One day you start your computer and nothing happens, the presentation you have been working for the past week is in there because you haven't copied it to the server and of course you don't backup your hard drive, what about the pictures of your baby or your music collection, all gone.

This is a possible scenario many computers users will have to deal with, and even though most of the damage could disappear if the user have had a backup, the reality is that when this happens the backups are not up to date or they simply do not exist.

Can the data be recovered?

In many cases most of the data can be recovered, there might be some files here and there that are not possible to rescue though, but the majority can come back to you.
MVU Technologies can safely and securely recover hard disk drives data, including servers and laptop computers.

Types of failures

There are two type of failures, physical and logical.  Both have different approaches to recover the data stored in the media.  Generally speaking logical failures are more possible to recover than a physical failure, however there are techniques to attempt to recover data on media with mechanical and/or electrical failures.

Logical failure: A logical failure is not being able to access the data in hard drive in working condition.  This type of failure includes, accidental format of the drive and/or deletion of files, re-partitioning of the drive, re-format and re-installation of the operating system on top of valuable data, virus attack, file system corruption, not being able to boot your computer at all or the computer restarting by itself during the boot process, etc.  Logical failures do not require special facilities to deal with them such us clean rooms.

Mechanical Failure:  This type of failure is easy to detect, the symptoms are normally noises coming from the drive such as clicking, ticking, humming or grinding, or simply the hard drive not turning on at all.  This failures require more drastic approaches to recover the data, replacing electronics and even opening the device to attempt the recovery are the most common.  Mechanical failures are treated generally in clean environments and with very specialized tools and thus are more expensive than logical failures recoveries.

What  about RAID failures 

RAID array failures can also be recovered, the process is longer and more costly thoug.  A RAID failure exists when the controller can't mount the RAID due to more than one drive is in Error state, this can be doe to a serius physical failure in many drives, loose cables that produce intermitent contacts and as well as in the other cases logical issues in the file system.

What to do after a disk failure

• Turn off your computer.  Do not try to shut it down, simply disconnect the power cord, you won't do more damage.
• Write down the symptoms you noticed.  Noises, files not being found, etc.
• Call MVU Technologies and speak with one of our consultants.

How we work

When we are contacted to recover data we will first ask some questions on the phone to pin-point the type of failure and fair estimate the cost range of the recovery.  If you accept our estimate we will ask you to ship us the defective drive or RAID array, and if you are in our coverage area we can arrange to pick them up.  Once the drive arrives and within two business days we will give you a final formal quotation with the price that you will be required to accept in order to proceed to the recovery process, one the quotation is accepted we will start  the recovery process giving you the files back 72-96 hours later.  If you are in a rush we can rush the recovery process for an extra charge.

How is the data sent back

Depending on the amount ot data recovery you can be given the following options:

• FTP file transfer of a compressed archive with your files.
• A set of DVDs with your files
• A new hard drive with your files (the cost of the hard drive will be included in the quotation)