DTI Data Recovery continues its excellence in software development by releasing Speed Clone for Windows. The new Speed Clone download package includes the Windows version as well as a bootable DOS ISO for cloning hard drives that are registered in the BIOS. It also has the original Speed Clone that works off of a floppy.

Speed Clone is a powerful tool that allows technicians to clone from physical to physical drive or create an image file of a physical drive. The most powerful feature of the software is the error reporting facility.  Using native Windows diagnostics as well as the internals of the software the technician can get a clear idea of the physical status of the drive.  By using a simple file system map a technician can accurately pinpoint problems in the file system. This software was designed with the knowledge that there may be bad sectors on a drive and that is the reason it is being cloned/imaged. In order to facilitate an accurate diagnosis a robust error reporting system has been integrated into the software.  This fact alone will make Speed Clone a technicians most valuable tool.

In addition, Speed Clone will allow the technician to walk away from a multi-drive multi-image session instead of watching for each image to finish.  This time saving function will allow for easier replication of RAID components before a destripe or RAID mount is attempted.

Even if the technician is not cloning the ‘Scan’ facility allows you to take a diagnostic look at a hard drive.  With the printable error report this tool can be used to advise a potential client of the possibility of recovery.

When working with hard drives a technician rarely sees one that is not damaged.  Speed Clone was designed with the technician in mind to help give them a leg up in this competitive market.  Add this software to your arsenal of data recovery tools in order to better and more accurately serve your clients.

If you work on hard drives you cannot be without the full suite of Speed Clone!

Purchase Speed Clone here or read more about it on our Speed Clone page.

Only $49.50

Bad sectors on a drive are very hard to diagnose as they look like so many other problems and can be masked very easily.  One minute the drive is working and the next it is not.  This usually sends a technician into a flurry of questions as to what new software has been loaded, what websites have been visited, is the virus and malware software up to date, and on and on.  Ultimately there is really only one way to check the drive for bad sectors and that is with software.

DTI Data offers this tool to all who think they may have bad sectors.  We send it to everyone who we believe may have bad sectors to help us diagnose their problem and to give them a proper and accurate quote.  We try our best not to quote using some sort of arbitrary cost spread.  When a person is getting ready to spend a large sum of money they want the amount to be as accurate as possible.  DTI Data works closely with the prospective client to offer the best value for their dollar in addition to helping them accurately assess their data recovery situation.

One final note, while running the software if there are several bad sectors and it is taking a very long time to scan the drive then it is advisable to stop the scan.  Never brute force a drive scan as it can cause more damage to an already tenuous situation.

Download The Freeware Utility – Windows Surface Scanner here.

Now there are thousands of results when you type “data recovery” or “hard drive recovery” into Google or Yahoo. The question is how do you technicians or consumers know who to choose. Since those of you reading this blog know for sire we are serious, have lots of proof about who we are and are one of only 7 companies in the US authorized by major hard drive manufacturers to even open their drives! That last statement needs a quick clarification. Since Seagate purchased Maxtor, which had purchased Quantum, and Hitachi purchased IBM hard drive division, there are really only a few manufacturers that even make hard drives now. Out of all those hard drive companies, only Western Digital actually lists these authorized companies on their website. Click here to see DTIData on that list! To verify that you are dealing with a legitimate data recovery company, you may not want to stray from the WD list of partners!

This is something we have talked about for a long time. I wrote an article in January of 2008 called Data Recovery Truth and Consequences that is referred to by PC World magazine here (I don’t mind that Dick Correa got credit for being the author, this blog wouldn’t appeal to most of you without his technical articles : )

Even stronger than this is Dave Mohyla, our CEO, who wrote a whitepaper about the decline of standards in the data recovery industry. He wrote this article in 2004!

When looking for a data recovery company, it is important to know who you are dealing with as well as to check them out in the Better Business Bureau. Here is a link to the DTIData BB rank, an A PLUS! We strive to give our clients the best in software and support. We are the one of the only company in the world that fully supports its freeware data recovery software as well as our paid programs. We offer 24 hour support on all hard drive recovery and any customer can access the status of their case with our Drive Tracker system. Feel free to call us at 1-866-438-6932 anytime if you have questions about hard drive recovery.

Now all hard drives fail and these disks from Seagate are no worse than any other drive, they just ran into some bad luck in manufacturing. With their purchase of Maxtor, Seagate hard drive recovery will also entail Diamondmax data recovery. If you need Seagate hard drive data recovery call 727-251-2058.

There is only 1 hard drive manufacturers that actually approves and lists data recovery companies and that is Western Digital. DTI Data is one of the few American hard drive recovery companies listed on that page. That is one way to know that we are a legitimate hard drive recovery provider. If you need data or hard drive recovery by all means price us out with the other companies on Western Digital’s site. We beat them all, offer flat rate pricing and no data no charge services!

