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 Post subject: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: October 21st, 2020, 8:31 
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Joined: October 19th, 2020, 12:04
Posts: 5
Location: United States
Hello all,

I'm new to this forum and have been reading for quite some time.
I'm in the process of launching my own business in computer repairs and want to offer Data Recovery.
There isn't much competition in my country so I'm not too worried about saturation.

What's most important to me is being able to save my customers' data.

I did a course many moons ago and was IACRB certified, but of course, with no practice, a lot of that information has withered away.
I have had a lot of success so far with ddrescue via SystemRescueCD, but of course, that can't tackle any issues where the drive isn't recognized by BIOS.

In my research I realize that PC3000 is pretty much the way to go.
While it's quite expensive to do so, I'm willing to make the investment necessary to give my customers a better chance of getting their stuff back.
I'm less worried about making money to be honest. Of course the goal of business is to be profitable, but I don't plan to charge an arm and a leg.

I know there are a few threads about tools needed, but they're quite old.

Can anyone suggest some tools needed as well as to point me in the best direction for updated courses?

Thank you.


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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: October 22nd, 2020, 0:31 
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Joined: August 18th, 2010, 17:35
Posts: 3636
Location: Massachusetts, USA
snoop wrote:
There isn't much competition in my country so I'm not too worried about saturation.

Not sure what state/city you are in, but the United States is very competitive and fairly saturated with options.

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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: October 22nd, 2020, 0:35 
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Joined: August 18th, 2010, 17:35
Posts: 3636
Location: Massachusetts, USA
snoop wrote:
Can anyone suggest some tools needed as well as to point me in the best direction for updated courses?

PC3K is best. MRT is good. DFL is good.
https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=39940

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Hard Disk Drive, SSD, USB Drive and RAID Data Recovery Specialist in Massachusetts


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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: October 22nd, 2020, 7:04 
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Joined: December 4th, 2012, 1:35
Posts: 3844
Location: Adelaide, Australia
do a search on

Starting a Data Recovery Business

on this forum and read results first to get a general idea, and not re-ask questions already asked and answered. There has been quite a few discussions over the years.


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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: October 22nd, 2020, 9:10 
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Joined: January 29th, 2009, 11:23
Posts: 248
Location: SXSW
snoop wrote:
Hello all,

I'm new to this forum and have been reading for quite some time.
I'm in the process of launching my own business in computer repairs and want to offer Data Recovery.
There isn't much competition in my country so I'm not too worried about saturation.



I think you should do a better research because it's lots of competition in the USA. Just like Labtech said. What part of the country you are?


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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: October 23rd, 2020, 3:37 
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Joined: July 12th, 2010, 4:38
Posts: 1418
Location: Portugal
Probably you should invest and do some more simple data recovery jobs and outsource the more problematic.
With for instance a Deepspar DDI or a USB Stabilizer will be able to do more in-house recoveries than you other IT repair colleagues.

I also advise you to read more about data recovery, so you don't do the mistakes that we usually see made by IT guys.

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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: October 23rd, 2020, 14:19 
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Joined: September 8th, 2009, 18:21
Posts: 15440
Location: Australia
New to Data Recovery ? Where to Start ?
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=176

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A backup a day keeps DR away.


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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: October 27th, 2020, 6:16 
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Joined: March 2nd, 2020, 6:04
Posts: 24
Location: Sweden
I'm pretty much in the same boat, although not in the US and I've bought a PC3K already. My problem is I don't know when I should just go for it. I've done a number of software recoveries in Linux but have only had two cases with the PC3K so far. One case was solved but the other had a seized motor and I'm currently not equipped to open a drive safely.

When did you guys feel like you knew enough to start doing this as a business?


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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: October 27th, 2020, 6:23 
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Joined: August 18th, 2010, 17:35
Posts: 3636
Location: Massachusetts, USA
Starting with software recoveries is the natural course of action (bad sectors and firmware).
Then learn a bit about electronics issues and solve them. Then move onto mechanical issues involving head swaps, and finally mechanically issues involving motor/platter swaps.

Outsource everything you have not yet learned about category by category until you are ready.

To get better and obtain experience, it is best to practice on bad drives, a lot.

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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: October 28th, 2020, 5:22 
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Joined: February 15th, 2006, 3:38
Posts: 1079
Location: canada
lots of money is needed to start up a business.


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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: October 28th, 2020, 8:28 
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Joined: February 9th, 2009, 16:13
Posts: 2520
Location: Ontario, Canada
craig6928 wrote:
lots of money is needed to start up a business.

