Data Recovery

Ever experienced that sinking feeling when you realise that you may have lost your important documents or photos? Our data recovery technicians have a high success rate in extracting critical data from a problematic sources I.e. Hard Disk, USB Flash Drive or Memory Cards.

For all data recovery requests please full out our data recovery form here before sending in the media device.

Files can be lost in many ways

However we can usually restore most files that have been lost in the following ways

  • After accidental deletion of files
  • After formatting a drive
  • After partitioning a drive
  • After a virus attack
  • After a power failure
  • After Kids...

We can also cover the "non" human data loss.

  • Firmware corruption
  • Damaged service area modules
  • Sector errors

 

Supported Devices

  • Support most interfaces (SATA, IDE, USB, Firewire)
  • All major brands supported (Fujitsu, Hitachi, Maxtor, Samsung, Seagate, Toshiba, Western Digital,)
  • Recover data from corrupt Flash Drives (USB and Camera/Phone memory cards)
  • Support most interfaces (SD, MicroSD, Memory Stick, XD etc)

How we Recover you Data

We follow a careful process to maximise the chance of a successful recovery of your data which we will briefly go over here. We want you to be confident in us so we want you to know the processes that we use.

The most important thing you can help us with recovering your data is to stop using the  device and do not connect it to your computer again, as every time it is connected you reduce the chance of being able to successfully get the data back.

One of the most important stages of data recovery is us getting all of the information off you on how the device failed and what (if any) attempts have already been made to recover the data.

We have a form here that will allow us to get all the information we require to maximise the chances of a successful recovery.

First of all we need to determine if there's are physical damage  to the device, this involves:

  • Inspection of the PCB (Printed Circuit Board)
  • Check for signs of tampering on the device I.e. Has it previously been opened

This would NOT include opening of the device as this can only be done in a clean room. At this stage if we think that this is the correct course we would refer you to our preferred provider of this service. Please note that with most recoveries the device does not need to be opened.

We have to be extremely careful at this stage as we have already advised you the client to not connect the device to a computer as it can further impend any chances of recovering your data.

We use specialised hardware to connect the hard drives that communicates to the hard drive on the same level that the manufacturers do which enables us to run tests and repair multiple issues such as:

  • Detect and repair hard drive firmware issues
  • Detect and repair damage in the service area modules
  • Detect damaged heads which we can turn off in the next step

We use specialised hardware based solutions that maximise the chance of retrieving your data by communicating with the hard drive directly without the need for an Operating System. It is important when recovering data that you do not work off the physical hard drive itself.

This allows us to create an image (copy) of your Hard drive by allowing us to:

  • Access Hard drives that are not detected on your computer (At both Operating System and BIOS level)
  • Advanced Imaging/Cloning
    This uses advance algorithms to quickly and safely get the healthy data from the hard drive, by skipping bad sectors, by-passing damaged heads etc, then on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th run it uses more advanced techniques to copy the bad areas of the device
  • Write block your Hard drive
    This is extremely important if your data has been deleted or your hard drive has been formatted as every time the drive is written to it reduces the chance of been able to retrieve your data.

Once we have successfully created an image (copy) of your hard drive, this is when we can use a software based solution to recover your files.

The software can mount the image that was created and then we can use multiple techniques to pull your data from the image. The key thing at this stage is that we are not having to worry about the physical state of the device we have imaged so we can run intensive routines that could cause more harm if done on the physical device.

 

Regions in New Zealand we Cover

Our office is based in Napier but we can organise a courier pick up and drop off for all regions in New Zealand.

Including:

  • Auckland
  • Wellington
  • Christchurch
  • Hamilton
  • Napier and Hastings
  • Tauranga
  • Dunedin
  • Palmerston North
  • Nelson
  • Rotorua
  • New Plymouth
  • Whangarei
  • Invercargill
  • Wanganui
  • Gisborne