expanding my tech business to hard drive repair

I started a mobile tech business about 7 years ago and am doing quite well so far (7k to 10k per month in business). I would like to start offering hard drive recovery services but don't know where to start.

Right now i use recover my files software or just plug the drive in with a usb adapter to recover files. I had a client get quoted $1600 from best buy to recover off a damaged 1.8" drive and i got it done with the software above for $250. she was really happy.

I would like to start fixing drives that are physacly damaged like no power or clicking. I know that a clean room box can be made so that isn't an issue but finding suppliers for parts or websites to learn has been a challenge.

Please reply if you have knowledge on this topic and hopefully it can help others as well as myself.

Thanks

 

Go to www.drivesavers.com. They do the "clean room" recovery services for Fry's and many other retailers. You get a 10% discount (commission) off whatever work you send them.

If they can't recover data, there is no charge; however the caveat is the data recovery price can vary widely based on the amount of data found and recovered. This is something you have to make clear to the client in advance (example: It could be as little as $800 or as much as $2000 based on a given size drive).

To cover your assets, I would have a written contract signed by the client agreeing to a maximum price before you send the drive off. If you take credit cards, check with your processing company to see if they will allow you to put a "hold" (preauthorizaton) on the customer's card equal to the maximum amount, similar to what hotels and rental car companies do. You do not want to get stuck eating the cost of data recovery if the client decides later it wasn't worth the price.

Hope this helps.

PS: What are your picks for the best pro data recovery software? Right now I'm using the paid pro versions of GetDataBack for NTFS and FAT.

 

Thanks,

That is good to know that they will pay commisions. I would like to see if I can fix them as well. I have time to learn and about 40 damaged drives that customers have left that i can learn on.

I have been using http://www.recovermyfiles.com/ for about two years. It does a great job recovering files that were lost because of formatting or deleteing.

 

i just watched a video on getdataback. recovermyfiles is alot easier. choose the drive or partition. choose what files you are looking for. then when it is done you save the files. Simple but not sure if getdataback does more.

 

Although I have never attempted to recover data by disassembling a HDD myself, I have heard the following warnings from countless IT people:

* The moment a HDD is exposed to normal air, even one microscopic piece of dust will damage the platters beyond repair or recovery. This is why companies like DriveSavers do their recovery in a "clean room" with absolutely zero dust and negative air pressure.

* Although a HDD controller card can be replaced without exposing the inside of the drive to air, the cards themselves must match exactly in terms of the brand, model #, part # and firmware revision. As an example, a WD 1TB Model XYZ123 may have been manufactured with up to a dozen different controller cards, based on the date of manufacture and the plant they were produced at.

Again, this is what I was told. If anyone else has a way to repair the inside of a drive, please post.

 

You are exactly correct gman! I would much rather teach and sell back-up solutions to my customers instead of trying to revive a dead drive unless it's just a soft app that's needed to get the idiots out of a jam.

I think I could garner more money this way. And more customer satisfaction too, just tell them to take the back-up drive elsewhere when they leave work after a back-up of course, in case of a catastrophic event. A business does not want to lose it's data for a myriad of reasons!

 

As of now i am having customers that i can't recover files from go to the large data recovery places and they are not wanting to pay over 1000. there is a shop in orange county, ca that is doing the repairs for 400 to 800. I learned this from one of my customers that found the guy online. So this is more for the person that turns down the $1000 plus job and is willing to shoot for a fix for $500 and risk the data because they are not willing to pay $1000.

I might just offer the guy that is charging $400 to $800 some money to teach me his methods. a couple grand may be worth it to me to learn what he is doing.

There has to be a way.

 

It's worth looking into. Given you're near Silicon Valley, it's possible the guy works at a place that has a "clean room" or has a friend who does. This would give him the right environment to do the work in.

 

Sadly, this is easier said than done.

Although larger businesses (those with a full-time or contract IT person) do setup backups, it blows my mind how many smaller businesses and individuals do little (if any) backup of files.

After doing a PC reformat, virus removal or repair at my shop, I always try to sell (depending on the amount of data involved) either an external HDD or USB flash drive for customers to back up data on. Over half will not spend even a lousy $10 for a 4GB flash drive even if it means preventing the loss of their resume, homework or family photos! rolleyes rolleyes rolleyes What's soooo ironic is these are the same customers who either just lost data due to a crashed drive or paid me an extra $40-$100 to rescue their files from a damaged or malware-infested HDD and reinstall them on their PC.

My mantra is two backups of critical data: One automatic on-site method and off automatic off-site (such as Carbonite). The keyword is "automatic"; 99% of people forget to do manual copying or backups of files until it's too late. rolleyes

 

LOL, ya. I'm out of the business for quite a few years now, heck, you're even tougher than I am!:-D

I agree with you, the idiots didn't want to spend a few extra measly dollars to protect their data. Tough man, live with your decisions!:-D

 

Right! Except it is "positive" air pressure - so the filtered pressurized (positive) clean air in the clean room will flow out any open door or crack around windows, preventing any outside unfiltered dirty air from rushing in. Negative air pressure is like a vacuum - and dirty air from the outside will try to rush in to fill the void in an negative pressure environment. Negative pressure is used in bio-labs and sensitive government pre-sorting mail rooms so no bio-contaminates can escape if someone opens a door.

I don't think "repairing" hard drives is worthwhile. Years ago, yes because drives were so expensive, repairing was economically feasible. But even with the flooding crippling hard drive supplies, hard drives are cheap - you can still get 1.5Tb drives for well under $200 and my first 40Mb drive (yes, megabyte) in 1989 cost $500!

So once the data is recovered, toss the drive into the recycle bin and buy a new one. Then help the user setup AND USE a good backup program.

Now if the data was lost due to user error (accidentally deleted the data, or formatted the wrong drive, for example) then saving the drive is fine. But if the data was lost due to mechanical failure of the drive itself, repair is not worth it.

 

On a lot of newer drives a PCB swap will not work even is it's an *exact* match. A PCB swap on some drives is a sure way to crash the heads into the magnetic substrate of the platter, turning all that precious data into nothing but gray dust.