Most computer users are also aware of PC World magazine which has not only written and recommended our software, but recently interviewed Dick Correa our software and RAID engineer. They referred to Dick as the Hard Drive Recovery Guru in the interview. You can see all of Dick’s blog articles here.

Knowledge, experience and proof of our skills should be enough to give DTI an upper hand when you are looking for hard drive recovery company or data recovery services. Feel free to call us if you have any questions.

Not So!

Last Monday Western Digital announced it bought the leader in solid state storage: Silicon Systems. They threw down a whopping $65 big ones (millions) for the company and the patents that they own. While Western Digital is a huge player in the 2.5″ hard drive market, before this purchase, they had nothing as far as solid state goes. That all changed on Monday with the creation of WD Solid-State Storage, the division filled by the acquisition of Silicon Systems.

So what does this mean to regular computer users? Solid state storage will be more reliable than magnetic media which requires hard drive recovery all the time. Solid state hard drives will probably last longer than their magnetic predecessors. The downside is when they die, there is virtually no chance for recovery because there is no way to repair anything like a hard drive. Now we do have some tricks that allow us to read solid state media when normal means fail. This will give us a leg up when the time comes for solid state to firmly replace magnetic media as the storage of choice for computer manufacturers.

With solid state storage knocking on the door, magnetic media companies, and businesses that rely upon magnetic media, had better take the long view and figure out their place in the solid state world. If you are wondering what DTI is doing, we are putting together a new product that will be launching in the next few weeks, that will be a virtual data insurance policy. This will be a necessity for those taking the solid state plunge. While it will take some time for all computer makers to embrace solid state storage, the death of magnetic media and hard drive recovery as a business is no more than 5 years away!

Seagate Constellation 2TB

And in this corner… The hard drive Storage Wars have been heating up lately as Western Digital and Seagate battle it out for not only the largest capacity disks, but they are also going green! Western Digital went as far as to name it’s new 2TB hard drive the  Caviar Green series. Before I get into how 2TB hard drives work and why buyers should beware, let’s look at how a hard drive can be green. Western Digital has slowed the RPM’s down to 5400 on their Caviar Green, hoping to reduce heat and power consumption, without users noticing the drastic drop in speed. While Western Digital is by far the leader in high capacity storage for consumers, Seagate is also dipping their feet in by offering their 2tb drive as SATA, not just SAS. For those of you unsure about SAS and SAS 2.0, it is meant for enterprise level storage needs, not Joe Public. Western Digital has their 2TB hard drives going out as OEM as well as offering the drive in their online store. They also have a 2 hard drive 2TB My Book out that offers protection in the form of a RAID 1 mirror.

The 2tb My Book is priced to sell with a tag under $300.00. In fact it is really a two drives for the price of one situation since the OEM Caviar Green is $280.00 for just one hard drive. This is kind of confusing since I don’t see how they can sell 2 hard drives for the cost of a single internal 2tb drive. If you add up the speed slow down of 5,400 RPM along with its USB interface, this drive is OK for backup, but just won’t cut it for users planning to actively store and watch movies or listen to music.

Why 2TB Hard Drives Scare IT Professionals

Both Western Digital and Seagate have released 2TB hard drives this year. Even though the physical size of the drives remain at 3.5 inches, they are holding quite a bit more data. How did they pull that off? A couple of  years back, Toshiba released information about perpendicular recording as a new technology for traditional magnetic storage, but it was Seagate that delivered the first drive to consumers.

Perpendicular recording significantly increases the areal density and storage capacity of hard drives. The ones and zeroes are now stored vertically rather than horizontally. This allows for much greater storage because a sector can hold the same amount of data, but in a much smaller sector size. For example, if a platter can hold 100 sectors with longitudinal recording it will be able to hold 250 sectors with perpendicular recording. Using this technology and other advancements, hard drive manufacturers can now have areal density up to 500GB per platter. A 2TB hard drive will have four platters that hold 500GB each.

The problem here is that this type of areal density squeezes more and more bytes into sectors making them smaller and smaller. The heads have to be perfectly aligned to read and write to the sectors correctly, and more importantly read and write to those sectors on a consistent basis. If the heads write to the sectors even a hair out of alignment, then that data will be corrupt. If this happens over and over again, soon the OS won’t load and the computer won’t boot. If that doesn’t sound bad enough, the level of heat the motor generates to spin 4 platters, will swell the platters and the same problem happens – the sectors get out of whack and data gets corrupt. There is an old Latin phrase Caveat Emptor that means “buyer beware”. I bring this up not to criticize Western Digital and Seagate or their ability to make hard drives, but  to warn our readers about high capacity hard drives and to ask you all to take a wait and see attitude beofre plunging in and getting another drive because it is new. As owners of Seagate’s 7200-11 series drives found out to their misfortune, new technology often needs to be tested thoroughly before being released en-masse! If you do take the plunge and go for a 2TB hard drive, you better get 2 and use them to back each other up. If you have a 2TB disk failure you will need hard drive recovery so back up!

