches in Hong Kong and China. The services we provide are very wide-ranging, including data rescue and data destruction services: from home hard disks and server RAID hard disks down to an ordinary micro memory card, we can rescue the data on them. For hard disk data recovery, we have three categories: 120GB or below, 120GB to 300GB and above 300GB. Prices start from $2500. We also provide data destruction services. What sets us apart from other data recovery companies is that our hard disk recovery service goes as deep as the physical hardware layer: for example, if the hard disk’s motor has a problem, the heads are damaged, the hard disk makes noises or even the motherboard cannot recognise the hard disk, we have ways to solve it. In Shenzhen we have a cleanroom environment where parts are replaced before the data is rescued.
About two weeks needed
Q What is the service process? How long does one usually have to wait? Why are the charges for RAID hard disk data recovery particularly high? If the data cannot be rescued, do you charge the customer?
A We provide customers with a free inspection service, because we must first understand the hard disk’s problem and whether there is a chance of rescuing the data on it before we can make a judgement; the process generally takes 20 minutes. After that we issue a quotation to the customer, and if there is no problem, we proceed with the repair; if it is unsuccessful we do not charge. You are right that if the RAID itself runs in RAID-1 mode, the data on the two hard disks should be identical, but the hard disks do not necessarily run as RAID-1; they may be RAID-0/5, in which case rescuing these server hard disks is much more complicated and takes much longer. Even if the hard disks operate as RAID-1, the data on the two hard disks is not necessarily the same, because by the time the customer brings them in, both hard disks may already have problems, for example the data on them no longer matches, or when one of them failed, the customer did not replace it with a new hard disk or carry out a Rebuild, and so on. Generally speaking, we can rescue the hard disk data in about 2 weeks, but some cases take a month, for example when the hard disk has a great many Bad Sectors; on one occasion we spent three consecutive weeks continuously reading the data from a damaged hard disk.
Rescue success rate of 70%
Q Of the cases you have received so far, how many have been successfully recovered? What are the usual reasons for the cases that cannot be rescued? Which customers make up the majority of your service?
A The rescue success rate of our current cases reaches 70%. Most of the customers we serve are business customers, who account for about eight in ten, including multinational telecommunications companies, major retailers in computer malls and multinational computer product distributors. Failed cases are usually mainly because the heads have scratched part of the platters, or because the hard disk model is too old and no supporting parts are available.
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