Will this forum jeopardise our bread and butter?

I am doing a data recovery myself, but i'm concern this forum will eventually either destroy or jeopardise our data recovery business.

I know it is good to help others but if it will destroy my bread and butter sorry to say i will think twice giving out info.

Some of you might argue strongly about "Freedom of Information" think again, there are more and more companies or individuals opening up Data Recovery companies....all around the world....it's more like wild flowers now...

How many of you professional data recovery gurus received hard drives Which you're unable to recover the data after a newbie data recovery guys have screwed the drive?

In my opinion, i would be very careful sharing info in public forums. Tha't just my opinion.

Any feedback welcome.

Ummm it is a tough discussion on this topic, but in some points i agree with you. We study very hard with thousands of hours spent, lack of sleep, eye strain and insomnia , it seems our knowledge is being hijacked.

5 years ago Data Recovery was good, lost pictures or deleted files were still a pro's job....but these days DIY software and duscussion how to recover the data widely talked about, it means we get less income because of that.

These days, one step higher...we talked about pcb, firmware, etc.

I don't know guys....hard topic....if you dont share you might be labelled arrogant...but then are you wiling to sacrifice your "bread and butter?"

What would you expect ? Today there are no secrets... and will appear more and more DR companies and more newbies and also more people with recovery requests.

There will be also more people sharing and requesting info and forums like this one, and that is a good thing.

Look whats happening with Data Recovery products, just this year 2 news products are scheduled to be available to professionals. The investments, investigation and research in Data Recovery/Forensic products were never so high like now and that means the best is still to come.

Will this forum jeopardize our bread and butter?
Don`t think so... It will help to distinguish the HDDGURU from the average power user Joe, because Repairing a Hdd is just not for everybody. Or you have it in your blood or you not!

Ho! by the way, i`m a newbie

_________________
"Dum Spiro, Spero"

I fully agree, and believe that this sort of forum should be very strictly membership only, with a monthly or annual fee.

I have spent many years researching, at great expense, the ins and outs of data recovery and am loath to give out this information to someone who, on the offchance, is willing to try - and sometime succeed, with the help given via this forum, recovering their data.

Why should we, as professionals, make our knowledge free?

As far as I'm concerned, many people who arrive at this forum are simply freeloaders and should do their own research, at their own cost, to arrive at a solution.

I'm more than happy to help those (of which there are a few on this forum) who are in a position to reciprocate with a little help when I am stuck.

I am not willing to help the freeloaders.

The sooner this forum is "closed" to anyone but people who make a living from data recovery, the better.

I'd far rather pay, say, 10 euros a month for access to this forum, knowing it was not available to every scrounger who stumbles on it.


Duncan

As we all know, Data Recovery can mean anything from removing a drive from a computer and copying files to a CD, to replacing a head stack. Let's be realistic, the average guy is not going to do a head swap successfully. If they do, more power to them. Personally, I don't mind if someone figures out something simple themselves, or manages to do something simple with a little help. We all must realize that a great many people are simply not willing to pay for data recovery. I've seen so many customers like this, it's almost a joke.... They absolutely positively need their data back, but once they hear it might cost them something, even only $100 US, they suddenly can live without the information. If their data was REALLY important, they would send it out to a real DR company. The fact they are looking for a free solution tells me they wouldn't be a customer anyway.

With that said, it would be nice to have a place where Men can talk like Men, and not be interrupted by little boys. (No offense to the ladies, of course

First let me say that this post isn't meant to offend
anyone, if it does I apologize in advance.
This is HDDGURU forums. Nowhere in any of the categories
is there anything that represents that this forum is about
"The business of data recovery ",or
"Succeeding in the business of data recovery”.
It is about data recovery and repairing storage mediums.
Those are completely different things altogether.
Do you see the difference?

There are over 16000 posts in these forums, and over 4000 past
and present members , and I would venture to bet that of those
members very few, if any, know ALL there is to know about hard drives.

If you don't succeed in the business of data recovery, it's not because
someone gained knowledge on this forum. I would say look to yourself
and how you conduct business. What are YOU doing wrong, what is
your competition doing right ?

I'll give an example:
There are complete manuals for every part of every automobile
ever made, yet auto repair shops thrive. Some succeed, some fail.
But the failures are not because information was or was not available.

So-what if the kid down the street tries to fix a hard drive and destroys
data ( or even succeeds ). Do you really care? Does it really affect you?

For you to succeed in business, you have to run your business so that
customers will come to you and not the competition. And you have to
make your customer want to come back if he/she has another problem.
Know your customer and your customer's needs.
Know your abilities and you inabilities, and work accordingly.
Network with others; build YOUR reputation as someone customers
will want to deal with and you will succeed.
Get a bad reputation and it doesn't matter if you are the BEST
Hard drive Guru in the world, you will fail.

Now again, not meaning to offend, but HeadCrash, you have been
a member of this forum for 6 months, and unless you have changed
your name, have made 2 posts ( this being 1 of them ).
So, you fall into 1 of these categories:
1. You know everything and are not willing to share
2. You don't visit the forum often
3. You lurk the forum and think you have learned everything
4. You are truly afraid of anyone else gaining knowledge

The real question is not "Will this forum jeopardize our bread and butter"
But instead "Will fear jeopardize this forum"

Because of this forum and others like it, knowledge is there to
allow for more data to be recovered and more devices to be
repaired. It does not and will not guarentee that ANYONE
reading this forum will succeed or fail in "The Business"

Business Success is YOUR responsibility, and to succeed you will
need much more knowledge than this forum can or will provide.