To schedule a remote data recovery using Recover It Now call Toll Free 1-866-438-6932 ext. 236 or direct 1-727-345-9665 ext. 236.

Data Recovery For Corporations Computer Repair Stores and Network Maintenance Companies

DTI Data has an aggressive partner program that just about any company large or small can take advantage of. We are extending our partner program discounts to Recover It Now services. Call 866-418-3843 to find out how you can add data recovery services to your company’s line item or add a trained data recovery engineer to your IT staff instantly!

Model numbers of Seagate Barracuda hard drives that have firmware problems (note the bolded 3):
 
1000 GB
ST31000340AS hard drive recovery
 
750 GB
ST3750330AS hard drive recovery
 
500 GB
ST3500320AS hard drive recovery

Challenges Hard Drive Manufacturers Face

Seagate is just the latest victim in the war going on between storage companies. Between lower prices than ever for storage and consumers growing needs for capacity, these hard drive companies are finding it harder than ever to put out a stable product for a reasonable price.

These emerging technologies are still happening now with the advent of high capacity solid state storage, digital data storage without moving parts is the future of backup, the question is: when will the price per MB of flash media and solid state storage change to price per GB?  As far as traditional storage with moving parts i.e. hard disk drives, there has been an explosion of emerging technologies there as well. The release of perpendicular recording was just the first step in the process that has led us to affordable high capacity drives like Seagate’s Barracuda 7200.11.

What To Do If Your Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 Needs Hard Drive Recovery

If you own a Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 500 GB or 1 TB hard drive, what should you do? The first thing is to get a comparable capacity external hard drive and transfer all your data to it ASAP. By using a FireWire or USB external hard drive, you can add storage without restarting your computer. If you are not sure what type of hard drive or what model hard drive you have, there are ways for you to check that out without restarting your computer or looking inside of it.

Step 1 – Right Click On My Computer and choose MANAGE

Step 2 – Choose DEVICE MANAGER in the left window

Step 3 – Expand DISK DRIVES in right window

You should see the hard drive model number in this screen, if you don’t, highlight each drive individually and choose properties to see details on your hard drives.

Step 4 – Choose hard drive in question, right click, and choose properties (if necessary)

If your Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 has failed and you need Seagate harddrive data recovery call us at 727-345-9665 or visit our page: Hard Drive Recovery.

I am pointing all this out because when I searched Google for hard drive recovery, I found over 800,000 results and started looking at the companies listed as well as those buying ads. The fact is out of all those results and the 30 ads, only about 20 of them are real data recovery companies, and only 8 are listed on Western Digital’s data recovery partner page.

So why is this a big deal? It doesn’t matter much when looking at data recovery software since all of them, like ours, have demos. Our software will show you that it will recover the data before you buy it. Physical hard drive recovery is a completely different ballgame. If your hard drive is no longer recognized by the BIOS or is making noises like clicking or whining or scraping, then you need hard drive repair services to get your data back. That is why it is important to know who you are sending your drive to.

Freeware Data Recovery Hard Drive Software

DTI also has FREE data recovery software that we fully support. Our free software for hard drive recovery can undelete files, diagnose RAID Parity problems and repair NTFS partitions. You can see all of our FREE data recovery software here. You can also learn more about Freeware data recovery here.

There are some problems that need a powerful hard drive recovery tool. While our FREE NTFS Partition Repair tool can sort out a lot of issues, it can’t resolve problems that involve bad sectors on a damaged hard drive. We do have a solution for recovering data from bad sectors called Recover It All. Not only can it work around bad sectors on NTFS partitions, it will also fully recover FAT 32 partitions! We have gotten a lot of questions about why recovering FAT 32 is so important even though Microsoft doesn’t use it for their operating systems anymore. The answer is just about ALL external hard drives use FAT 32 as their file system because it can be seen by Windows, MAC and Linux. While we do have FREE FAT 32 Undelete tools, they won’t work on damaged FAT 32 Partitions. You need a powerful scanning engine for that and Recover It All has one of the best.

You can get the demo version of Recover It All Here or Buy Recover It All Now. The button below will take you to a secure site to purchase the software. You will receive the full version within seconds. Recover It All is on sale for $49.99, a savings of $50!

The bottom line is that if your hard drive is not recognized in the BIOS, is making noise or is not spinning up, you will need hard drive recovery. If the hard drive is seen by the BIOS, but not by Windows or Windows is asking you to format the hard drive, you need data recovery software. Feel free to ask any question about hard drive recovery in the comments below.

