Will this forum jeopardise our bread and butter?

[HeadCrash]

Anyone clever enough to participate?

[salvationlaura]

well, some standard regulaitons should be released.

[HeadCrash]

what exactly do you mean Laura?

[HeadCrash]

Reminder!

[harddrivespecialist]

Hello Everyone!

In my opinion this forum could only take a fraction of the work from data recovery firms, becauase only people who are not willing to pay for a data recovery are willling to risk their data and attempt a recovery themself. On another hand, other forumers realize how much knowladge, time and tools is required for a data recover, are more educated about a process, and in some casses they tend to pay that price for a recovery.

Yes, this forum might take some easy work from DR firms for which they would charge huge $$$, but if you are expecting to do easy work for big $$$, you can expect to go out of business, because competition in DR is going to be very harsh, very soon.

This forum does not carry enough information to became a DR specialist.

In my opinion, good specialists will not loose any bread and butter from this forum, but will only benefit from it.

Good luck to all of you!

[patsphone2]

I would like to add that, if it weren't for the open nature of this forum, I would have already tried to fix my drive myself. I would have almost certainly destroyed it and lost a month worth of very valuable data. Thanks to the advice from the users here a professional DR company will make between $500-$2500 on the job. Anyone here that is worried about losing work to a noob because of a web forum should maybe worry more about their insecure attitude.

[jono-ats]

It is hard to predict if or how someone's behavior might be affected by an anonymous newsgroup. Others might be emboldened enough to destroy their drives, whereas you gained caution and wisdom . . .

IMHO, it's possible that SOMEONE might lose a DR client because of advice we provide. But the chances it would be any firm posting on this forum are slim indeed.

OTOH, there are a lot of cheap and fearless S.O.B.s who will solicit free info and get just what they pay for . . . .

One problem with forums is that there is no quality control - you might be getting very bad advice along with the good. If you are a NOOB, you have no way of knowing.

Jon

[patsphone2]

True, but if you stick around a forum long enough, and do enough of your own research you can usually tell who's giving it to you straight and who the arseholes are. When I first read this thread I was actually kind of shocked at the protectionist attitudes displayed by some. My full-time job is that of a visual effects artist for television commercials and film. There is no way I would be as good at what I do if it weren't for open web-forums devoted to the subject. Now, when some noob effects guy asks a question on a forum I'm usually one of the first guys to try and help him. That's how all of us on those forums are, and we're all better artists for it. The guys that don't help are usually the ones that aren't doing too well in the first place.

[franckrules]

Hello Everyone,

When a newbie ask a question we can often see answer really technical answer from expert witch I'm pretty sure the newbie doesn't understand if they figure out how to understand the information they deserve it.

It's funny the way I start in DR I use to be an IT guy one of my customer had a N40P on his server. I look on forums i tried a few thing (nothing destructive). I bought an HDD the same model I tried to disassembles this one and try to reassemble it ( I messed it up bing time). So I told my customer I can try to figure out how to repair your HDD I might kill the drive big time or If your data are really important I'll send it on a specialize DR company so he decide to send it to a DR cie.

So most people looking for answer on Forums are not going to pay anyway for DR or will realize that's beyond their knowledge.

100$ Company are giving us good publicity since they cannot manage to do most of jobs.

A good customer should try shopping and make a few calls to see differences between services before sending their drive so if they get foul by a cheap price they deserve their data to be unrecoverable (or the cost of recovery to double since the other company mess it up) and they should learn from this. In life price is one thing and service and quality is an other thing.

Some people gave the idea of a monthly fee forum for my self when I have time and I have the answer I'm please to help in this forum but. Since I answer more than I ask why should I paid monthly fee to share my knowledge. So only people who will pay are newbies who think by paying they will have answer to their question. I don't thing gurus will pay to share knowledge.

My point of view this forum should definitely stay public and free.

[harddrivespecialist]

First of all, this is up to Dmitriy (a designer of this site and forum) what to do with it, make it a commercial site or a free one.

Second, I have learned from my own experience, when you are trying to answer a question for which you don't have an answer for and you forced to find answer for it, you become more knowladgable in this subject.

So, I do support an opinion that only those who lack knowladge will block an idea of sharing information with others, but would want to gain more information on their behalf.

If all scientist's would not share their foundings with others, we would still be in a stone age.

