Digital Camera Memory Recovery

As an industry leader in data recovery for flash media such as digital camera memory cards, we feel like we might be able to help a few of you from ever loosing your data in the first place.  If you’re on our blog because you just experienced a data disaster – you accidentally formatted your memory card, deleted important images, or the card simply stopped working – STOP immediately and set the card aside.  Continuing to use the card increases the chances that you are overwriting images, and many recovery software programs can actually make the problem worse.  Contact us for help.

Read on for some tips to prevent data loss from digital camera memory cards (such as SD, SDHC, and CF cards).

Before each use, format your cards in the camera you plan to use them on (not the computer).  Formatting recreates the file system on the card and makes it less likely that the card will lose track of where your images are stored.  Remember: formatting erases all images on the card!  Before formatting check to make sure you have already downloaded the images to another form of media (preferably two other forms of media!). Resist the temptation to delete images while you are still shooting.  Deleting images in camera only increases the chances of an accidental “Delete All”.   Carry enough extra cards so you don’t have to worry about running out of memory, and delete the duds once the images have been safely transferred to another form of media.Store your cards in a protective plastic case.  The manufacturer usually provides one with the card, but you can also buy inexpensive ones that hold multiple cards if you carry a lot of memory.  CF cards in particular may appear durable, but they are vulnerable to physical damage.  Dirt and debris can get into the tiny holes on the card over time, rendering them unreadable. Turn off your camera before removing the memory card.  It’s not common, but failure to do so can cause electrical damage.If using a USB card reader to transfer images to your PC, make sure to properly eject the card reader before removing the memory card from the device. Bigger is not always better.  Memory is relatively inexpensive right now, and it may be tempting to buy the biggest card possible.   However, this creates a single point of failure and potentially 100% data loss – your whole vacation, an entire wedding.   Buy smaller cards and carry more of them.Replace your camera battery before it runs all the way down.  If the camera shuts off while writing to your card, you could experience data loss.Don’t put a password on your card unless you’re certain you will remember it.  Even data recovery companies can’t get around strong encryption used on most flash devices.

Hopefully these tips will help you completely avoid losing any of your images from flash cards.  If the worst should happen, however, you can be confident that we specialize in both logical and physical flash recoveries.  We’ve seen everything from deleted files to electrical damage to flash drives that have been run over by a car.  Contact us today to begin the recovery process.

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: Camera,Digital,Memory,Recovery

Keep the external enclosure!

There is a relatively new phenom in the hard drive industry. Hard Drive enclosures have become a crucial part of the recovery process with some external USB hard drives. If your external drive encrypts the data for you, then be sure to keep the enclosure with the drive when you send it in for repair/recovery and make sure you make a note to keep the enclosure intact and with the drive. If you are unsure whether or not your dirve might be encrypted, be on the safe side and keep the enclosure.

For example, these popular drives will encrypt the data stored on them:

Western Digital My Book EssentialWestern Digital My Book EliteMy Passport EssentialMy Passport Essential SEMy Passport Essential Elite

Don’t assume the professional you’ve entrusted your drive to knows that the enclosure could make or break the recovery results. We have had several projects over the past 6 months that have required us to retrieve the enclosure from the client or the company that had the drive before being shipped to our lab.  Recently, an enclosure had been thrown in the dumpster and could not be retrieved.

To be on the safe side, if you need data recovery for an external hard drive the safest course of action is to simply send the enclosure along with the drive. The drive doesn’t need to be inside, just included in the box. If you’ve been told the data is not recoverable send it in for a second opinion. We’ve had several successful recoveries from drives that were declared unrecoverable from other data recovery companies.

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: enclosure,External

The Dangers of System Restore Discs

So as most of us have witnessed, most manufactures of computers come with fancy ways to restore your computer back to its factory defaults as it shipped when you first got it.  They can have small system partitions on your hard drive that contain the files needed to restore  you computer back to the way it was when you first bought it.  On other occasions they will also send out the CD/DVD’s necessary to do the same thing.  This is very handy for when you want to start out fresh again since sometimes a system can accumulate tons of stuff you no longer want and have no idea on how to get rid of it all.

