 |
Provide Added Value To Your Customers With Professional Data Recovery Services
August, 2004
By Adam Gosling
When a worried customer walks into your store with a crashed hard disk, try to convince them to buy
a back up device and some software then send them on their way.
Find out exactly how important the data is and whether they are willing to pay to rescue it. Resellers
can make a margin from magnetic data recovery, says Guy Riddle, Manager of CBL, a Canadian data retrieval
company that set up a lab in Australia last year. The lab is located in Brisbane, where the company has a
full clean room facility. The head offices are in Sydney. The company wants to build up a channel as
part of an expansion strategy and is looking for data to recover from not only hard disk, but any type of
magnetic media; floppies and tape cartridges, flash memory cards and the like.
"We use whatever creative methods we have come up with over the last 10 years," says Riddle. "We will
do whatever is possible to recover the data storage devices that have been damaged by fire, liquids or
other problems."
Riddle says data is lost for three primary reasons. Notably hardware failure, which is usually preceded
by clicking noise for a couple of weeks. If the user ignores this, eventually the disk crashes when the
read/write head touches the platter and erodes the magnetic coating. Ignoring it can turn your hard drive
into little more than dust and see-through glass. One day the PC won't boot and the owner comes to see you.
It is a mechanical fault, says Riddle, taking a hard disk apart is for experts. The gap between head
and platter is less than a human hair and a clean room is needed as even a dust particle can become a
major problem. If there is an electrical fault, say the result of a power surge blowing the circuit board,
CBL will either get a replacement board or build a new one out of parts. It's a bit of an art, because
boards are constantly changing and the reverse engineering usually means the firmware is lost. This means
the engineers have to get out the trusty Hex editor and jigsaw the data back together.
Most often CBL is dealing with a software issue: a corrupted operating system, accidentally deleted files
and the like. The company has a set of software tools, which make recovery a fairly simple operation
compared to the resources a normal reseller can use on the problem.
Another approach Riddle is trying to take is to pre-empt data loss and offer the company's services as
an insurance policy. He suggests resellers could offer the service as part of a disaster recovery plan
put in place for clients. CBL is happy to work in the background as a generic provider so the recovery
service can be branded in your own way, says Riddle.
There is a low awareness of the ability to recovery apparently 'lost' files, and to provide data retrieval
services is an invaluable asset for resellers, says Riddle. Channel partners have the opportunity to up-sell
backup devices or offer long-term service contracts when the data is retrieved.
CBL offers an obligation-free quote to recover data within 24 hours, but the recovery process can take
anywhere from three days to a week if new parts need to be ordered or found. Although the company does
offer expedited service where the customers pay a premium, the cost is normal little over $1000. CBL has
a track recover of getting good data off 83 per cent of 'dead' media, plus a 'no data no charge' policy
for that 17 per cent of times the data is gone for good.
About CBL Data Recovery Technologies Inc.
Founded in 1993, CBL Data Recovery Technologies Inc. is a leading international provider of computer data recovery services for clients experiencing data loss. CBL employs experts from varying disciplines coupled with proprietary techniques to retrieve data quickly and effectively from a wide array of affected media for customers ranging from large enterprises to home users.
CBL offers data recovery services worldwide through its network of labs, offices and authorized partners, located in 10 countries on six continents including Brisbane, Australia; San Diego, California and Armonk, NY, USA; Toronto, Canada; Newcastle, United Kingdom; Kaiserslautern, Germany; Beijing, China; Barbados, West Indies; Ponta Grossa, Brazil; Tokyo, Japan; and Singapore.
  |
 |