The first place to start figuring out if your hard drive has a physical problem is in the BIOS. When you boot the computer it shows you the storage devices in order of where they are in the boot chain, as well as if they are master or slave devices. If you have multiple hard drives inside your computer, they will be either set up as master slave or as a RAID. It is important for you to know which drive is doing what for you to understand what you are seeing in the BIOS. If your computer starts up and it shows you your hard drive (s) then your problem is more than likely a logical problem. If your hard drive is not recognized by the BIOS, you will need hard drive recovery services. Call 727-251-2058 for immediate information about hard drive recovery prices. DTI Data offers free quotes on hard drive recovery, and only charges you if we recover your data.

Logical Hard Drive Recovery Prices

If your hard drive is recognized by the BIOS and boots into Windows, but is not working properly you have a logical problem. A lot depends on if you have one or two hard drives in your system, so we will proceed with what you should do if you have a one drive system that boots, but never loads Windows. Before I go on, there is always the possibility that Windows won’t load and you have physical damage to your hard drive. Newer computers can hold a lot of memory in their cache and can get you to the Windows screen, when in fact they are not able to access your hard drive properly. If that is your issue, visit the How To Slave A Hard Drive article which will show you how to remove your hard drive and load it into another computer, or into your existing machine that you have put a new hard drive into. this is the first step in hard drive recovery that doesn’t involve a deleted file. If all that happened is you accidentally deleted a file, then you can use an undelete utility to recover your data.

If your hard drive is making noises like clicking or grinding, but is still accessible you have very little time to copy off your critical files while you still can. there is a link in the paragraph above that will show you how to slave a hard drive, you can use that method to copy off your data to a good hard drive.

We offer remote hard drive recovery which allows our techs to log into your computer and solve your problems. Either way, whether you send the disk in, or we recover it remotely, DTI can handle you hard drive recovery needs.

I did some research and found a really great way to be able to come into the customers computer remotely through a Internet browser with out having to worry about dealing with their routers and firewalls. It is called Log Me In Rescue. I send the customer a link to their email and then they run this little API that hooks up with my computer. I can then take control of the desktop and attempt to do the recovery.

I inevitably need WinHex Sector Editor to view the disk in its raw format, I can easily upload the software to the customers computer and then use it in order to fix the drive. It is nice because the customer can see everything that I am doing so the worries about someone rummaging through their data are gone. This is by far the coolest form of hard drive recovery.

The coolest part about this kind of hard drive recovery is that in most instances I am putting the drive back the way it was before the problem occurred. I can also do adjustments to the system area of the drive to allow drives that data recovery software is not reading correctly to be able to read correctly.

We offer this service for a hugely discounted rate because we don’t have the over head attached to it that we would if you were to ship us the drive. I also use the utility to come in to a hard drive and diagnose problems for no cost to the customer if I don’t actually fix the drive, but that is still hard drive recovery.

If you want more info about our new remote hard drive recovery service: Recover It Now visit our fast data recovery page.

Hard Drive Recovery Video Series – How To Slave a Laptop Hard Drive

If you have a clicking hard disk drive chances are you need hard drive recovery and slaving your laptop will not help you get your files back. This method is for hard drives that are still recognized by the BIOS, they just don’t show you your data, or let you access it.

The software that you need to recover your data is dependent upon the Operating System that was on your laptop.

• For Windows XP or Microsoft Vista with NTFS File System use DART XP – this program will scan your laptop drive and show you the files that can be recovered before you actually buy the software. You can download the demo version for FREE without having to sign up for anything. DART XP Data Recovery Software. If the scan shows you the data you want, you can purchase it right through the software interface.
• For All other types of Windows or for external hard drives that are running NTFS, FAT, FAT 32 or FAT 16 you will need Recover It All. The Demo version also is FREE and will show you the data before you buy it. You can save the scan and purchase the sofrtware off of our website. Like all our products you don’t have to register it to get the demo and will receive the full version within seconds of purchasing it. Click here for the demo of Recover It All Data Recovery Software.

All of our data recovery software is guaranteed to work or you get your money back. Just like our data recovery services which are No Fix No Fee, we will show you your data before you buy!

DTI also has extended software support. Our software support people work right here in Florida. We don’t outsource anything ever! Our support phones are answered from 9 AM EST to 10 PM EST at 727-345-9665, if you are calling after normal business hours choose the software tech support option with your phone.

Remember if you need hard drive recovery DTI has the best support in the business, a class 100 clean room and a strict no data no charge policy on hard drive recovery. When it comes to laptop data recovery, DTI Data is second to none!

Some day soon they will have the best of both worlds by introducing a high capacity laptop hard drive that has the large capacity that most users require in their laptop hard drives as well as high speed for those of us into gaming and media.

DTI Data Recovery has been doing research and Development on Samsung’s laptop hard drives in preparation for the data recovery and hard drive repair that will be required by these new hard disk drives.

