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Data Recovery Services Promise Swift Retrieval

Data Recovery Article: Seattle Times – February 24, 2003

By Charles Bermant

Within the course of modern computing, people are always making boneheaded moves that endanger the lifeblood of their business. By failing to execute the proper moves, they destroy or endanger data on which their company may rely. There are spills, accidental reformats and unintentional deletions, along with outright disk failures or other acts of nature.

On the other end of the spectrum, a parent may spill syrup on a memory card that has an irreplaceable shot of Junior’s first tooth.

Data loss, on any scale, might be only a temporary situation. CBL Data Recovery Technologies (www.cbldatarecovery.com), an international company with U.S. facilities in San Diego and Armonk, N.Y., claims the ability to immediately recover 75 percent of all lost data. Another 10 percent takes some effort, while the remainder is part of an unrecoverable minority – disks that suffer extreme physical damage or have been overwritten with a full format.

When data are lost for whatever reason, there is the inclination to attempt its immediate reconstruction. The project, after all, is due five minutes ago, so it’s faster to start over. These efforts aren’t wholly successful, especially among those of us who think the first draft is always the best.

To use CBL, victims need to immediately ship the disk to one of its facilities (the company suggests that commercially available data-recovery programs actually decrease the possibility of full reconstruction). It then undergoes a free evaluation, with an estimate of cost and recovery time provided within four to six hours of arrival. Those who need faster service can pay a premium charge.

Customers provide the name of the most important file. If CBL cannot recover the desired file, there is no charge, even if it manages to retrieve data from the remainder of the disk.

CBL manager Doug Owens said problems range from electrical problems or a damaged chip to simple corruption of the files. Electronic problems are the most expensive and could cost up to $1,200 to fix, while most are solvable with a couple of hours of work (at about $150 per hour). Recovering a damaged floppy could cost as little as $50.

CBL handles all types of media; hard drives, floppies, Zip drives, tapes, memory cards and digital-camera media. It also handles all PC operating systems, including many that are no longer in use, Owens said.

When CBL finishes with a data-recovery product, it generally ships the data on CD-ROM back to the customer (or, if possible, via e-mail) and holds onto the original disk until the data are received and accepted.

It’s easy to say that those who need CBL’s service have only themselves to blame for not backing up. Owens said that is not the case and that many companies with established backup programs find the tapes are old or damaged.

“Thirty percent of our business is recovering lost data from bad backup tapes,” he said. “Despite being careful, these businesses have lost their second line of defense.”