[harddrivespecialist]

I want to propose to set up a conference for DR people to share information.

Those who are willing to participate, please respond to a topic that has been setup on this forum or pm me personally.

[salvationlaura]

Hello Everyone,

A good customer should try shopping and make a few calls to see differences between services before sending their drive so if they get foul by a cheap price they deserve their data to be unrecoverable (or the cost of recovery to double since the other company mess it up) and they should learn from this. In life price is one thing and service and quality is an other thing.


My point of view this forum should definitely stay public and free.

I appreciate your point of view.

[pepe]

Hi,

My main problem with sharing special info is that as far as I see there are many people out there using cracked/non legal copies of tools providing 25$ services. I just don't like the idea of supporting such labs...
I know some members here will not disclose the info I give, and I do help them when I can.
To patsphone2:
Suppose U own a studio and u are making TV commercials. U bought some expensive machines to do it as good as U can.
Suppose someone in the neigbourhood finds a way to set up a studio using stolen machines. He wants to provide the same service you do but let's say at a 30% price. Would U go help him?
As I do, I am open to share info even with concurrent firm local to me provided we can do some business together.

pepe

[patsphone2]

To patsphone2:
Suppose U own a studio and u are making TV commercials. U bought some expensive machines to do it as good as U can.
Suppose someone in the neigbourhood finds a way to set up a studio using stolen machines. He wants to provide the same service you do but let's say at a 30% price. Would U go help him?
pepe

Pirated software is a huge problem in our industry as well. With the tools costing anywhere between $1000 for something like After Effects to $250,000 for a full-blown Autodesk Flame system there is no shortage of people trying to get software for free. There is no way to tell the difference between the legit guy and the thief. The one thing that DOES separate us though is talent and reputation. If a guy is a bad artist or his ethics are questionable he won't do well no matter how much hacked software he has. Talent and honesty can't be taught on a web forum. That principal applies to any business as complicated as DR or special effects.

[rchadwick]

I tend to agree. Professionals do things the right way. I really don't see much difference between a kid charging $99 flat fee who has some shareware tools, or maybe DD, and a kid with a bootleg PC3000 who charges $99 flat fee. Amateurs are amateurs. There isn't a tool available that can turn a noob into a DR Guru. Most don't even know what they don't know. I am much more concerned about the $99 kiddies. This might be obvious to us, but people get suckered every day by those guys. Even if someone doesn't use one of them, when they compare prices, they make our rates look like thievery.

[grig85]

I tend to agree. Professionals do things the right way. I really don't see much difference between a kid charging $99 flat fee who has some shareware tools, or maybe DD, and a kid with a bootleg PC3000 who charges $99 flat fee. Amateurs are amateurs. There isn't a tool available that can turn a noob into a DR Guru. Most don't even know what they don't know. I am much more concerned about the $99 kiddies. This might be obvious to us, but people get suckered every day by those guys. Even if someone doesn't use one of them, when they compare prices, they make our rates look like thievery.

I totaly agree with rchadwick. Growing number of "pros" these days really does make things different.

[jono-ats]

I can think of one well established firm in California who, IMHO, often earns their high fees, but in other cases gouges clients. Another local firm quoted a client $2500 for what was one of the easiest recoveries I ever did.

There are both good and bad folks in our business.

One big problem is customer education. Customers don't understand the issues and don't know how to discern a company's capabilities -- usually the only thing they see is price. That's where marketing expertise comes into play.

It's YOUR responsibility to differentiate yourself from the amateurs and the bad guys - there will always be someone who is going to try to beat you down in terms of price. It would be the same if you provided lawn care service or appendectomies . . .

There are a lot of things that are threatening our bread and butter (how about solid state drives?), but this forum certainly ain't one of them!!

[patsphone2]

It's YOUR responsibility to differentiate yourself from the amateurs and the bad guys - there will always be someone who is going to try to beat you down in terms of price. It would be the same if you provided lawn care service or appendectomies . . .

Exactly...these issues are not at all unique to DR. The cream WILL rise to the top, and if some noob comes along and takes your clients maybe you weren't that great in the first place.

[HeadCrash]

I Agree, some members of this forum are either too naive or completely work for charity. You can give info for free but depends on what you give away.

[Judge Judy]

"Knowledge is power" , we get knowledge from our hard work and time consuming, give it all away? nahhh i wont.