Data Recovery FAQs

Data Recovery Decision:

1. When should I start looking for a professional company for data recovery services in the St. Paul area?
   
   Answer: You should always seek help from a professional data recovery expert that services the St. Paul area at the first sign of data loss. The first data recovery attempt always carries the best chance to recover your data. Any 2nd or 3rd attempt has less and less chance for a successful data recovery.
   
   
2. What do you mean by “No Data, No Charge”?
   
   Answer: If we cannot recover the data that you are looking for, then there is no charge.
   
   
3. Is my data recovery confidential?
   
   Answer: Yes. All customer information and all recovered data are strictly confidential and are not to be disclosed to anyone except to employees or assigned technicians of Konicom.
   
   
4. Is data recovery even possible if the hard drive has been dead for months?
   
   Answer: Yes. As long as the hard drive has been left alone and not powered on, the condition of the data should not change over time.
   
   
5. When I turn on my computer I only see a blue or black screen. Is it still possible to retrieve my data?
   
   Answer: Yes. Please send your hard drive in for us for a free data recovery evaluation.
   
   
6. After my hard drive goes through data recovery, can I keep on using it?
   
   Answer: In most cases, we physically restore your hard drive just enough to copy the data off of your hard drive. However, the hard drive is not safe for long-term use. We do not recommend reusing hard drives that have gone through any data recovery process. In the event you do not have another hard drive to copy your recovered data to, we offer portable hard drives at a low price for our customers in the St. Paul area.
   
   
7. If I reset my computer to factory defaults, can my data still be retrieved?
   
   Answer: It varies for each company and particular computer model. Each case must be evaluated individually.
   
   

Data Recovery Evaluation:

1. What is the evaluation process?
   
   Answer: Please click here for detailed information
   
   
2. How long does the data recovery evaluation take?
   
   Answer: Most data recovery evaluations only take up to 2 hours.
   
   
3. Is it OK if I try to use an online data recovery program first before sending it in?
   
   Answer: We recommend not doing any kind of data recovery yourself. As mentioned above, the first attempt always has the best chance of data recovery.
   
   

Data Recovery Process:

1. How do I ship my hard drive from the St. Paul area to you?
   
   Answer: Please click here for shipping instructions
   
   
2. What is the Data Recovery Process?
   
   Answer: Please click here for data recovery process detailed information
   
   
3. How do you return my data to me?
   
   Answer: Please click here for data return process information
   
   

Data Recovery:

1. How long does data recovery usually take?
   
   Answer: In most cases our data recovery takes 1 to 4 business days.
   
   
2. Can you recover data from smartphones?
   
   Answer: Yes, we perform data recovery on most smartphones using the following operating systems: iOS, Android, Windows, and BlackBerry.
   
   
3. Can you recover data from water damage?
   
   Answer: Yes, data recovery is possible on water damaged drives.
   
   
4. Can you recover data from fire damage?
   
   Answer: Yes, we have successful data recovery cases on hard drives that have been damaged by fire.
   
   
5. Is data recoverable from hard drives that make clicking/grinding noises?
   
   Answer: Yes, with our ISO 5 / Class 100 cleanroom data recovery facility, we have a high success for recovering data on hard drives that make clicking/grinding noises.
   
   
6. Can I verify my data first before I decide if I want it?
   
   Answer: Yes, in all data recovery cases we provide a way for you to verify the recovered data first, before proceed to extract and transfer it to a new hard drive.
   
   

Non-recoverable situations:

1. Are there any cases where lost data can’t be recovered?
   
   Answer: Yes. If a platter has a ring scratch or if there is metallic dust inside the drive, the data is completely unrecoverable.
   
   
2. Can you recover data that has been encrypted by ransomware (CryptoWall, Crypto Locker, etc.)
   
   Answer: No, at this time there is no known solution for recovering ransomware-encrypted data other than paying for the ransom.
   
   
3. Can you perform data recovery on a hard drive that has run "chkdsk" or "scandisk" or any other partition repair utility?
   
   Answer: If a hard drive has run "chkdsk" or "scandisk" or any other partition repair utility, any files lost as a result are usually unrecoverable.
   
   
4. Is data recovery possible on a hard drive that has run Windows recovery console commands like "fixmbr" or "fixboot" and failed?
   
   Answer: If a hard drive has failed running Windows recovery console commands "fixmbr" or "fixboot", the data can still be recoverable but the operating system will need to be reinstalled.
   
   
5. Can you recover data from a hard drive that has recreated a deleted partition with "Fdisk" or "Disk Management"?
   
   Answer: If a hard drive has recreated a deleted partition with "Fdisk" or "Disk Management", the success of data recovery depends on how much the recreated partition was used. Not using the recreated partition at all will maximize your chance for a successful data recovery.
   
   
6. Can you recover data from a hard drive that was formatted and re-used?
   
   Answer: Data recovery is still possible directly after formatting, but the more you use the drive, the more you risk overwriting your old data and losing it forever.
   
   
7. Can you recover data from a hard drive from a failed RAID0 or RAID5?
   
   Answer: A RAID configuration that has been lost, corrupted, or misconfigured, is still recoverable if we have all the RAID drives and know the original RAID configuration. This of course still depends on the physical condition of each individual drive.
   
   

Data Recovery Cleanroom procedure:

1. What is an ISO 5 / Class 100 cleanroom?
   
   Answer: An ISO 5 / Class 100 cleanroom for data recovery is an environment with a controlled level of dust that is specified by the number of particles per cubic meter at a specified particle size.
   
   
2. Is it necessary to open up the hard drive in a class 100 cleanroom for data recovery?
   
   Answer: Yes. Whenever a hard drive is opened, platter exposure to dust can cause a micro scratch when the platter is read, causing the data to be lost forever.
   
   

Special drives:

1. What is RAID (hard drives)?
   
   Answer: RAID (originally called Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, now Redundant Array of Independent disks) is a virtualization technology used on data storage media. It combines several hard disk drives as a single logical unit to create storage redundancy for more efficient data management and performance.
   
   
2. What is an SSD (hard drive)?
   
   Answer: A solid-state drive (SSD) (or solid-state disk) data storage device that uses integrated circuit assemblies as memory to retain data persistently. It does not contain an actual disk, nor a drive motor to spin a disk. It is similar to the type of storage technology used by USB thumb drives/flash drives. Even though they are much more resistant to physical damage than traditional hard disk drives, when they do fail the data recovery process is more difficult. Due to the unforgiving nature of this technology, if one storage chip is damaged then all data is unrecoverable.