Remote Recovery

[shahij]

Suppose one of my client is having some issues with his data. He resides in Remote Area. So, it's difficult to send his media to my facility. After hearing the history, I feel, remote inspection is possible, even remote recovery can be possible.

Currently, the option is TEAMVIEWER, but Client/user can see what we are doing. Another option is SWITCHING OFF Monitor of user through TeamViewer, but still there is a problem - sudden internet connection may disconnect, power failure can happen.

In this situation, we want all the utilities/software will run from our LAB, but clients MEDIA will be accessed for inspection, recovery and saving the recovered data. so clients can't see what we do.

How can it be done? Any idea?

[digisupport]

Why is what you do a secret for your client?

[shahij]

We do everything secret, we don't allow our customers to our LAB, even you don't allow I believe.

In some situations, we get request for remote recovery, so why would we disclose our process?

So, it satisfied both party - the client and the service provider.

I believe, already many of DR experts are providing remote service through the process I explained, and many of DR will be interested as well.

[einstein9]

We do everything secret, we don't allow our customers to our LAB, even you don't allow I believe.

In some situations, we get request for remote recovery, so why would we disclose our process?

So, it satisfied both party - the client and the service provider.

I believe, already many of DR experts are providing remote service through the process I explained, and many of DR will be interested as well.

Well a piece of advice about that, you may tell ur client:

Either my WAY or the Highway...

if he likes will send if not why bother.

good luck

[MindMergepk]

Either my WAY or the Highway...

[day1data]

In this situation, we want all the utilities/software will run from our LAB, but clients MEDIA will be accessed for inspection, recovery and saving the recovered data. so clients can't see what we do.

Interesting point. We have tried this before and it doesn't work.

You are first limited to only logical recovery (less than 20% of data recovery cases). Any hardware issues cannot be solved remotely unless they have professional DR tools.
You cannot run any recovery software remotely without being on the same network. You can remote in with a VPN but then you have problems with file permissions.
The drive you are recovering the data from can't be in use or running the OS at the time.
The customer would have to provide a separate drive to recover the data to.
There are many factors that don't make it worthwhile.

I believe, already many of DR experts are providing remote service through the process I explained, and many of DR will be interested as well.

What kind of service are they providing? DR remotely is very limited.

[shahij]

In this situation, we want all the utilities/software will run from our LAB, but clients MEDIA will be accessed for inspection, recovery and saving the recovered data. so clients can't see what we do.

Interesting point. We have tried this before and it doesn't work.

You are first limited to only logical recovery (less than 20% of data recovery cases). Any hardware issues cannot be solved remotely unless they have professional DR tools.
You cannot run any recovery software remotely without being on the same network. You can remote in with a VPN but then you have problems with file permissions.
The drive you are recovering the data from can't be in use or running the OS at the time.
The customer would have to provide a separate drive to recover the data to.
There are many factors that don't make it worthwhile.

I believe, already many of DR experts are providing remote service through the process I explained, and many of DR will be interested as well.

What kind of service are they providing? DR remotely is very limited.

You got my point. That's exactly what I wanted.

By considering all the factors, the remote recovery will be limited to logical cases only.

The Drive (HDD/Flash Card) will be mounted as secondary to client PC.

What I want is, the Storage will be mounted in my end remotely, I'll inspect, recover etc (ex: winhex from my pc, the remote storage will be mounted under winhex). Any software I want to run, should be able to access/mount the storage what I want to recover.

I've some clients who are local data recovery service provider (with no facilities, they already send the drives with hardware failures), but want to take the logical recoveries remotely.
* In some logical cases, they fail to recover with their traditional procedure

Also, some clients from different city with some complex logical failures wants to take the services remotely.

By considering above things, I was thinking for such things.

Any direction will be helpful.
* I'll see also about VPN as you mentioned.

[shahij]

Well a piece of advice about that, you may tell ur client:

Either my WAY or the Highway...

if he likes will send if not why bother.

good luck

Usually, we do this. But it would open another flexible way in providing the service if it's really possible in practice

[day1data]

What I want is, the Storage will be mounted in my end remotely

Then the only way is to connect via VPN to the client. This will allow you to treat the drive as if it was connected to your computer.

