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Data recovery is the process of retrieving deleted or inaccessible data from failed electronic storage media such as computer hard disk drives, removable media, optical devices and tape cartridges.

Your data can become inaccessible due to a software problem, computer virus, mechanical or electrical malfunction or deliberate/indeliberate tampering.

Regardless of the cause of your data loss, our experienced technicians are able to successfully recover lost data 80% - 90% of the time.

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The data recovery process is split into an evaluation stage and the recovery stage.

During the evaluation stage one of our recovery specialists carefully inspects your device or media to arrive at an accurate diagnosis of the problem. While each evaluation is different depending on the type of damage and device or media being checked, an evaluation usually involves mechanical diagnostics, creating a sector copy, and assessing data integrity.

Upon completion, you will be emailed a report and informed of your data's prognosis along with other information such as if any parts will be necessary for a successful recovery.

The customer then has the opportunity to recover the data for that amount and see what they will be charged before any work is done.

Only upon receiving your authorisation will we proceed with the process of recovering your data from your device or media.

For mechanical damage, failed or compromised parts are replaced in a clean environment using exact replacement parts to ensure compliance with manufacturer requirements. Some examples of parts that fail are read/write heads and assemblies, magnets, motors, and logic boards.

If there is no mechanical damage, or after the mechanical damage has been repaired, the next step is logical recovery. This type of recovery uses high-tech software to extract all possible data from the device or media by either repairing the low-level file system, extracting data from fragments found in the data image or both.

In the case of a malicious virus having caused the damage to the original data, care will be taken to disinfect your files of the offending virus before restoring the data.

Once data has been extracted, it is then migrated to DVDs, a new hard drive or media of the clients choice.

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On our standard service, evaluation will take one to three days depending on the complexity of the recovery.

Recovery time will depend entirely on the severity of the fault and how much work is required to recover the data. In most situations DRE aim to complete recoveries within one to five days on the standard service.

Our priority service is available with a typical turnaround time of three to five days total in most situations.

Our emergency service is available with work continued through bank holidays and weekends.

Below is an approximation of recovery timeframes on the standard service:

• 1-5 Days for Basic Software Recovery
• 7-10 Days for Complex Software Recovery
• 7-10 Days for Basic Hardware Recovery
• 2 to 4 weeks for Complex Hardware Recovery

In some extreme cases involving severe media failure/damage or the requirement for specialised spare parts the timeframes listed above may be increased. While more time and effort may be required to get a result or search for parts there is no additional charge.

NOTE: The above timeframes do not refer to priority and emergency services and are only a guide for standard service turnarounds.

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Because the total cost of a data recovery job is the result of so many variables - from the size of the hard drive, or other media, to the severity of the data loss, it is impossible to come up with a general figure. Costs start from a few hundred dollars and are dependent on what type of media is being recovered from and the type of recovery involved. Often people are told horror stories about any recovery costing in thousands of dollars this is mostly not the case which is why it is important to have a proper inspection of the media performed. DRE will be happy to do an evaluation of your media and your recovery needs. Call us on 1300 669 323 for further information.

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As part of our "No Recovery - No Charge" Guarantee, if no files or only limited files may be able to be recovered or the customer would not like to proceed with the recovery after evaluation you will not be charged for recovery.

This excludes any priority fees and service/exploratory fees. Any fees for specialised work/parts are outlined in our no obligation free quote prior to any major work being performed.

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While most disk utilities provide excellent preventative maintenance by fixing minor problems, they can render data unrecoverable in the event of extreme corruption. Follow these tips to help ensure your drive and data safety.

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Where many people become confused is that because their computer is triggering a disk checking utility, they automatically assume (as does the software) that they have a problem with the file system. In fact they may have a problem with their hard disk that has in turn caused a problem with the file system. So, although the symptoms are in most cases identical (ie. the automatic triggering of Scandisk etc), the cause of the problem is rather different. In these instances, running disk checking software is to be avoided at all costs.

The disk checking program is not capable of diagnosing the correct problem (i.e. a faulty hard disk) and misdiagnoses it as a filesystem problem, and then attempts to (often automatically) repair the problem. Data that was often fully recoverable now becomes damaged, fragmented and unrecoverable.

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In all but the most extreme cases is data totally destroyed and unrecoverable. This is why ASIO, the Federal Police, and international organizations like Interpol and the FBI can recover evidence from computer systems, hard drives and removable media. Even fire and water damaged drives can have the data recovered from them.

There are instances where the damage to a hard drive is so severe that data recovery is not possible. This usually occurs when the read/write heads actually "crash" and gouge the magnetic storage media to the point where the data is destroyed.