If you happen to fall victem to a hard drive crash and have data that needs to be recovered, DTI has the skills and tools to perform hard drive recovery on even these new high capacity hard disks.

Hopefully this data recovery software will help you recover your data.

If you have any questions email support@dtidata.com or call 727-345-9665 Ext 236. If you need data recovery, give DTI a call.

I would get into serious trouble if I were to list the all the BS companies out there, that is a fact. However; I can tell you about some real companies and how they differ to us. I am not going to sit here and go on and on about how rocking DTI is. We are a real data recovery company, we have a class 100 clean room, and we develop all our software in house. We don’t outsource ANYTHING, EVER! We answer our own phones as much as humanly possible. Here is a link to my data recovery software blog, with pictures of everyone. We are a relatively small (24 employees) company that does a big job.

Now on to the stuff that is going to get me in trouble : )

If you look at the top tier data recovery companies, and we all know who they are, they are what some believe to be the cream of the crop. They run a factory line recovery shop. They bait you with a range of prices, and if it is at all a difficult recovery, they are going to call you and bump the price up to 3 or 4 GRAND. I know this, since we have a bunch of their drives in the lab, and almost always have 1 or 2 sent in from people unwilling to pay. I am not saying they stink or are ripping you off, they just play the numbers game. (I recall one time being told “that if enough crap was thrown against the wall, some of it will stick” by the owner of a prominent data recovery company whose model is to charge a $150.00 per drive, “bench” or “evaluation” fee. Type my name into Google and you will see me referenced as their CIO. This is a common attitude out there.)

Now when you look at one of the oldest data recovery companies, they used to be the best, they were the creme de la creme, what everyone strived to be. Once they were bought out, their recovery rate dwindled. The drop off was so significant, that a lot of the top people left that company, I know because we are partnered with some of them that went off and started their own thing.

Now on to another front, recently one hard drive maker acquired another major hard drive maker. OK I can relate, maybe now their drives will actually get even better; however now they go out and buy a data recovery company. Huh? OK say I am a customer that just bought some drives, they fail, now I have to pay 3 grand to get my data back? That seems fishy to me.

The thing about these “big boys” is name recognition. Are Calvin Klines better than Wrangler? No, but they sure cost twice as much. You are paying for the name, nothing more, nothing less. There are no magical machines or proprietary technologies that one company has over the other. Data recovery is not rocket science, but it is all about research and development.

So we are ruling out the big boys who charge the big bucks. That leaves us with the hundreds of middle ground data recovery companies out there, and a few bad apples that think they can do data recovery for $199 or $399. What garbage. One air filter for a class 100 clean room is $850 and we need 4 a month to retain class 100 status. Forget about the parts. What are they a charity? Hard drive manufacturers don’t “give” us replacement parts, we have to buy whole hard drives on the secondary market. We have 1 employee and his assistant that do NOTHING but source parts all day every day. With the advent of large capacity drives, and constant revisions, one Western Digital model had 12 revisions in 1 year. That means that the board, heads, and code on the platters are all different, and they are NOT interchangeable. OK so forget about those bargain basement companies, we all know that you get what you pay for. In fact we constantly get in drives that have already been opened somewhere else. 90% of them have been opened outside of a clean room. We had to start a new program just for clients who sent their drives to one of these bargain basement companies only to be told it was “unrecoverable”.

That points us once again to the middle ground. I read somewhere that 60% of all data recovery companies on the Internet are resellers. I would put that number closer to 90%, hell we have thousands of resellers ourselves. So where does that leave us? If your drive crashes; do your research into where you are going to send it. Don’t bother with companies that give a range, cause it will always be the high side. Forget about diagnostic or bench fees, all the good companies are no data no charge. We have a lot of competitors, but few equals. One of our real rivals went as far as to put a webcam in their lab to prove they have a clean room. Now that is cool.

Even though we are only 1 day a way Fed-Ex most people would prefer a regional company. The problem is if you aren’t in FL, TX, or Southern CA, UT, MN, IL, upstate NY, GA, or WA, there are NO local companies. Choose wisely, mapquest them, if they are off the beaten track they are probably working out of their garage. Don’t laugh I did it myself with Data Recovery Clinic and Exchange Recovery Clinic. I got drives in and sent them to DTI, took my share and moved on to the next. It is business, we tried to start a clean room and do it right, and even with a lot of backing, my partner and I couldn’t keep up with the changes in hard drives. DTI has 3 or 4 guys that do nothing but get new drives and break them to see how to fix and recover data from them. That’s what data recovery is: research and development, every day.

The fact is hard drives fail. It isn’t because the manufacturers are trying to rip us off, it is just a fact. Dick Correa our chief data recovery software engineer recently wrote an article about “hard drive bad sectors, how to recover data from them“, which explains in detail about the challenges hard drive manufacturers face. They even have a name for it: Mean Time Before Failure. That is the “mean” not the average of when your drive WILL fail. Not IF, but WHEN. If you want to know more about what that is, here is a link to IBM’s description of MTBF on archive.org.