Other times your system starts to get the famous blue screen of death while booting causing you to not be able to get into windows due to corrupted system files.  System restores can fix this as well.

However, if the data on the drive is important and you do not want to lose it, DO NOT RUN A SYSTEM RESTORE.  Do not let anyone else run a system restore or tell you to run a system restore.  Even if you have a “tech” friend that says a system restore will fix it.  Oh, it will fix the problem sometimes, but at the expense of losing your data.

The best thing to do when a drive fails is to get a data recovery company to do an evaluation on the drive first.  Most companies do them for free.  The data recovery company’s primary concern is to get your data back as safely as possible.  Tech companies, most of the time just wants to get your system back up and running again.  That also goes for the computer manufactures tech support.

Be cautious if your data is important.  You do not want to make it worse before you go to a data recovery company. You can make our job much harder.  System restores overwrite data on your system, thus making it more difficult to get missing data back.

You never want to take risks when your data is on the line.  There are no magic “go back” buttons for overwritten data.  You may hear people say you can get back data from overwritten areas of the drive.  They are wrong.  Once it is overwritten, what was in that space is gone for good.

So the next time you system acts up and you are looking at the restore DVD or CD, put it down and think about the important data you have on  your system you really want back and get it looked at by a professional data recovery company.

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: Dangers,Discs,Restore,System

Making things easy for the customer

Data Recovery and Computer Forensic Examinations are relatively new concepts compared to the Rubik’s cube.  The services we provide are incident driven and are usually only needed when a disaster occurs.  The person experiencing the disaster usually has very little time to research and explore.  Thus, it requires them to go off of a referral, scan the internet, or pull out the yellow pages without really understanding what is all involved in the service and what are the potential outcomes after the service has been provided. 

With all new concepts, a degree of education has to take place for customers to understand the value.  Visualization is one of the best vehicles in offering education to customers.  What happens when you’re discussing data recovery or computer forensics over the phone, through an email, or to a potential customer that is a couple of states away? 

Process, positioning, and wording are critical when you’re under a tight timeline and a frantic customer.  We have seen businesses make the process to interact with the customer almost impossible or at the very least frustrating with automated dialing, excessive paperwork, or too many processes for payment.   The business usually has the best intentions for the customer and provides these steps to assist the customer with either speed, security, or to give them as many options as possible.  Positioning is also an important factor.  Positioning the company as A) We will take any clients, or  B) We will only take qualified clients makes a difference.  Companies that run through scripts and don’t fully understand the capabilities of their products or service to match it to the prospective clients usually take any client.  This usually positions the company as a drive through vendor.  Companies that qualify their customers usually address the customer’s exact concern, which positions the company as an expert. 

Wording plays a role in positioning.   Usually big words can be sniffed out pretty quickly as B.S. and the customer will not understand the value.  We like to use words or tell stories to show the customer the value.  Explaining how a hard drive is like a jet airplane flying a mach 3 four feet off the ground with little room for error gives more meaning to a client than a hard drive is a sensitive storage device with moving parts that may fail at any given time. 

At Flashback Data we have examined our processes throughout the six years and have come to the realization that easier is better.  I believe Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five says it best with “easy as 1, 2, 3”.  We have changed our process to three steps:  1 –We evaluate the device;  2 – We give a quote for the work; and upon approval 3 – We recover the data.  Not only are we walking the customer through the process, but also visualizing our process and paperwork with the 1, 2, 3 steps.  This allows the customers to have an expectation as well as it keeps them dialed in on where they are in the process.  This will be available manually or automated via our Client Portal depending upon the customer’s preference.  All incoming inquires will still continue to receive live, qualified personnel to answer their specific concerns, but the simplification in our process allows for our qualified personnel to have a further reach with incoming inquiry.  Flashback Data’s approach is continuing to be recreated and made as simple and visual as possible, so that the difficult concept of data recovery and computer forensics are easy to understand.

