Data Recovery Services Cost How Much
Data recovery is a unique service that is rarely thought about until a situation arises in which it is needed. At that point, it can quickly go from zero to sixty in an instant. Suddenly you realize the value of everything on your hard drive that you can no longer access. A flood of thoughts race through your mind, and your ‘files’ may flash before your eyes. Your documents, your email, your photos, music, or perhaps more seriously, data that is absolutely critical to maintaining your business.
Throughout the years, I’ve explained the data recovery process across the spectrum from people who have simply lost their “Sims” characters, to Fortune 500 companies who are in much more dire situations and need the multi-million dollar contracts, financial spreadsheets or patient information that can only be found on their hard drive or server.
I worked the phones for quite a few years here at ECO Data Recovery, and more often than not people did suffer from some form of ‘sticker shock’ when calling for data recovery prices. If only I had a dollar for every time I heard “ I can buy a new computer for that price!”
Data Recovery Services Cost How Much Truer words were never spoken. If I were to find myself in this predicament and deciding between a new computer or my data was my concern, by all means I would buy a new computer as opposed to paying for a data recovery service. The only person who can accurately place a ‘dollar worth’ on their data is the owner.
In some cases the urgency may not be felt until you need to get to a contact in Outlook, or possibly you need to get to Excel files in your ‘My Documents’ folder. Then suddenly what was initially not all too terribly important has now become a top priority. So, the first call is to your ‘computer guy’. He promptly diagnoses a hard drive failure, and being the knowledgeable technician he is, he knows that powering the computer on and off can cause further, possibly irreparable damage to the hard drive. The tech hands you the hard drive and says that you will need to find a data recovery service. So off to Google you go. And you type in “Data Recovery” in the search field.
Now you may want to narrow down your search by searching locally. We have been located right here in South Florida for over 20 years, so we do get web traffic from people who search for: “Florida Data Recovery”, maybe even more specifically, “ Palm Beach County ”.
But what if you lived in a less populated area? Perhaps there are no real, invasive level data recovery labs with onsite clean room in your immediate area. Now what? The reality is that there is actually only a handful of qualified, invasive level data recovery services throughout the entire U.S. On a side note, I am pretty amazed at just how many computer repair stores, mobile computer technicians, and even ‘Big Box’ electronic outlets that now provide hard drive data recovery. I have seen the number of companies that offer data recovery, grow exponentially over the past 8 years.
Never Open Sealed Hard Drive
I have to mention the often overlooked, but ever so critical fact that unfortunately, some of the “Geeks” that are out there are doing more harm than good, by tinkering with a mechanically failed hard drive. We’ve had hard drives arrive here that have been opened in somebody’s kitchen, or maybe on their desk, or the back of their computer repair shop. A hard drive should never be opened except in a clean room by a professional, *certified* data recovery technician.
Not All Data Recovery Companies are Qualified
Calling some of the data recovery companies you will notice that each one will present itself and how they stand apart slightly different. I myself have called for a data recovery quote. In one case, the person I spoke with sounded as if she was reading directly from a script. That didn’t exactly instill confidence in their abilities. She was having difficulty in even reading through the script. Some data recovery services will promise you everything you ask for and then some!
(Caution: There are numerous horror stories on the internet of being quoted one price for data recovery, only to have that price double or more once the drive has been delivered to the data recovery service provider).
In another case, I called a data recovery service that was located in Georgia. I mentioned to the ‘salesman’ that I was speaking with that I was in Florida, and was hoping to find someone a little closer. I was told “We own the South East. There are no other data recovery labs near you.” (I automatically felt bad for all the people that would call the very same place under similar circumstances only to be told the same thing.) And for the record, there are also plenty of reputable, upstanding data recovery companies such as ECO Data Recovery, On Track, Drive Savers to name a few.
Data Recovery Services Cost How Much
Here at ECO Data Recovery, we do provide an affordable, firm, guaranteed price up front, so you will know exactly what the data recovery services cost will be prior to sending in your hard drive. I have often said that “Data Recovery” and “Expensive” are often uttered in the very same sentence. And once again, all data has a dollar worth, and the data owner is the only person who can determine that worth.
So, the next time that someone says: “But I can buy a new computer for that price!” I will say, “You are exactly right.” Because if that is the concern, you really should buy a new computer rather than opt for recovering data from a hard drive that may not be of any value to you. I know that if that was my concern, that is what I would do.
However, if you have critical data that you need to recover:
