Will this forum jeopardise our bread and butter?

[craig6928]

end of the day most joes are just amateurs

only using software to recovery data and nothing more

end of the day if your dealing with these amateurs be it on ebay or the net

your are giving someone your personel hard drive

which can contain credit card numbers,paypal accounts and passwords
and more.

so you have to watch out who you send your drive to these days


you are more likely dealing with a risky company who out to steal your details

[seagoat]

I would have thought this forum could increase business. If this site became THE place to go when you have a broken drive, based on a reputation of expert members and honest professional answers, it could only make the potential customer base larger. Trust plays a huge role in the decision process.

The goal should be to funnel the DIY people that start with a google search to this site, then you can make them into customers.

For those people that aren't willing to pay no matter what, they're still worth helping as much as possible, because eventually someone they know will need help (nobody in my family does backups). Word of mouth is a huge benefit.

Professional DR people could get special recognition here (title), with some kind of review system that links to the customer's original problem thread and their impression of service. Obviously some way to prove it is needed. Maybe tie it to the review system, coupled with approval from other already recognized people.

Anyway, I'm rambling, just saying that this site could probably be used to increase the "bread & butter" for the real professionals, if done right.

[craig6928]

there is way to many amateurs doing this type of work now

so if your new to this type of business

your have to learn it the hard way and that by doing it yourself


and allso the criminal side are getting into this type of work

because the average person has all there accounts on there hard drive
and credit cards

[koala]

every coin has two sides.

because of sharing, we get more infomation both specialist and fresher. otherwise what should the internet do

of course, because of sharing, some could do the SIMPLE data recovery by themself. and these may infect some business of the data recovery companies.

but i believe the good reputation will increase the business. and this forum will increase your companies' reputation if you solve the more question. and you get more credit.

[Crudeoyl]

Telling people trade secret is like jumping in a quicksand, it will jeopardise people in this forum for sure.

If i were you guys i'll keep my kungfu to my closest buddy using PM.

[thatdellguy]

but i believe the good reputation will increase the business. and this forum will increase your companies' reputation if you solve the more question. and you get more credit.

So I get a better reputation on this forum for answering more questions but fewer customers using my services. Koala, your a genius!

[thatdellguy]

There are some pretty smart members on this forum but proving yourself by posting trade secrets on a "public" forum is plain stupid. This forum links to Google within a day and is searchable by most of the world. I'm getting lots of drives from previous customers of fly-by-the-night companies that claim to recover data for next to nothing and fail to deliver. One of them, who I will not mention, is a regular on this site. The customers are going to be the ones who lose if more and more professionals give out trade secrets on public forums.

[scratchy]

Well,

I think we need a completely independent authoritive body, but that is not going to happen in my life time as most institutions take years to become established.

So whats the next best option? I think that the GlobalDRA is a good one or at least something like it. Something that is peer run is fine as long as there is no single or elite group authority.

Our company is a member of GDRA and it works very well for us as it was developed by more than one DR company. Perhaps if the one member per country rule was realxed it might just work. But!, there would still need to be strict criteria about membership (how long in business, Technical equipment, expertise, etc.) , after all we are not stealing each others work, we are just here to help each other which is how learning about a new problem can help the customers that we depend on, sometimes a hint is all that is needed.

Is it possible to set up a Vote on a subject like this ? Just to see what forum members think about this;

<itch>

[BlackST]

No need for a vote. People sometimes understand faster than we think.

[scratchy]

No need for a vote. People sometimes understand faster than we think.

It would be nice though to get a concensus of opnion

[jono-ats]

There are some pretty smart members on this forum but proving yourself by posting trade secrets on a "public" forum is plain stupid. This forum links to Google within a day and is searchable by most of the world. I'm getting lots of drives from previous customers of fly-by-the-night companies that claim to recover data for next to nothing and fail to deliver. One of them, who I will not mention, is a regular on this site. The customers are going to be the ones who lose if more and more professionals give out trade secrets on public forums.

What do you consider to be a "trade secret"? Do you consider it to any knowledge that will aid someone to recover data?

Any why do you reference hdd.pros.com? There is almost nothing there . . .

Just curious . . .

Jono

[falther]

This forum is open and as I can speak only for me or my job - it led to better
service and to more income:

There is a mass of clients out there who never would think to spend more
than $ 500,- to get their data restored. The mass is also lazy: They dont
want to move to go to some place for DR and then pay $ XXX.

But: I receive daily defective notebooks and now - because of the info of
this forum - I have very good tools and check each customers hdd as a
service. I find very often defects on the HDD which are unknown to my
customers and not yet affecting data.
I am able to offer the cloning and several times the cloning with data
recovery of partialy defective drives. It created happy customers and
good word of mouth...!

Never would I declare myself as a DR specialist - reaching my limits I offer
to pass on the drive to a DR professional with exeptional skills - but inform
my customers about possible prices. Guess what happens ....

Therefore I name it a new market - infact its a big market - and as one
can see - the tool manufacturers offer exactly the tools for this market
(i.e. DataCompass) for reasonable prices.

