Site Map | References
copyright 2006 - 2008 © Adroit Data Recovery Services Malaysia Sdn.Bhd. all rights reserved.
frequently asked questions
In Malaysia, many computer users and even seasoned experts often give up hope and take the loss of data as a hopeless situation, without realising that there is hope of recovery.
This is due to the fact that information about data loss is inconsistent or inaccurate (most likely both). Thus, it is not surprising that data loss and data recovery are some of the most confusing and misunderstood concepts users face. We fully understand that many individuals and corporate organizations depend heavily on computers for their daily operations.
Here, we answer some of the more common questions users pose to us.
QUESTIONS
ANSWERS
Ans Q1 :
Data recovery is the act of processing, rescuing and retriving inaccessible data from a storage media that had been damaged either logically or physically through a vast array of data loss factors such as virus attacks, data corruption, physical malfunctions, trauma, human error, natural disasters (flood and fire) and others various reasons.
This includes all digital media such as:
- 3.5 or 2.5 PC and notebook hard disks
- backup tape, floppy disk, Zip disk
- cdr, cdrw, dvdr, dvdrw
- flash memory card e.g compact flash card,
SD card, Memory stick, MMC card, XD card
and so on.
Top
Ans Q2:
There are a variety of reasons which may lead to data loss. Among the most common causes that contribute to data loss are :
- Virus attack
- Logical file system corruption
- Accidental file or partition deletion or disk reformat
- Data corruption
- Computer crime or sabotage
- Hardware or electronic components failure
- Read-write head crash
- Physical trauma
- Human error
- Natural disasters such as flood or fire
Top
Ans Q3
Hard disk failure is often characterised by a variery of symptoms which include one or more of the following:
- Bios does not detect hard drive.
- Hard disk detected but OS does not load/boot up.
- Operating system does not boot up or boots up intermittently.
- Hard disk is dead silent and shows no signs of operation.
- Bios displays model of hard disk with nonsensical characters.
- Files, folders or directories disappear mysteriously.
- User accidentally deletes files/user error.
- Clicking, scraping or knocking sound when computer/media device is switched on.
- Data corruption.
- Files and folders cannot be open.
- And various other reasons.
Top
Ans Q4
We are located at Petaling Jaya, Selangor. [location map]
For those customers who require our despatch service to pick up the damaged media within Malaysia (including Sarawak and Sabah), please call:
03-79583005 / 79583008 during office hours (9.00AM till 6.00PM, Monday Friday)
Or email ADRC supportfor assisstance.
Arrangements will then be made to retrieve the media.
Top
Ans Q5
The price of data recovery will depend on a number of criteria, mainly:
- Complexity of failure.
- Type of digital media.
- Type of OS.
- Others [please see our pricing structure].
Evaluation needs to be done first before a firm quotation can be given to customer.
Top
Ans Q6
Evaluation will be done on a first come first serve basis but the procedure will not take more than 48 hours or 2 working days. [ADRC recovery procedure]
Top
Ans Q7
We keep all submitted information, files and data in strict confidentiality and will not disclose, transfer, duplicate, reproduce, retain, resell or in any way use all or any part of the information, files or data submitted to us.
Strict measures will be taken to safeguard and protect all information, files or data while they are in our possession.
All information, files and data in our possession will be destroyed after 5 working days upon handing over the recovered data to the customers and upon customer's full payment of recovery services. We are open to signing any non-disclosure agreements with our customers.
Top
Ans Q8
No, you don't pay us a cent if we fail to recover your lost data as we adhere to the “No Data No Charge” policy strictly.
Top
Ans Q9
There are some do and don’t when shipping your damaged media.
Here are some tips which ensure the media is not further damaged
while shipping the damaged media to us.
Top
Ans Q10
Do not use the PC or notebook and switch off the unit at once. In fact, all activity should be stopped immediately, otherwise you are running the risk of losing important data permanently.
When you delete data, the OS will mark the data in question as deleted but the actual content of the data is still intact. If you were to write new data onto the disk, the deleted data will then be overwritten permanently.
Top
Ans Q11
We strongly advise against running chkdisk or scandisk when you encounter hard disk failure.Running such utilities may jumble up the file fragments without their original names and directories. This will compromise the process of data recovery at a later stage.
