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). ...

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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 EliteDon’t assume the professional you’ve entrusted your drive to knows that the enclosure could make or...

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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...

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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...

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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 SocietyIn 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 FranklinFor eleven years I have worked in the data recovery industry working with Fortune 500...

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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,...

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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...

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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...

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