Finally: Real DR will never loose business. Years of learning, experience
and this special knowledge cant be competed with some tools or even
reading how to do it. At the end each DIY will learn: Leave it to a
professional - either because (s)he realises that his/her success was
a coincidence and big luck, or that (s)he lost the data because being
a fool.
***

I am very happy with this forum - learned, gained - and hopefully can
give back - perhaps a little bit later with more experience

***

[BlackST]

It's so simple... don't answer in public, and use PM to answer to question that reasonably come from an expert and not from a lamer or a dumb ass customer or a average consumer whining for having lost his warez, porn, pics, mp3 or everything else. The fact that the forum is public doesn't mean anyone deserve answer (as banks are open, too, but they don't give credit to everyone).
War is business, for me business is war - this is the difference.

[falther]

Perhaps a bold welcome screen should appear when entering hhdguru.com

With short, but clear words like:

This forum is NOT meant to give advice to endusers.
It is only an internal comunication system.

No end user may expect information about any topic which can be solved
by a local data recovery specialist.

If you face an immediate problem, dont use your harddisk / your computer
- its your / your datas risk - wait and contact a real specialist.

If you need a health examination - whom would you ask:

- your neighbour
- a friend
- your office collegue
- a friend of your friend
- your son, because he had some lessons in biology or computer software

- or a doctor - a specialist in this matter with years of experience and reputation

It is just the question ... what is the value of your health / data???

Dont argue - act acordingly - this advice is for free - everything else costs money!
***

[Gasman]

I feel more and more are doing regular back ups of their data to external drive or media these days, this causes less DR, we repair everything, not just data recovery, anyway we ask do you need your data? they say, no ...its ok, it's been backed up...i've noticed this more and more these days. I think it is starting to sink in to people that backups are important...many programs do this automatically also..they come with the external drives..i know Verbatim external drives have backitup2 by Nero, and if someone has experienced the big $$ DR, will definitely backup from now on, and tell others of their experiences. But then again, you will get those that just will never learn.

[thatdellguy]

Any why do you reference hdd.pros.com? There is almost nothing there . . .

Hddpros was started with the hope that it could be used for private conversations between professionals without exposing to the public. The private area is limited to prescreened professionals only. The forum rules and layout can be changed by a majority vote if needed. It is not limited to one member per country. It was not meant to compete with the content of this site.

[BlackST]

Luckily DR is not limited to poor end users. If we had to depend on them...

[Feklar]

You are speaking of only your own economic interest. (I agree with those who say your logic is flawed and counterproductive)

If this forum were to become private, the economic interests of the companies like Salvation Data become jeopardized, and they would be forced to replace it with a free forum of their own. Look on Youtube: there are already numerous instructional videos on doing data recovery / head swaps and the like. Some of these are promotional from the companies that sell DR equipment. Those cannot be censored.

The fact is, most people aren't going to spend thousands on the required DR equipment to recover a single drive. Anyone who is considering going into the DR business will not be deterred by this forum being made private.

Most DR business comes from companies, not individuals, and those companies aren't going to be in here snooping for free hard drive repair infoZ. Neither will most individuals. Most people who come here trying to find info on hard drive repair or data recovery will only find proof that DR is not easy or simple, and obviously justifies the specialist charging a considerable price.

I live on a limited income, and so I get my hard drives (and computers) out of the dumpster behind the computer repair places, which is why I come here. Obviously, I don't have the economic resources to pay for hard drive repair, but obviously, not for DR either. Of course, I recover so many drives by a simple circuit board swap that I end up with so many backups of my data that I don't know what to do with them all. Closing the forum would not keep people from realizing that you can swap a circuit board, since that information is widely available.

My angle regarding this (or any other) forum usage is good karma. You get help, you give help when you can, it it all averages out, and we are all better off for it. But my use, and the use of 99 percent of others, does not endanger your income. Anyone else's use that does endanger your income is going to endanger your income whether you make the forum private or not. The "running your business intelligently and properly" posts contain the real truth regarding this subject.

[Feklar]

In fact, most of you sell circuit boards. How would ending your circuit board sales outlet here be of benefit to you? As near as I can tell, your circuit board and repair source drive sales could easily be cut in half or more if you cut the noobs and amateurs off.

[Feklar]

The computer repair places whose dumpsters I raid for hard drives do not find it profitable and rightly so) to store a large quantity of hard drives for swap components. If their customer needs DR, they refer to a DR company, if not, the drive goes in the trash. When averaged out, this practice is cheapest for their customers because of the potential labor hours involved or saved.

These places' business does not suffer in the slightest because I am able to repair hard drives I find in their trash. In fact, they may benefit, because I get so many extra parts and computers that I usually donate a few computers a year to the Salvation Army (actually, I am more of a Buddhist, but their cause is just), where they are sold to those repair companies future repair customers.

So basically, this censorship argument could possibly be devolved into a spiritual question of having faith in Providence to provide for one's interests and the interests of their God or Gods, it being spiritual disrespect to try to make money through attempting to close off economic opportunities to other people?