Re: recommendations for data recovery?

["Christopher E. Cramer" <chris.cramer () DUKE EDU>]

Hi Folks,

Thanks for all of the information.  Based on the recommendations of this
list a few other places, the department went ahead with Ontrack.  From
what I later heard, it was an interesting process.  They sent the dept an
enclosure where they mounted the disks.  Ontrack then manipulated the
disks remotely.

Apparently, the process is that Ontrack charges you an assessment fee.
The assessment is actually an attempt to get back your data.  If they
recover your data, they then give you a price for returning it to you.  I
don't have reliable numbers for either the amount of data (probably in the
1-5 terabyte range) or the cost to the department, but I believe the cost
was fairly high.

Ontrack can definitely work miracles, but like in any good story, they
come at a steep price.  :)

thanks again for all of the recommendations.

-chris


On Tue, 27 Sep 2005, Koerber, Jeff wrote:

> We have used Ontrack Data Recovery and they have performed miracles with recovering data (even on a hard drive that 
> had been overwritten with a new image).  The down side is that they aren't cheap.  It runs $100 for them to analyze 
> your media.  They will then give you a list of files that can be recovered and a quote (usually between $200-2000 
> additional for a single hard drive) for a full recovery.
>
> I have never used them for an RAID array, but I know that they can recover them.
>
> If the hard drive is still functional, you can even install their software so they can do a remote recovery which 
> will save you time and shipping.
>
> You can get a discount if you use their partner program (see http://www.ontrack.com/partner/).
>
> Jeff Koerber
> Field Support Coordinator
> Office of Technology Services
> Towson University
> Towson, MD
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Giacobbe [mailto:giacobbej () MAIL MONTCLAIR EDU]
> Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 11:23 AM
> To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
> Subject: Re: [SECURITY] recommendations for data recovery?
>
> Lee-
>
> On two occasions we've used a data recovery company called ActionFront
> (http://www.actionfront.com) and they've been great.  You can send them your disks for a free evaluation, and they'll 
> only ask for payment
> *after* they have successfully recovered your data.
>
> All in all a top-notch company and they seem to work miracles recovering data - even from esoteric configs. The first 
> time we used them was to recover two Sun drives that were part of a Solaris Disk Suite striped concatenation volume 
> (say that 3 times fast) And it was an ancient copy of Sol Disk Suite... They recovered it!
>
> Best of luck,
>
> Jeff Giacobbe
> Director of Systems, Security, and Networking Montclair State University
>
>
> Lee Weers wrote:
> > At a previous employment we have used this company to recover a
> > corrupt Exchange database.
> >
> > http://www.ontrack.com
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Christopher E. Cramer [mailto:chris.cramer () DUKE EDU]
> > Sent: Monday, August 08, 2005 10:28 AM
> > To: SECURITY () LISTSERV EDUCAUSE EDU
> > Subject: [SECURITY] recommendations for data recovery?
> >
> > Let me start by apologizing to those who receive multiple copies of
> > this, but we're in need of a bit of help.
> >
> > One of the departments at Duke has been using an Apple XServe RAID and
> > ran into a problem.  As I understand it, one of the drives went bad.
> > While restoring the replacement, a second drive went bad.  The
> > department was able to send the disks off to a data recovery shop
> > which was able to repair at least one of the bad drives.  So, in
> > principle, we have the N-1 disks available to restore the data.  The
> > problem is that the XServe RAID is not recognizing and incorporating
> > the drives into the array.
> >
> > We're working with Apple on addressing the problem, however, in the
> > meantime we are starting to plan for the contingency that the drives
> > can't be reintegrated into the RAID.  We have spoken with the initial
> > data recovery shop about the possibility of taking the data off of all
> > N-1 disks and performing the striping and parity checking necessary to
> > recover the original information.  Unfortunately, this appears to be
> > outside of the company's area of expertise.  Given that, we are
> > looking for recommendations for data recovery companies who may have
> > done something like this.
> >
> > If you know of anyone who has such experience, please let me know.
> >
> > Sincerely,
> > Chris
> >
> > --
> > Christopher E. Cramer, Ph.D.
> > University Information Technology Security Officer Duke University,
> > Office of Information Technology
> > 334 Blackwell St., Suite 2106, Durham, NC 27701
> > PH: 919-660-7003  FAX: 919-668-2953  CELL: 919-210-0528