I was just wondering when charging for a data recovery, what is considered as satisfactory, and, or what's your approach when for example some percentage of data recovered are corrupted files?
Of course some files can be worked afterwards, corrupted jpegs, etc
Would you charge for this extra step or is it part of the package ?
Thanks for any insights.
Peace.

Depends on what the customer has asked for, if they have specified recovery of specific files or if they want the device recovering. I have seen percentages (rather low ones) quoted on some sites but it's never clear if that's percent of device of percent of requested data.

It's a no data no fee structure here, conversely if there's data there's a fee whether that's specific data or device data, this also encourages customers to be specific about their requirements from the start. Eg specify the accounts folder and it can't be recovered - No fee. Don't specify the accounts folder and it's the only thing that can't be recovered - fee payable.

Data isn't checked for corruption for privacy reasons unless requested. They are given a grace period to check for problems when the data is returned to them, if it's a problem due to recovery failure it's resolved. If a picture or movie is corrupt due to a platter scratch and bad sectors that's not considered a recovery service failure, if it's a raid recovered wrongly, it would be.
The only way I found to measure recovery success is the customers opinion, they'll tell you soon enough if they're not happy !

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Data Recovery Services in the UK.
https://www.usbrecovery.co.uk/

If there is serious media damage, i define a binary rate and consider it successful if the rate is met. Moreover i charge a reasonable fee for parts and labour in such cases, coz i don't like the idea of bearing all the risk of the maneuver, client must take some of it as well.
This no-data-no-fee thing is stupid. There is no other segment in the world where people would work for free (except for voluntary)...
When you take your car to the mech they charge for diag, you pay the parts even if the problem remained or the cause was not discovered.
People should stand on their feet.
Free diag should be fairly enough...
pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

Such muddy waters..

For example I see $300 data recovery states "if Company recovers 99% or more of Customer’s data from a device, Customer will pay previously agreed upon rate". This is just an example and I pick it because I could find it. Many companies are more shady about this condition.

Now what is data? 99% of device cloned? The 1% missing could be vital file system meta data, so 99% cloned/imaged could result in only 50% of files recovered in a nice file system tree.

What if we need to resort to RAW recovery? How would you even start to determine a percentage of data being recovered?

How about you spend two days recovering a drive, 99% of data looks great but just the two videos of the wedding are corrupt while rest is intact?

Sure you can try to repair the video files. You can try repair JPEGs as you say. You say that rather 'lightly'.

I sometimes spend same amount of time on repairing 5 severely damaged JPEGs that it would take to recover 100's of them from a SD Card in the first place. Something like this can easily take an hour:

No way that's part of the standard package! Suppose 50% of the for example 600 recovered photos is like that?

What if files were corrupt to begin with? I have had cases where people started with corrupt RAW photos, did follow all kinds of advice in end user forums and end up with files being lost all together. They have been digging the hole deeper and deeper before I get my hands on it but fail to tell me this story. They managed to make signature based recovery and file system based recovery as good as impossible! So, then they pay me recovery AND file repair, as before I can even begin to repair I need to figure out a way to recover the files in the first place.

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Joep - http://www.disktuna.com - video & photo repair & recovery service

yeah, but it is pretty easy to detect if it was originally corrupt. If you have cloned the file without bads and it is still corrupt, then it was corrupt initially.
Is it the fault of the DR company that those photos cannot be recovered in 100%? Or it is just a fact?
customer pays for work and the loss is due to media damage, not the fault of the dr company. Of course, we have to do everything possible to minimize the loss, but we cannot create data where there is not.
Not to mention that cloning a drive with MD is usually very slow and requires the attention of the engineer, so this would be a factor to rise the price, which we do not do, at least not once the quote was accepted.

We cannot always make the customer happy. But we must be clear on the matter of success rate from the start. And inform them clearly about the possibilities.

pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

Thanks for your thoughts, and I agree with you all. Customer has to be aware of the facts and possible results, there are no miracles.
Joep, was not my intention to sound "lightly" about corrupted files as jpeg ones. I've been testing your software and watching your videos and I confirm it's intense labor.
That's why I came across this question, and wanted to know how you deal with it, trying to repair a file is another thing in my opinion.

Haha, oh but I did not take this as criticism or anything and I meant no offense. No worries. And I agree with you it's an interesting topic. It seems to me often to even determine if data can be recovered at all, a lot of work is involved already before this question can be answered. I like the car mechanic analogy, he'll charge you no matter if he fixes the issue you brought your car in for or not.

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Joep - http://www.disktuna.com - video & photo repair & recovery service

Thanks, i just wanted to be clear.
The car analogy is good and there are many others for sure.
* I have a "technical" question about jpegrepair, maybe I ask you on YouTube or open a topic here, what do you think? It's just about the cross on main screen not matching the cross on the left smaller zoom screen.
Oops I asked!

Yes. I never use it myself it's there because it was requested. I haven't been able to figure out where I make a mistake so for now if you double click the magnifier you can calibrate it. You need to take into account I am a lousy programmer. I can think of many brilliant stuff to do, to program it is verse 2. So this is a lousy solution but the only one I have right now: https://youtu.be/v-BErKG2qso

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Joep - http://www.disktuna.com - video & photo repair & recovery service

Ok, no problem, i thought it could be bug on my side. I will check the video.
Thanks.

Just get things written and clarified like a job card.
Infact customers will come with new folders that are supposedly MISSING.
you will never briefed about such folders in the first place and then they GO MISSING?

Have every condition written and understood by each of the party ie you and your client.

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THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE TILL YOU LOSE IT.

Scammers could easily make a living just from "attempt fees", so a "no-data-no-fee" policy protects the client from such people. It also dissuades incompetent people from messing with your data if the case looks difficult, so you won't be rewarding their incompetence. As I see it, it's a reasonable expectation on the part of the client, and it's a cost that you should be prepared to incorporate into your business model.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Perhaps, for unopened drives, but after 2-3 company declared a case as unrecoverable, no point.
Also, if it is severe media damage, no point either, especially when parts are expensive.
Scammers will scam and no data no fee will not protect anybody from them. Customer needs to pick the right choice, which is hard anyway.
I won't get rich on trial fees but won't run in minus at least.
The bad thing with inable DR players would not only be that they had ripped clients off, but when drive gets in a worse shape after trials. No-data-no-fee does not help this and does not look professional at all. It gives the idea of a company doing the easy recoveries and canceling the problematic ones as the latter ones consume too many time and efforts to deal with them, it pays off better to declare it unrecoverable than finding out solutions.

Somebody will pay the fee, either the actual client with the or all the other clients. Decide which one is fair or reasonable. Nothing is free, somebody pays somehow. That's a law, keep in mind when you think you get something 'for free'. Either you pay for it in other ways or other people pay for your 'free' service. Only the blind can't see.


pepe

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Adatmentés - Data recovery

If you tried charging fees for attempted or failed recoveries over here you'd end up with a shelf of drives and a stack of unpaid invoices as most domestic clients will just abandon the drive and walk away.

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Data Recovery Services in the UK.
https://www.usbrecovery.co.uk/