Top
Ans Q12
Remember that you are handling over important data to a stranger, whom you need to trust. You need to actively research and assess the company you would be trusting your data to thoroughly before sending in for a recovery:
- Backgound, experience and expertise of the company.
- Is data recovery this company's core business?
- Is the job done locally or are the premises only a representative office?
- Are there any references or testimonials that the company can produce ?
- What is its success rate and more importantly, how is success rate being measured? How is the figure derived ?
- What standards or benchmarks does the company use ?
- What are the charges involved if I cannot get back my data ?
- Are there any hidden costs besides the recovery cost?
- Do they have clean room facility? (At least a C100 clean Lab, which is the most basic setup for hard disk recovery)
- How will the recovered data be delivered back to me ?
Unless you receive the right information, you might run the risk of losing your critical data when it falls into the wrong hands. Remember, most of the time, there is only one chance for data recovery.
Top
Ans Q13
A good data recovery company will not lie about success rate. Any data recovery company publishing success rate 90% or even 80% is lying to users. As success rate depends on the type of media and what criteria you set to measure it against, it would be misleading and unfair to advertise success rate as a “marketing gimmick”.
Think of it this way, there is no use talking about a 99% success rate if you are told that your data is cannot be recovered and you belong to unfortunate 1%. It is sufficient to say - if we cannot not recover your data, no one else could.
The success rate really depends on the condition of the media, how the user has handled the media after failure, the type of failure, the type of data media and so on. It is essential not to overwrite data or damage the data platter so that recovery can be done.
A lot of such recovery rates are based on a certain disk model or category of recovery. You may want to know that recovery of 2.5" notebook drive has a far better chance than 3.5" desktop drive. Certain disk models are more favourable than the other due to some technological differences. In some disk models, nearly 100% recovery rate is possible. In others, it could be less than 10%.
Top
AnsQ14
Yes, data can be recovered even if it is infested with bad sectors. Stop accessing the drive to prevent form further damage and send in the media for recovery. With our expertise and proprietary equipment, we can deal with such situations ideally.
Top
Ans Q15
Hard drive heads float over the surface of the disk and do all of their work without ever physically touching the platters they are magnetizing. The amount of space between the heads and the platters is called the floating height or flying height.
It's actually quite amazing how close to the surface of the disks the heads fly without touching. To put it into perspective, a modern hard disk has a floating height of an amazing 0.5 microinches. A human hair has a thickness of over 2,000 microinches!
If the heads come into contact with the surface of the disk while it is at operational speed, the result can be loss of data, damage to the heads, damage to the surface of the disk, or all three. This is usually called a head crash.
Top
Ans Q16
When doing DIY recovery, extreme caution should be exercised especially when the data is critical. Carelessness and human error can cause important data that could have been recovered, to be lost pemanently.
If the hard disk is not recognised by Bios, it is impossible to use any software to recover lost data anyway,since the software will not be able to ‘communicate ‘ with the damaged hard disk. Normally this type of failure will require a hardware fix.
Top
Ans Q17
Send in your hard disk for an evaluation first so that a firm quotation can be sent to you. You can decide then iif you want to proceed with data recovery.
Read here for more information.
Top
Ans Q18
Packing tips
Top
Ans Q19
All the information that we need from you is specified here
Top
Ans Q20
Upon receiving your damaged media , ADRC malaysia will conduct and evaluate/diagnose the media so that a firm quote can be generated and sent to you via email.
Once the user agrees to proceed with the recovery job, our engineer will copy an image from the damaged media and work on that image to recover the data, thus the original damaged media is untouched.
Where failure is hardware related, the associated malfunctions will be fixed before the image is created. This is a non-intrusive way of recovery so that the original damaged media will be preserved in the form that it was first sent in.
If data is unrecoverable, there will be no charge whatsoever.
There will be no evaluation fee but if the user opts to cancel the job after receiving our quotation, a symbolic fee Rm 95.00 will then be imposed.
Learn more on evaluation fee verses cancellation fee.
Unsurpassed reasons why you should come to ADRC Malysia for data recovery
Top