Sorry for the long post
And of course, this is just My humble opinion


Steve

Hi Steve & others.
Humble or not, your right all the way.
Of course all depends on how well you perform, how inventive you are, and how much you self are willing to learn...as you said, most of it is out there in black/white.
But in the beginning we are all kids...and we need to learn how to walk before we can run...right!
So see this forum as a booster for all of us.

I think there is plenty of room for us all, 10 years ago there where only a few percent of us that worked with DR, and there where only maby aboute 10% of us that used a computer on daily basis.
Today the situatiion is another...more people that have computers, but also more people that is out there to fix them, so I think the percentage is still the same

And some of us here that have been here for a while chat and exchange knowledge outside the forum anyway, so I don't think all of the secrets is revealed here.

Regards/ Bosse

_________________
Rescue IT Datarecovery service Sweden
Rescue IT Dataräddning Göteborg AB
http://www.rescue-it.se

And anyways most of the problems that occur in hdd today requires special tools and special knowledge even if someone gets that knowledge from here will he go for the tool ?

Data Recovery is a bit like being a Doctor. Lots of knowledge, constant learning of new techniques, lots of specialized and expensive tools, and a steady hand are all required to be in the business. If someone manages to stitch their own wound, that doesn't make them a Doctor.

The other problem with this sort of public forum is that it encourages incompetent people to set up as "data recovery specialists."

I have had countless drives for recovery that have first been to these "specialists" who charge "$99 for any recovery" and who tend to screw things up beyond recovery - even by those of us who are hardened professionals.

They are responsible for rendering some drives beyond recovery.

They feel that a bit of reading and research automatically qualifies them as professionals.

This is not the case - and I have plenty of experience from having received drives from these cretins who have damaged platters beyond recovery - simply because they do not have the experience, and who are professionally negligent.

I personally spent two years researching data recovery (with an IT hardware background of 20 years) before I did my first "live" head transplant on a client's drive.


Duncan

I'm with you Odiferous

I think it is important to keep this forum open. I'm interested in how things work inside a HDD and here are many knowledgeable people. However I'd never open a drive to perform DR because that's beyond my abilities and I know it.

But there are cases in between where I want to hear an opinion like "forget it, only DR pros can do it and it will be expensive" or "don't do it yourself if you never did it, but for a pro it is easy" or "it looks like big damage but only xyz is wrong". You can only improve your knowledge from people who really know it. And just because I want to improve my knowledge, I won't open a DR service tomorrow.

I understand your fears but this forum also educates people to do the right thing. If people here tell me "that is something only a pro can do", I will believe it and if the data is worth it I will take it to a professional DR company. And I would not start to fiddle around with different tools and eventually make things worse and more complicated for the DR guy.

Take-home message from me is: The visitors of this forum are not just people that want to leech know-how and want to start a DR business with it. There are also interested people that want to hear a pro's opinion.

Best regards,
weaker

I think that Steve opinion is very good .... I agree with you steve

_________________
Ahmed Samy
Al-Ahram for computer services
http://www.alahram-group.com

yes i agree with Odiferous and HeadCrash it will affect our business, If you do not wish to publish the methods, best is to Private Message (PM) the person you wanted to help out. Or have a separate locked sections with membership only

Well i recently had a hdd problem that i was never going to goto a professional about (why spend ~AU$1000 to recover photos from a recent trip when i can spend a bit more and go again), and this forum has proved invaluable.

Those who feel that posting in this forum will ruin their livelyhood are welcome to simply not post, rather than calling for this forum to be closed off to an elite group.

i agree with the posts made here that in alot of cases one needs to have the tools and the kowledge to use them correctly in order to repair a hard drive. whether this forum exists or not i think there wil always be individuals who have played with a hard drive and made the recovery impossible for those who possess the tools and knowledge.
end of day forums are generally an open place where people come to look for ideas share information and ask questions but no one is under any obligation to post an answer if they dont want or as stated earlier they can PM an answer if they dont want it seen by all.
setting up a correct DR shop is expensive and required ongoing learning and not to forgt a large stock of spare parts, something that i am sure a causual user will not go and setup just for 1 recovery.

I fully understand the fears and worries expressed by the professional specialists.

My opinion is the following:
If you have valuable data, and want to get it back in a reliable and professional way, and are ready to pay a justified price: don't take the risk and ask a professional. If you try yourself, be prepared to screw up - and don't complain after the fact.

I'm in the position that my lost data doesn't justify to pay 1000$ upwards. I also don't want to give the drive out of my hands. I am ready to give it a try, and I'm ready to accept that I will screw up. If I do, so what; the data just remains dead and gone, so there is no difference.

In such a condition I still want to do it the best way I can, so understandingly I seek advise from people who have done it already or are doing it regularly. I will highly appreciate their comments.

Does this jeopardize your job? No, I don't think so. It's just a way to entertain myself, since I am in any case not ready to invest big money.

g.

I think to us that have to support a complete DR operation, with lab costs, specialized people, investigation and so on, it's very frustrating to check that a lot of drive reach you after they reached the "specialized recovery companies that charge 100 €", and then you have twice the work and half the chance of getting the data back.
If you are talking with an IT engineer maybe he will understand the difference between a serious DR company and the others, but if you are talking with the other 60 or 70% or people who looses data and want to recover, but they have no idea of what is a data recovery company, they'll go probably by the price and then you've got a problem.
I'm not against sharing, but on some cases this will lead to bad consequences on those who spend their time maintaining their companies.

I think dmarques has summed up a very good point. Well done.

So, if anyone decides to set up a paid forum for professional DR companies, I will surely support it.