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: customer,Making,things

A Plan, a Contingency Plan, and an Emergency Plan

“A plan is a list of actions arranged in whatever sequence is thought likely to achieve an objective.” - John Argenti, author and founder of the Strategic Planning Society

In military school it was taught to always have a plan, a contingency plan, and an emergency plan in place before moving forward to achieve the objective.  In business, most people understand that a business always needs a plan, but few know that a contingency plan is also needed to be put in place in case something in the plan goes wrong.  Even fewer people understand the importance of an emergency plan in case the contingency plan fails, until it is too late.

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin

For eleven years I have worked in the data recovery industry working with Fortune 500 companies and government agencies.  100% of the businesses and agencies that I have worked with had no emergency plans in place, which costs them time and money.  After catastrophic events such as hurricanes, fires, and floods businesses are usually working with consultant to prepare plans for disaster recovery.  Unfortunately, many consultants workout plans and contingency plans for businesses, but fail to recognize and put in place emergency plans.

Take for example data from a Fortune 500 company.  By 2011, all Fortune 500 companies should all have a disaster recovery plan in place for their data.  The plan usually consists of making the data redundant through servers that store the data on a redundant array of independent disks (RAID).  The contingency plan usually involves the data being copied and stored offsite through tapes or mirrored offsite servers in data centers.  Unfortunately, this is where the planning stops.  No emergency plan is offered in case everything goes wrong.

“Failure is inevitable.  Success is elusive.” – Steven Spielberg

When the failure occurs it leaves the IT personnel and management of the company to develop crisis techniques and solutions on the fly, which usually proves to be more harmful than helpful.  Once the panic has subsided they start reaching out for data recovery experts.  Finding experts take time and money.  Capabilities, security, responsiveness, accreditations and costs are all important factors to consider when vetting the correct expert.  Usually a number of these factors are not considered when a company is in a panic.  Both time and money could have been avoided by putting in place an emergency plan that vetted and secured the correct expert.

Flashback Data offers data recovery cost protection plans that go in effect after the plan and contingency plan have failed.  This type of an emergency plan offers a flat low cost fee per year that will minimize downtime, save money, and detours panic.

Have you looked at your disaster recovery plan?

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: Contingency,Emergency

You’re Just Using Me For My Services

In forensics, one of the recurring themes we note when talking to professionals – both in the electronic evidence field and in other professions – is the calculus between client sophistication as a consumer of their profession and the quality of the service they can provide.

It’s not unusual for us to get a call from an attorney directing us to perform a specific task in a specific manner.  When the client knows (i) exactly what they’re asking for and (ii) exactly what they will get back, everyone is happy.  The challenge comes when what they’re asking for won’t result in what they want.  Too often, this is because the client wrongly believes he is asking the right question or using the right methodology to attain his goal.  Nearly every attorney is aware of electronic evidence, but often only casually so.

For example, let’s say someone is facing discovery in a lawsuit.  Counsel recalls a continuing education seminar from the previous year talking about “deleted isn’t really deleted” and something about “how to use keywords effectively.” Before you know it, he’s drafted and negotiated an entire discovery plan without help.  And by the time we’re involved, it’s an agreed Order signed by a judge.  And it stinks.
Having some familiarity with a skillset and its complexities, and recognizing (i) one’s own relative inexperience and (ii) the consequences of making mistakes, are the things that drive a person to use professionals in the first place.
A colleague recently related a story that illustrates the above perfectly.  His front lawn had begun to look a little shabby and he told his wife they needed to do something about it.  “We’re not going to spend a bunch of money on a landscaper for such a simple job!” she replied.  After a lot of digging and scraping, there was an uneven, ragged trench in the yard.  Realizing that some DIY had made it worse, they called a landscaper, who fixed the problem and exceeded their expectations in the process.  They underestimated the difficulty of the project and the degree of skill necessary to complete it.  The cost of hiring someone seemed prohibitive because of this miscalculation.  When they saw the situation more clearly, they realized the cost-benefit worked out in their favor.
It seems that when a client is aware of the limits of their knowledge, they accept a professional’s expertise much more readily.  Another good example is a surgeon – most of us would never think to perform our own surgery on a loved one, because we are aware of our ignorance of medicine and the potentially fatal repercussions of any mistake.
When we are deeply knowledgeable about a subject, even though it may not be our profession, we lean to the other side of the equation.  There are a great many people that repair their own cars, for example, while not being certified auto mechanics.
It is the middle ground – when we have a casual familiarity with a subject – where the danger lies.  We overestimate our skills and underestimate the project, leading to disaster.  Even having faced disaster, we feel as if we have learned enough from our mistake to avoid making another.  This new enlightenment isn’t enough to clear the hurdle and we end up in another disaster.
The key is for professionals to accurately assess the sophistication level of then client and then to inform without offending.  Clarify their desired objective and propose the methodology you think is best to achieve it.  Find out what they want and then tell them what they need.