We’ve established that hard drives fail no matter what. What are you to do? Back up your data. Other than the fans, the hard drive is the only other item in your computer that has constantly moving parts. It is also the singular most critical device in your computer. Don’t be taken in by any fly by night hard drive recovery solution you see online. Stick with people you know like DTI – a real data recovery company.

Prior to the new millennium there were only a handful of legitimate data recovery companies. Data recovery was expensive and a necessity in certain situations. With an expensive necessity, the new Internet marketers made their way into the data recovery industry.

To date the amount of data recovery companies has increased exponentially over the last 5 years. How did all of these companies emerge with a claim of decades of experience? The truth is, more than likely, that they are not qualified to do any type of data recovery other than logical system failures that can be performed with data recovery software.

Companies making claims to recover data from any drive, regardless of size from $199.00 to $300.00 is unrealistic. In reality, if they were to exhaust every option of recovery on each drive they would quickly become bankrupt.

Data recovery from internal failures of the hard drives read/write heads can be quite costly in parts alone for a data recovery company. Do the math. Let’s say we have a 250GB Hard drive with malfunctioning read/write heads. The data recovery company would need to replace the read/write heads. This constitutes an expenditure on the behalf of the data recovery company equal to the price of a 250GB hard drive. Let us also assume that the platters have acquired damage in an area that originally caused the head crash, which has now caused the replacement read/write heads to crash. The defective area on the platter is noted and avoided after another head replacement. Again, another cost acquired by the data recovery company equal to the cost of the 250GB hard drive.

So indicative of the math there is no way for a data recovery company to stay in business using this business model.

At DTI Data Recovery we offer flat rate pricing on the majority of hard drive recovery. The only exceptions are on RAID systems. DTI also offers a no data no charge policy on the majority of hard drive recoveries. Again the only exceptions are on RAID systems or if the hard drive was opened outside of our clean room. Don’t be fooled by companies that offer low prices on physical data recovery. On the other side, there is no reason whatsoever for a company to not give a flat rate price on single hard drive data recovery! Companies that quote prices in a range from $500 to $3500 will more than likely to charge as much money as they think that you will pay for data recovery.

24 Hour Hard Drive Recovery & Server/RAID Recovery Hotline:
Toll Free 1-866-438-6932 or direct 1-727-345-9665.

Extended Software Support:
8 AM to 11 PM EST 7days a week!

Do it yourself Hard Drive Repair & the Risks

What is the problem?
Does the drive spin?
If so does it click?
Does the armature kick out?
Do the drives heads vibrate to initiate?
Is there an odd smell to the drive?
If it doesn’t spin do you here a slight or faint ticking sound?
Does the BIOS see the drive?
Does the BIOS see the drive as the correct model?
Are there funny characters showing on boot?
Does the operating system blue screen?

Important things you should be aware of before you do anything to a suspected failed hard drive
Static discharge will kill a hard drive when handling… especially the internal components Dust will destroy your data… DO NOT OPEN!

In my experience I see so many hard drives destroyed by helpful neighbors when the problem was not situated internal of the hard drive assembly. Just because it clicks doesn’t always represent an internal failure.

Swapping the electronics runs the risk of further damage, especially if the revision number of the PCB is different. You will have a greater success of recovery with less risk if the original electronics is repaired.

Full Diagnostic Imaging This is a bit by bit, sector by sector cloning operation of a failing hard drives with bad sector reporting & remapping System Area Repair at Manufacturing Levels The system area of a hard drive is NOT common knowledge.

This is an area of the hard drive that is purely communication between the internal workings of the hard drive assembly (HDDA) & the printed circuit board (PCB)… Unlike data that is stored from track zero, that most commercial data recovery software has access too.

The system area starts at minus zero that proprietary equipment is needed to gain full access to this area for data recovery PCB Chipset Replacement & Reprogramming There is a lot involved when a chip on the printed circuit board that shows signs of failure, this can be caused by a more serious fault or even daisy chain through circuitry when replaced… meaning if you repair one chip it only reveals others that were also affected by the failure Class 100 Dust Filtration Systems Essential for Platter Replacement This is very important if every other diagnostic has pointed to the extraction of the Platters internal of the drive hard disk drive assembly to be removed and reinserted into another matching HDDA.

Any form of contaminants on the platter surface will result on loss of data. but this is not the only precautionary matter, there is platter alignment and balancing to take into account as well. If you mis align a bottom platter to the top platter by a micron it is practically impossible to realign CRC Error Checking Control CRC also known as cyclic redundancy check is where an unreadable bad sector is skipped due to its error reporting system acknowledging that there is an error… if this is disabled there is a higher chance of retaining data Parts The correct parts are sometimes very hard to find… and when you do they are wrong.

