Almost every day I see a new company opening a business storefront location to offer ‘professional’ data recovery services. You would think that the more competitors in the marketplace, the better it is for consumers. Well, in general terms that is always a good thing. However, in the data recovery industry more does not always equate to better.
Here’s the rub… about 70-percent of all the companies that have recently set up shop and promoted themselves as providing ‘professional’ data recovery are just offices. That’s correct. Most of these ‘service providers’ are just taking up office space and do not have anything resembling a real laboratory on site.
In other words, these companies are actually just resellers or marketing firms that are posing as professional data recovery specialists.
So, what’s the big deal if they actually do get the job done?
Well, this is what I’d like to explore further and explain to you in this article.
I admit that chances are that you may luck out. You know, your hard drive isn’t mechanically or physically damaged and did not require work in a clean room environment. Your data is recovered and you go home happy. That’s great as it makes sense in this scenario.
However, what happens if your drive happens to have serious physical damage requiring clean room time?
In this scenario, your drive will be either shipped out or turned to another undisclosed lab that the data recovery ‘professional’ you went to is associated with. Or, as is often the case with these types of operations, they tell you that recovery was unsuccessful – even if they don’t attempt to recover it because they are not properly equipped to do so.
In these situations, you have no idea who you are dealing with and quite honestly, your data at this point is not safe. You would almost have been as far ahead if you had walked into your average BestBuy GeekSquad store and had them recover your data because they’ll be sending out your hard drive – but at least you’ll know where it’s going.
Although I’ve mentioned it, don’t go to your local BestBuy electronics store, either.
Here’s why.
More than 20-percent of all our data recovery cases come from individuals who had luck dealing with the BestBuy store and their data recovery partners who managed to accomplish Tier 2 or 3 data recovery services.
So you probably can see where I’m going with this.
Every day I see another few newbies showcasing themselves as real data recovery labs. There are so many of them that I have lost count. When you look at most of the computer retail outlets and computer repair services out there, it’s not hard to see that many of them are suddenly offering their expertise as data recovery specialists.
Because of the fact that there are so many so-called experts in the marketplace, it is also easy to see how some computer owners are going to end up dealing with a service that is not exactly a full-blown recovery lab.
With this in mind, I admit it is confusing if you are not all that tech savvy. If you are trying to get the data recovered from a faulty hard drive, you are going to seek the help of a data recovery service.
Only you will not be able to differentiate the true professionals from the wanna-be professionals.
I know that sounds a bit harsh, but it is a fact. The data recovery industry has been filled with a lot of uneducated and inexperienced people working for companies that claim to be data service providers. You really have to be careful out there or you may just get in a situation where you end up dealing with a crappy ‘specialist’ and risk losing your data forever.
I also understand what it is like to be where you all of a sudden need data recovery services. It’s stressful. If you are running a business that relies heavily on the data, it’s even more stressful. Typically, when under intensive stress we make mistakes. Taking your hard drive to your corner computer repair shop out of desperation would be one such mistake.
That being said, I do have a couple of reminders for you.
First, there are still some pioneering companies out there who have years of experience under their belts. These are the data recovery professionals you can trust to do the job you require of them.
Secondly, the number of new ‘firms’ popping up and offering these recovery services continues to increase. These are the people you need to watch out for as they really are not exactly as they claim to be.
These companies are the ones that continue to plague this industry.