However, in a number of cases data recovery was possible at the time the damage first occurred, but became non-recoverable through the use of commercial recovery software. This software is designed to recover data from working drives. If your drive has experienced a mechanical or electrical failure, the use of recovery software can cause permanent loss of your data.

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DRE operates within a secure environment so that you can rest easy knowing that your information is kept private. The evaluation and recovery process is conducted in a secure environment with controlled access to ensure the confidentiality of your data.

We have unwritten non-disclosure agreements with all of our customers, but if you require a written agreement it can be faxed to us for processing.

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We ask that all media be sent to us securely packed and by registered mail or courier. Any packaging such as bubble wrap or shredded paper will help cushion the media while in transit. All packaging should be marked as fragile.

Please print and fill our recovery form to send in with your media.

Send all media to:

Data Recovery Express
Level 1 123 Camberwell Rd
Hawthorn East, Victoria 3123

If you are dropping items off at our office it is open from 8:30-5:30 Monday to Friday

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We can recover laptop hard drives using the same methods as for desktop hard drives and servers. Data recovery from laptop computers is priced the same as for desktop machines and despite the miniature mechanics, we have an exceptionally high recovery rate from these type of hard disks, and have performed data recovery from all manufacturers of notebooks and laptop hard disks, including IBM, Toshiba, HP, Sony, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Maxtor and others.

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Yes, we can recover most instances of data loss caused by viral infection or file system corruption and are very experienced in recovering and repairing damage done by malicious code.

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In the event of a mechanical/electronic failure, the hard drive must often be 'repaired' in order for data to be recoverable. This repair is to facilitate recovery of the data and is only temporary - we do not recommend reusing drives that have failed. Do not try to recover your own data or open your own hard drive. Data recovery from a mechanical/electronic failed hard drive requires a data recovery professional working in a suitable sterile environment to examine and repair the drive. Simply opening your hard drive in a non-sterile environment can cause further damage to the hard drive and dust and fingerprints will get on the platters making recovery impossible.

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DRE can successfully recover multiple RAID arrays/levels including:

• Spanned volumes
• RAID 0 (Disk Striping)
• RAID 1 (Disk Mirroring)
• RAID 5 (Disk Striping with Parity)

If you have a failed RAID array:

Don't try to rebuild it.

Carefully remove and number the drives in the order that they were in the array.

Note down important information including how the RAID was configured, the circumstances of the failure and type of controller.

Package the drives carefully for transporting/shipping

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DRE can recover from most digital media and mass storage devices including the following:

Hard disks, RAID systems, Disk Arrays, Magneto-Optical, Syquest, Iomega Zip, Iomega Jaz, CDR/CDROM, DVD, USB Flash Drives, External Hard Drives, SD Cards, iPods

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Seagate, Samsung, Hitachi, Quantum, Maxtor, Western Digital, IBM, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Conner

This includes all brands of external hard drives.

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DRE can recover data from the following operating systems:

Novell Netware, UNIX, Linux, AIX, MAC, Windows 95/98/2000/XP/VISTA, DOS, OS/2

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The majority of data recoveries concerning disks still under warranty are logical in nature. As this does not require the breach of any warranty seals on the disks your warranty will be safe.

Recoveries that are physical in nature will most likely breach warranty seals. In most cases, a warranty claim can be lodged with the manufacturer and with the manufacturer allowing data recovery to be performed.

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Yes, if your system is no longer powering up or cannot load the operating system immediately unplug it from the power source and contact us.

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Whilst the disk/media may have been fixed to enable data recovery it is not recommended for reuse as the disk/media has previously failed.

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Data is generally returned to clients on CD or DVD-ROMs. The files on the disks have their "read only" attribute set because the CD or DVD-ROM is a "read only" device. The files on these disks cannot be modified or changed on the on the disks themselves. In order to have the ability to modify these files they need to be copied to you hard drive. After the data has been copied to the hard drive the "read only" attribute must be unchecked to allow modifications to the files.

Before copying the files onto your hard drive, please make sure you have a bootable system with sufficient free space to hold the recovered data. DRE returns the data files only. Actual programs should be reinstalled from the original sources prior to the transfer of the data.

If the data is returned on a new hard drive we can supply an external enclosure and install the drive into this so all you need to do is plug the drive into your PC, laptop or Mac and access the files that way.

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Backup, backup, backup. The reality of hard drives and other electronic storage media is that they are going to fail sometime. It is not a question of if, but when. Even new hard drives can fail without notice. Nothing can prevent data loss better than performing routine backups of all your data. Users can save hours, days and weeks of downtime by minimizing their data loss through routine backups. A good anti-virus software package, updated regularly, will also offer some protection against data loss.