One model of a hard drive can be manufactured in three different parts of the world with altered components… yet still retain the same model number, Also a hard drive is very smart; they are designed to work around imperfections of the platters surface.

They will move failing sectors without your knowledge causing what we call a shift point. What this means is there is now unique information hard-coded on the hard drive’s surface that is now unique to the drives electronics. So even if you have the exact printed circuit board with matching numbers on all components, there is no guarantee this will work. If you have suffered data loss and your hard disk is physically damaged, call DTI Data. We are experts at hard drive recovery.

 24 Hour Hard Drive Recovery & Server/RAID Recovery Hotline:
Toll Free 1-866-438-6932 or direct 1-727-345-9665.

Extended Software Support:
8 AM to 11 PM EST 7days a week!

Having fresh well written content can do more than increase your sites ad revenue. Good content also helps increase traffic through search engine optimization as well as keeping your visitors on your site. DTI Data Recovery has many ways to help your website including content creation services that provide unique and quality content in return for inbound links. If your site is on topic and has Page Rank, we can write 300 to 400 word relevant content that will provide your site with high revenue keywords. All we require in return is inbound links to our site on pages that have relevant and on topic content.

Hard Drive RAID Data Recovery Feeds

If you have a blog, DTI Data Recovery can help you get your RSS feed noticed! We have several pages with high page rank in many different categories for technical and computer oriented websites. We can place your feed on our site and give it thousands of page view every day. Search engines credit RSS links much higher than reciprocal links. By placing DTI Data Recovery’s feed on your site, you have fresh and unique content updated daily. Reciprocal RSS feed display is the best way to share traffic and placement. Our content is not just limited to hard drive recovery. We offer hundreds of technical guides on data storage, backup, disaster recovery and other tutorials.

If you have a blog with a Technorati authority higher than 10 contact michael at dtidata.com to exchange links in our blogrolls. Blogroll links increase authority and have more weight than standard reciprocal linking.

For more information email michael at dtidata.com or call 727-251-2058.

Feel free to visit any of our hard drive recovery or RAID data recovery pages. Click here for more info on data recovery or clicking hard disk repair.

[tag]Data Recovery, Hard Drive Recovery, RAID data recovery[/tag]

Dave’s background makes him an ideal choice since he is the driving force behind DTI’s research and development department. Hard drive recovery is an ever changing industry and DTI has to stay on top of the storage solutions being provided so we can help our clients get their data back from failed hard drives.

One of the companies in the spotlight is Western Digital and their new 2 TB My Book. You can read my review in the Backup Solution Western Digital My Book post. DTI is an authorized data recovery company which can perform hard drive recovery on WD drives without voiding the warranty. You can see our name on the WD Partner page. We also offer a discount on all Western Digital Hard Drive Recovery.

Click here to read the full article. If you need hard drive recovery give DTI a call at 727-345-9665.

DTI Data is by far the fairest company in the land. We offer no data no charge services on pretty much all data recovery services. We also offer up front flat rate pricing on just about all data recovery. The only exceptions to both of those services are RAID recoveries and Exchange recoveries. All hard drive recovery of single drives is flat rate no data no charge pricing. If you are not sure what data recovery is, then read my husband Michael’s post: Data Recovery Services Explained to get an idea.

Data Recovery Cost Breakdown

For a company to repair hard drives on a regular basis, they need to have a lot of expensive tools as well as highly trained engineers and most importantly: a special environment. All of these requirements are mandatory to successfully recover data.

DTI Data has all the tools and experience to perform data recovery. They also have an extensive amount of hard drive parts needed to perform hard drive repair, the first step in data recovery. All of these things lead to a pretty high overhead, not including the labor and parts required to repair a hard drive.

DTI operates a class 100 clean room where they open hard drives. They also have proprietary tools to perform repairs to mechanical parts and electronics. Along with highly trained techs and engineers, these tools and operating areas lead to the overall pricing. If you are experiencing data loss more than likely you will call around to get the best price. You will be glad that you called DTI Data, because they offer the best pricing of any legitimate data recovery company.

The fact is if you are looking for data recovery services, something very bad has happened! Give DTI the chance to work for you. Call Toll Free: 1-866-438-6932 or fill out an online quote form if you need Data Recovery.

See for yourself here: DTI Domain Name Appraisal. Getting a look at what your domain is worth can be very helpful to a business. In our case using the services of Leapfish.com we were able to get a good idea of where our site ranks among other high powered websites.

I recommend that if you have a domain, get it appraised at Leapfish.com, and see how much it is really worth!

Hard Drive Recovery Podcast 1

Portrait of A Hard Drive Recovery Company

DTI is really much more than a data recovery company. We do a lot more than most of our competitors including, but not limited to:

• In-House Data Recovery Software Creation – DTI started out as a pioneer in file recovery programs. Our programmers created one of the first data recovery software programs ever. Now there are hundreds of options to choose from when looking for data recovery software, but what separates DTI from just about all other software manufacturers is that we operate a full service clean room and perform hard drive recovery in the same labs where our data recovery software engineers are creating their programs. This is a mutually beneficial relationship because the hard drive engineers can share their experience with the programmers when it comes to the actual functions of hard drives and other storage medium, as well as the coders being able to create programs and recovery scripts on demand as the recovery situation warrants. This is a very powerful edge that DTI has over its competitors.
• Hard Drive Repair and Data Recovery – our primary business is data recovery of failed media like hard disks, RAID arrays, digital storage devices, etc. In most cases especially hard disk drives, the device has to be repaired in order to pull the data off of it. Hard drives need special environments for recovery, which is why we operate a class 100 clean room. A clean room not only is dust free, but static free. Having a clean room can be the difference between recovering a hard disk and not recovering one.
• Technical Support and Customer Communication – one of the best reasons to choose DTI Data Recovery is our technical support. We offer free pre-sales support on all of our data recovery software, as well as free Exchange Server and Exchange 5.5 Support. All of our data recovery software will show you the data before you buy them. Also our hard drive recovery services are no data no charge. Another thing that separates DTI from the pack is the communication we have between our engineers and our clients. Dick Correa explains about how the customer is the most important part of the recovery process in his article Data Recovery A Partnership For Success where he explains how nobody knows more about their data than the client.

That’s it for today. As always we request you leave any questions as comments so we can get them answered by our experts. We will be setting up some live technical chats this month so we can answer everyones questions in real time.

DTI Data Recovery Doesn’t Void Hard Drive Warranties

If you visit our Western Digital Hard Drive Recovery Page for more info check out this post on Western Digital Hard Drive Profile that has links to their website that shows our company on it. Most of the other hard drive manufacturers don’t have approved partners pages, but we have our label that we put on the recovered drive as well as the authorization forms required to not void your warranty.

It is important that you do your due diligence on the data recovery company that you choose to send in your hard drive for repair.

If you are here you need data recovery, more than likely, internal hard disk repair. Call Toll Free: 1-866-438-6932 or fill out an online quote form if you need hard drive recovery.

Click here for more information about hard drive recovery packaging and shipping.

Hard Drive Data Recovery Support Resources

Below is a list of information about just some of the manufacturer specific hard drive repair resources that we provide. If you have any specific questions about a type of hard disk please leave a comment below.

Hard Drive Recovery Information

• Maxtor Hard Drive Data Recovery - this article focuses on Maxtor’s most popular hard disk the Diamondmax.
• Samsung Hard Drive Data Recovery - an article about Samsung hard drives including laptop and full size hard disks.
• Gateway Laptop Hard Disk Data Recovery and Repair - while Gateway doesn’t manufacture their own hard drives, this article is very informative about their laptops.
• Hitachi Travelstar Laptop Hard Drive Data Recovery - this article is focused on Hitachi notebook hard disks. We will shortly be posting about their desktop drives such as the Deskstar and their high capacity hard disks. In the meantime click here for more information on High Capacity TB Hard Drives.
• Dell Laptop Hard Drive Data Recovery - Like Gateway, Dell doesn’t manufacture hard drives. but there is plenty of great information in this article.
• Fujitsu Laptop Hard Drive Recovery - Another company that makes both notebook and desktop drives, this post is focused on the Fujitsu laptop hard disk. Click here fo more info on Fujitsu Desktop Hard Drive Data Recovery.
• Toshiba Laptop Hard Drive Data Recovery - one of our best articles about hard drive manufacturers, this post goes into great detail about the issues that plague Toshiba hard disk bearings.

I hope these articles are helpful for you to find what you need. Always feel free to contact us if you have any questions about data recovery.

24 Hour Hard Drive Recovery & Server/RAID Recovery Hotline:
Toll Free 1-866-438-6932 or direct 1-727-345-9665.

Extended Software Support:
8 AM to 11 PM EST 7days a week!

Hard Drive Data Recovery

The recovery of a damaged hard drive is a specialty of DTI Data. We have all the tools and experience to open and repair your hard disk drive.

Follow the links below for more information:

• Hard Drive Recovery - the physical restoration of data off of a damaged hard disk drive.
• Why Hard Drives Fail- why hard drive need repair and recovery. This is the first step of data recovery from a broken hard drive.
• RAID Data Recovery - the repair or restoration of damaged hard drives that were part of a RAID array.
• Nationwide Data Recovery - information about data recovery services across the United States.
• Data Recovery Training- information about DTI Data Recovery Training Courses.

Call Toll Free: 1-866-438-6932 or fill out an online quote form if you need hard drive recovery.

If you need data recovery don’t hesitate to contact DTI. We take your recovery needs as our top priority!