[Alt(R-TT)]

Actually, R-Studio can do remote recovery, even through the Internet. These articles R-Studio: Data Recovery over Network and R-Studio Technician: Data Recovery over the Internet describe the overall concept of network data recovery and remote data recovery over the Internet. To my knowledge, the most daring case of Internet data recovery was when a data recovery company in the East Europe recovered data from a 5-HDD 3TB RAID5 for a customer in the South Africa. The recovery included finding the RAID parameters, assembling a virtual RAID5, scanning the RAID, and file recovery. All that took three days.
But mostly they use remote recovery for preliminary inspections, work assessments, etc.

[lcoughey]

Actually, R-Studio can do remote recovery, even through the Internet. These articles R-Studio: Data Recovery over Network and R-Studio Technician: Data Recovery over the Internet describe the overall concept of network data recovery and remote data recovery over the Internet. To my knowledge, the most daring case of Internet data recovery was when a data recovery company in the East Europe recovered data from a 5-HDD 3TB RAID5 for a customer in the South Africa. The recovery included finding the RAID parameters, assembling a virtual RAID5, scanning the RAID, and file recovery. All that took three days.
But mostly they use remote recovery for preliminary inspections, work assessments, etc.

But, this does not address the issue of the OP. There is no way to run R-Studio remote recovery without the client being aware that R-Studio is being used. You might as well connect remotely and run R-studio directly and at least get the faster.

To address the hidden remote recovery support, the only way that I know is to do it via linux command line.

[Alt(R-TT)]

When R-Studio Agent is running the client can see that R-Studio is used and how much data has been sent/received, and nothing more. And the IP address from which R-Studio is connected. I don't think that should bother shahij much.

R-Studio Agent does all data analysis on the remote computer and sends only the information necessary for R-Studio to correctly display the results of the operations. The only exception is data for Hex Editor. That's why running R-Studio - R-Studio Agent is less bandwidth-consuming than running R-Studio through any graphical remote desktop software.

If you have a remote login in a Windows/Mac/Linux machine, you may remotely run the Agent and the user will not even understand that you use R-Studio.

[Dmitri]

Currently, the option is TEAMVIEWER, but Client/user can see what we are doing. Another option is SWITCHING OFF Monitor of user through TeamViewer, but still there is a problem - sudden internet connection may disconnect, power failure can happen.

In case of a power loss all the results will be lost as well. In case of a disconnect not much should change before you're back online - remote machine will continue working as it was in the meantime.

And in my opinion you overestimate the issue. Once you start examining the data in hex mode, 99% of people (or more) will fall into a trance with the only thought in their mind: "The Matrix!".

P.S.
Should you get a remote recovery job permitting absolutely no exposure, please feel free to contact me, we'll be able to help with that.

[S.Haran]

My service specializes in remote RAID and logical recovery for clients world wide. All the client sees is a web browser launched to a chat service. This is done from a bootable Linux platform. I'm a Linux guy and much prefer to perform remote data recovery the Linux way, there are so many advantages over Windows. But on the occasion I need a Windows app I have the option to launch R-Studio or any other Windows app from inside Linux. It's the best of both worlds.

This may not be a solution for the OP, just confirming that it is possible to perform remote recovery where the work you do is not seen by the end user.

[Alt(R-TT)]

But on the occasion I need a Windows app I have the option to launch R-Studio or any other Windows app from inside Linux. It's the best of both worlds.

There's a Linux version of R-Studio with the same (almost) functionality, too. And Linux is much better for data recovery, even for Windows disks.

[data-medics]

To my knowledge, the most daring case of Internet data recovery was when a data recovery company in the East Europe recovered data from a 5-HDD 3TB RAID5 for a customer in the South Africa. The recovery included finding the RAID parameters, assembling a virtual RAID5, scanning the RAID, and file recovery. All that took three days.
But mostly they use remote recovery for preliminary inspections, work assessments, etc.

Actually I did a remote 6 drive RAID 50 for a guy in South America from here in the United States using R-Studio. They actually had it already installed on the computer, so I was just using remote access software to handle it rather than the network feature. Given that it was a RAID 50, I wasn't too worried they'd understand what I was doing even if they sat and watched.

[digitalferret]

"so clients can't see what we do."

is this not the root of all bad intent thrown at Data Recovery (and other service based) professionals?

[fzabkar]

"so clients can't see what we do."

is this not the root of all bad intent thrown at Data Recovery (and other service based) professionals?

My thoughts exactly. I always showed the customer whatever I did, and I always provided the damaged parts. To have done otherwise would have been unconscionable.