It has been a while since you last posted here. Curious to know where you've been hiding.

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Recovery Force Data Recovery


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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: November 9th, 2020, 7:38 
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Joined: October 19th, 2020, 12:04
Posts: 5
Location: United States
Good morning all.
Sorry for the lack of reply on my path.
Wasn't getting notifications for some reason.

Quote:
Not sure what state/city you are in, but the United States is very competitive and fairly saturated with options.

I'm not in the US. I'm in the Caribbean. There's only two companies on my island and they both boast very, very high prices only attractive to government and high end clients. My goal is to cater to the common man.

Quote:
PC3K is best. MRT is good. DFL is good.

Thank you. This is the general impression that I've gotten from reading up on this forum. I saw some recommendations for RapidSpar as well, but as an intermediate startup.

Quote:
Starting a Data Recovery Business

on this forum and read results first to get a general idea, and not re-ask questions already asked and answered. There has been quite a few discussions over the years.

Thank you for your suggestion. I have done exactly that before registering.
Most discussions about this topic are quite old. The purpose of my thread is to get the latest information.

Quote:
I think you should do a better research because it's lots of competition in the USA. Just like Labtech said. What part of the country you are?

I understand where you're coming from, but I can assure you the competition is not severe out here.
Since I advertised myself, I received many small jobs and have had to forfeit some more complex ones as I don't have the hardware to properly diagnose.

Quote:
New to Data Recovery ? Where to Start ?
http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=176

Thank you for this!!
I will be doing a LOT of reading. I appreciate this.

Quote:
lots of money is needed to start up a business.

I agree. To add to this, a mentor of mine once taught me that "Experience is the best teacher, especially if it's someone else's"
So I'm here to learn.

Thank you all for your input and advice.
I will reach out to ACE labs to get a quote from them.
As I'm not looking to start a full lab, but more offer it as a service, I'm guessing the PC3000 portable will more suit my needs?

Again, I'm very grateful for all the input thus far.
Looking forward to continue learning from you all.


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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: November 10th, 2020, 8:05 
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Joined: October 19th, 2020, 12:04
Posts: 5
Location: United States
So I've been doing a lot of reading over the last 24 hrs, and I realize I haven't specified one thing in the thread thus far.

Initially, I have no intention of creating a full fledged lab to do head replacement, internal repairs or anything that would require a clean area.
I'll say that I've been fortunate enough to successfully disassemble, reassemble and swap parts in my course many years ago, I do not yet have the confidence to attempt such a feat on a customer's data. I will, however, be taking the advice that I've read many times on this forum to start trying with broken drives where the data is not critical.
Fortunately, I have a few 'dead' drives to experiment with.

I like the idea of starting off with the RapidSpar, but I also like the idea of having the best tools for the job.
I'm yet to hear from Ace Labs but based on my reading, my understanding is that PC3000 is 8 to 10 times the price of the RapidSpar.

For now, I'm doing simple jobs with a ddrescue/GetDataBack combo, but would like to take on more complex cases that ddrescue can't handle.

Thank you for every bit of feedback and consideration.


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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: November 11th, 2020, 19:25 
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Joined: January 29th, 2012, 1:43
Posts: 982
Location: United States
Quote:
For now, I'm doing simple jobs with a ddrescue/GetDataBack combo, but would like to take on more complex cases that ddrescue can't handle.

If you want to step it up a notch but not commit to the expensive hardware tools, look into using HDDSuperClone with DMDE. The combo is affordable and the most capable software only solution possible.

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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: November 12th, 2020, 6:45 
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Joined: October 19th, 2020, 12:04
Posts: 5
Location: United States
maximus wrote:
Quote:
For now, I'm doing simple jobs with a ddrescue/GetDataBack combo, but would like to take on more complex cases that ddrescue can't handle.

If you want to step it up a notch but not commit to the expensive hardware tools, look into using HDDSuperClone with DMDE. The combo is affordable and the most capable software only solution possible.


Reading up on this right now.
Great tool. Thank you for providing a solution to those of us now getting into this field.

Seems almost equivalent to the RapidSpar :shock:


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 Post subject: Re: Starting a Data Recovery Business in 2020
PostPosted: November 24th, 2020, 14:17 
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Joined: October 19th, 2020, 12:04
Posts: 5
Location: United States
Hi all

For any newbies that are reading this forum looking to dig into this venture like me, I've come across this very recent webinar (5 days ago as of the time of this post) that was hosted by ACE Labs. I'm only about 30 minutes in thus far and it is very, very informative

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKQZ7Lse-N8

One day, I look forward to being a pro like some of you here.


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