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: Services,Using,Youre

Flashback Data’s new Client Portal

Back in 2004, we created one of the first client extranets in the data recovery industry.  This allowed customers to interact with the lab and see real notes from the technicians as they were working on their damaged media.  Many data recovery companies followed suit and created their own type of client portal.

As of 2 weeks ago, we have been beta testing our brand new client portal with new customers, and the response has been overwhelming.  Therefore, we are moving clients completely over to the new system this week.  We are very excited about this new way to help and interact with customers and we feel this is the most complete extranet in the data recovery industry.

We have now made it much, much easier for our customers to understand the data recovery process as well as eliminate all the paper involved.  As a customer using the new client portal, you be in complete control of the data recovery process every step of the way.  Our customers can get a window in to the entire process as well as all of the costs involved before accepting anything.  We have always believed in complete transparency, which is hard to find in this industry, and our new portal takes it to a whole new level.

Here is how it works:

Once you send in your damaged media, you will get an email with a username and password to log in to the Client Portal.  You can then immediately log in and check any status updates as the diagnostic process takes place.As soon as the lab has determined the problem with your device and the severity of the damage, you will be able to log in and see the diagnosis as well as the price for recovery.  At this point you can choose options for how you want your data returned.  This includes what media type you would like for us to put your data on to and how you would like it shipped back.  All prices for shipping and media are calculated on the fly and you will see an EXACT price for the recovery (Remember: Transparency)  You can then choose to accept or decline through the portal based on what you see.  You provide payment information at this time but obviously nothing is charged until we have a successful recovery that is approved by you.If you accept the recovery, you can always go back and log in to check the status on your job as our technicians are working to recover the data.When the job is recovered, you can log back in and download and review a file listing of your recovered data as well as make final payment if you are happy with the results.Once payment is made, the lab is notified to move your data to a the new device you chose in the previous steps.You will then be notified when it is shipped out (with tracking number) or ready for pickup.

We feel that we are innovators in both our technology and our customer experience and this takes the customer experience to the next level.  It gives you, the customer, full control and full transparency of the process in order for you to feel comfortable with our results.

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: Client,Datas,Flashback,Portal

Flashback Data Helps Central Texas Fire Victims

After having, friends and employees effected by the whole week of central texas fires, we decided to begin offering assistance to the any victim of these devastating fires by providing free evaluations for all service levels and $500 off our data recovery services.  We want to do this as close to our cost as possible and then we will assist you in getting reimbursed from your insurance provider.  We can take care of your computer or storage devices including USB memory cards, camera memory cards, iPads, iPhones and other removable media that has been exposed to fire, water, or physical damage.  We can help the fire victims recover critical data including irreplaceable photos, financial records, and other important information.

We also have an employee who lives in Steiner Ranch who can assist in finding, cleaning up and transporting and damaged media to our lab for recovery if necessary.  Please call us at 512-301-5700 and we will talk you through the process.

Here is what a nice customer we helped last year with a fire posted on the Steiner Ranch Social Commities Facebook page this week:

“We lost our home in Steiner over a year ago.  For those families retrieving their computers specifically those with a hard drive, do not turn it on!  Take them immediately and have the data removed. We were very fortunate that all data was retrieved from our 3 computers that received major fire, smoke and water damage. Flashback Data @ 866-786-5700 www.flashbackdata.com  did an amazing job and all was covered by insurance.”   - Suzanne Holman Steadman

Once again, we are here to help.  Please call us with any questions or concerns.

View the original article here

Read more »

Posted in: Central,Flashback,Helps,Texas,Victims