If you have had the fun experience of losing a drive anytime you know how frustrating it is as well as potentially damaging to your business.  I have lost a number of drives over the years on PCs but luckily my data was backed up or the content was not that important.  Then, I lost my drive I was using to back up my PCs and due to needing to free up some space, I didn’t still have a copy of some of the files on my PC.  What to do?

Call the Drive Doctor!

The good news is there are numerous companies out there that will do everything they can to save the data from your broken hard drive.  They break problems down into terms like “logical” vs. “mechanical” and prices vary depending on the issue.  If they get into the drive and fix software that is keeping the data hidden or inaccessible that is pretty easy and not too expensive to fix.  If they have to go into the clean room, open up the drive and play mechanic it can get pricey but it beats the alternative.

Case Study! –  Mine

Today, one of my backup drives kicked the bucket, bit the big one…it died!  I was trying to back up some financial records and realized I couldn’t find the drive in the directory tree.  Looking at the drive I saw red…literally, the red light was on instead of the green one.  Red lights are rarely good in electronics.   After some routine double checks of cables and USB ports I decided it really was a problem and shortly thereafter the light went out altogether.  Yep, this drive is toast!

Data Recovery Help

Looking back over my records I found the company I had used previously.  I also noticed what I had paid, ouch!  My last data recovery cost me between $800 and $900 but that did include the cost of a new drive to put the recovered data on.  The company I used did everything they said they would, they were prompt and polite and I got 90% of my data back.  Based on my earlier experience I decided to use them again and went onto their website to submit a case.  Filling out the form is very easy and the process creates the actual form you send in with your drive.  You can pick how you want data saved, on DVDs, or you can include a drive or you can have them supply a drive.  I took the later to make things easier.  In the interest of full disclosure the company I used is not a client but in the course of talking to them they told me how many real estate agents they work with which made me think it might be valuable to share my experience.  Unfortunately most of these agents call them when they have a crash, not before.  As our conversation continued we talked about preventitive vs. remedial solutions and they asked me if I had considered online backups which brings me to the next topic!

Online Data Backups – Have You Tried Them?

So as we discussed online backups andI thought it is really funny how things work.  Just last week I researched and tried an online back-up service.  But, I have a lot of files I wanted to back up and after going through the whole set up process I realized it was going to take several days of continuous connection to get my files uploaded.  So, I decided that wasn’t the best course of action at the time and put off my back-up research for the moment.  Of course, Murphy’s law rules and my drive crashed just days after.  So in talking with the drive recovery service they told me they have a better way of managing the whole process.  They offered to get me started on this service and because we both agreed that many companies and individuals in our industry could use this service as well I said that I would share the experience via our blog.  So here we are!

Stay Tuned – I’ll Keep You Posted

Over the next week or so I will be going through the drive recovery process and also setting up the offline backup process.  I will keep you posted on the whole process, the cost, the success or failure of the drive recovery as well as how the offline backup service works.  As importantly I will give you an idea of how long it takes….this company has an approach I hadn’t seen before to get things done more quickly and I will let you know how it goes.  Hopefully you won’t need the recovery service but I highly recommend you take a look at the online backup.