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.

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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 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.

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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 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.

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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 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.

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Posted in: customer,Making,things