Company policy regarding missing data

[sknopp]

All,

In a nutshell, what is your (your company's) policy if data is recovered, but the customer claims some is missing? I did a headswap on a 160 GB Seagate and got almost all of the data, but the customer is coming back saying that some of his important files are missing.

Shawn

[BlackST]

Didn't you send a file list BEFORE and did they approve ? I usually - when possible - give also a list of good deleted files and recover them as extra. Approval is a tombstone on further claim for missing data !

[dobrevjetser]

Yep, we also send a file list for approval. This avoids a lot of problems.

[pclab]

Hi

Only after the client approves the file list, we deliver the data to him.
If he says NO, he doesn't get anything.
If only we can recover a part, we can get a price agreement to deliver that part.

Cheers

[chinopk]

may be asking the customer about the important data, partition information, desired data location, folder names etc, before going for recovery, so you would know either you get the data or not !!

getting approval definitely avoid problems..

[zebong]

you should asked for wich files are the most important, and send a list of the recovery files for the client approved.

[dick]

Can we include damaged or corrupted files as well?
It might not be possible to test every recovered file individually though they might show in the recovered file list.
What do you do then?

[zebong]

Can we include damaged or corrupted files as well?

Yes, is possible to send a list of a non recovery files, or recovery with error.

It might not be possible to test every recovered file individually though they might show in the recovered file list.
What do you do then?

If you read the sector where the file is you do not need to test the file, assuming that the file is ok.

[SquaL]

There was some discussion on this before here: software-report-files-t17378.html.

There is another further back.

[BlackST]

If customers really want, a formal correctness check can be carried out at extra charge for the files they want...

[sknopp]

Thanks for all of the replies. This is the first time someone has come back strongly with dissatisfaction. I always give the customer the 'I can't guarantee 100% recovery', but this particular case was outsourced to me. Does anyone know of a program that will perform a file integrity analysis?

[Cleanroom]

When the client comes in we always ask on our paperwork what data is most critical for the recovery to be worth him spending any money on. If they accept the price based on our evaluation we do the data recovery. Once it is completed we check the critical file specified and test them to make sure they work. They then receive the file listing to review.

If the files they ask for are there and they work it is considered a good recovery and the client is charged accordingly. We never have had an issue this way.

Typically if certain data is critical the client will know what these files are since that is the reason they are coming in.

It is very rare a customer will come in and vaguely write down that they want all the jpg's, xls, doc, mp3, ppt and then after the recovery come back and say there was only 1 file i really wanted on my desktop called audit.pdf. They will know ahead of time.

Your client may be trying to get out of having to pay for something he know longer wants and this is the easiest way since you have no way to confirm or deny his claims since it was not stated originally.