Recovery Force® Data Recovery Forum

Kroll Ontrack just posted a press release blaming DIY recovery attempts are resulting in a higher percentage of unrecoverable data recovery cases coming to professional data recovery labs. Meanwhile, on Kroll Ontrack's data recovery site, they post a link to DIY Data Recovery software that users can buy to try to attempt a recovery on their own.

I agree that DIY recovery is causing increasingly more unrecoverable cases. But, the question is, "Why are people choosing to go the DIY route rather than pay for professional data recovery services?" Ultimately, it comes down to the following:

1. Many of the larger labs charge considerably more than what the majority of users can afford
2. Many service companies assume that all data recovery labs and projects are expensive based on a single experience in the past
3. The internet allows for the sharing of knowledge, unfortunately, without verification that the knowledge is accurate or truthful

Sadly, had the end user been aware that there were more affordable professional data recovery service options before they attempted things on their own, they likely would have sought professional data recovery services before they attempted things on their own.

I agree, while it appears Seagate has come down some on their prices I think companies like drive savers are still scaring individuals off. I just recovered a 2TB WD that was in a QNAP (RAID 1). The company sent both drives and they were quoted $8000! It's a mirror! It's not like they needed to recover both drives and rebuild the array. Can you imagine if they had not looked for another estimate? Everyone at that company that heard about this would think recovery is not even affordable for their employer, much less an individual.
As far as DIY goes, maybe television plays a part. It only takes about 12 minutes to hack the Pentagon so how difficult can it be to get your data off of a failed HDD?

yeah...TV doesn't help. When TV geeks are able to pickup a random hard drive platters off the floor after an explosion and within 15 minutes tell the investigator that they haven't full decrypted the drive, but have some super high resolution photo showing the face of a shooter 15 miles away in the reflection of a tinted window 5 miles away from the camera, it stands to reason that viewers might not have an accurate understanding of how technology works.

...we should almost get a group of smaller labs together, agree on pricing and all invest in a joint marketing campaign to let the world know that there are more affordable options out there, many of whom have recovered drives deemed unrecoverable by the more expensive labs.