Data recovery / extraction service and forensics?

[D_R]

Hi,

In the last weeks, I was looking for a new service I can offer when the repair business is dead. And one of the closest services, that I can offer is the recovery of data from HDD, SSD, USB-Sticks and SD-Cards or Phones and maybe navigation systems as a part of forensic work.

First of all, the people are willing to pay money for the data recovery. And in most cases the recovery is a straight forward process.

First of all, lets take a HDD. First of all, I thought, I need a clean room for the process. Well, small companies doesn’t have a clean room. They use Glove Boxes for their work and even some of them thing that it’s unnecessary.

And what do you have to do in data recovery of a HDD?
First of all, you can have electronics problems, so you have just to clean some contacts of ultrasonic the board. Or you have real hardware issues. You open the disk. Sometimes you have heads, which are stucked to the Surface of the platter. You just move the heads back und you are done. In few cases you have to switch heads or the platter to a donor HDD. It’s something you can do with tools for about 1k.


For SSD you have also electronics problems. But the most problems are software / firmware based. So you just have to put the drive into tech mode and “repair” it with a software for just 2k like PC-3000 SSD from ACE Labs.

Well, for USB Sticks most of all, you have damaged electronics or USB Port you just have to solder back on. Or you have to extract the NAND Chip and recover it like a SD-Card.

For (monolithic) SD-Cards you have to use a sandpaper to get to the internal contacts of the PCB and microsolder some jumper wires to it. Then you can use a tool / software to recover the data. The invest is about 2k for the kit.


So what do you think, is it worth to diversify in to the data recovery business?
Against the diversification you have the low prices for SSD, where you don’t have the problems of the most HDDs. About the stability of the SSD Firmware I can’t say anything.

Another “Problem” is that backup solutions are getting cheaper and cheaper. You today you can buy a cheap 3TB USB-Drive for 70€ for backups or use one of the Cloud-Backup Services.

Another thing, I can’t talk about is the worth of the Data of a user. What do you think, how many users are going to pay 600-1.000€/$ to get the data back?

On the other hand, the invest isn’t that much. You just need 2-4 Jobs of about 15min-1h each and you are even.

 

[larossmann]

What I find is that for the end consumer, when data recovery goes over $300, they do not pay. They don't want to.

It doesn't matter how much money they have, or how important the data is. They just don't pay. They say they will but never come to pick up the data.

Now if we are recovering data from an iPhone for $250-$300 and they want to trade it in to get a new phone, they want the phone faster.. they'll pay more for rush data recovery.

But for JUST DATA RECOVERY BY ITSELF - consumers, on average, you will not pull more than $300 from.

So this is something to consider. You will have to take a deposit. If you do not take a deposit or they refuse to pay a deposit, just assume you're not getting paid. A few years back I had to decide whether to get into board repair or data recovery. I chose board repair because if people do not pick up and pay, I can sell their machines. There is tangible value to these machines to other people. There is no value to someone's baby pictures to anyone besides the parent.

As time goes on, you also have the fact that backup solutions are getting cheaper, cloud backups are becoming cheaper, storage is becoming more reliable. Data recovery has its place, but once we are at the point where repair dies, I feel like data recovery might as well.

 

[JorgePayar]

What I find is that for the end consumer, when data recovery goes over $300, they do not pay. They don't want to.

It doesn't matter how much money they have, or how important the data is. They just don't pay. They say they will but never come to pick up the data.

Now if we are recovering data from an iPhone for $250-$300 and they want to trade it in to get a new phone, they want the phone faster.. they'll pay more for rush data recovery.

But for JUST DATA RECOVERY BY ITSELF - consumers, on average, you will not pull more than $300 from.

So this is something to consider. You will have to take a deposit. If you do not take a deposit or they refuse to pay a deposit, just assume you're not getting paid. A few years back I had to decide whether to get into board repair or data recovery. I chose board repair because if people do not pick up and pay, I can sell their machines. There is tangible value to these machines to other people. There is no value to someone's baby pictures to anyone besides the parent.

As time goes on, you also have the fact that backup solutions are getting cheaper, cloud backups are becoming cheaper, storage is becoming more reliable. Data recovery has its place, but once we are at the point where repair dies, I feel like data recovery might as well.

Where is the gold advise button to click on? Seriously very good answer Louis.

Do you have a fast service for customers? I mean if somebody needs his machine in a day or so do you have an extra fee for those customers?

 

[Puevig reven]

So true Louis, I have had at least 5-6 data recovery companies stop into my store in the last 2 months. Some were large corporate companies, going door to door asking if they can advertise their services in my store. The $300.00 mark is very accurate in my experience too.

 

[D_R]

What I find is that for the end consumer, when data recovery goes over $300, they do not pay. They don't want to.

Do you really think so? On the other hand, let's take the ransomware. The owner oft he ransomware wanted to have 1BTC from the users to get the data back. It’s currently 450 USD and some of the users paid the fee to get the data back.

Well, but maybe you are right, that a private customer doesn’t want to pay over 300$ for his data. But aren’t 300$ for data recovery better than 300-400$ to repair a board?

But I don’t know, I just looked on some German sites, that are offering data recovery services.
Some of them want 1.300€ + spare parts + destination HDD for data recovery: http://www.kuert-datenrettung.de/festplatte/festplattenrettung-ab-1299-eur.html

And some one has to pay their prices, if they are still calling it. Maybe another good idea is to combine the data recovery with forensics and offer the service to law enforcement. I don't know the situation in US but in Germany the law enforcement itself doesn't have the capacity to handle all jobs itself, so they have to outsource the service to other companies.