The original question was whether to recommend Scott’s online course. Like any online course it will mostly depend on your own self discipline. But just like in an old anecdote: “Do you play the violin? Don’t know. Never tried… ”. But I did take his “sit in” course eight month ago and I had been in data recovery for two years before that.
First of all, the course is unique. There are simply no others. And Scott could’ve easily taken advantage of that. But he didn’t. Scott’s training is anything but low quality. Every student - from a newby to someone who wants to get started on “clean room” operations will find it extremely valuable.

Naturally, you are not going to start doing successful head assembly replacements and platters swaps right away. I suggest that you invest a few hundred $ in a few dozen simple one-two platter drives, buy some tools (Scott will tell you which ones), make the cheapest “glove box” (in place of a clean enclosure - and Scott will tell you that too!) and start doing heads and platters procedures until drives start consistently working after the procedures. Then and only then you might seriously consider investing in a $5,000 truly “clean enclosure”. Scott recommends his, I personally prefer another one, recommended by a company called YEC-USA (www.YEC-USA.com). It is a very good company to know. Scott loves the imager by DeepSpar. I like it too – it is the best one on the market and I have it. It is so feature rich, that I am not sure how many people use its entire capabilities. But it costs $5,000. YEC-USA makes NINJA – I’ve had their imager for three years. It is just a tad weaker than DeepSpar, (but being constantly enhanced) and costs $1,600 - not that much more than couple of good imaging programs.

The curriculum was very well thought out and the delivery of it was awesome. I would absolutely recommend the course to anybody who wants to get into data recovery and also to anybody who has been doing it for less than two years. Scott’s skill in supervising labs of 17 people -- while they were simultaneously changing head assemblies -- was amazing. Also, the certification in Data Recovery he has arranged is very helpful. I do receive questions about some kind of formal training or certification, especially from larger clients. Don’t look at it as an empty useless piece of paper. I keep track of the source of every disk that I do. In the first four months after the course I had 11 drives SOLELY because I have this certification on my website. Every little bit helps in these crazy times…
The course is especially valuable for both established and new companies who are already in a computer business (repair, support, networking, etc…) and usually capable solving only simplest cases of data recovery. These company will be able to increase their revenue in data recovery with a minimal investment.

Summarizing my opinion on Scott Moulton’s class on data recovery – unless you are already an experienced data recovery professional with clean room experience, it is by far the smartest investment you can possibly make.

Sam Roitman
Rescue Your Data Corporation
www.RescueYourData.com

....nothing personal against ANYBODY here, but why are newbies coming out of the woodwork on this particular subject?? Is Scott canvassing for support or something?

To stir things a bit more.......I disagree with the idea of a certificate or qualification based on a training course like this. Sure I may as well setup my own certification body if there's a few bucks to be made!

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Data Recovery Ireland

Ummm I explained why I haven't before... and Scott isn't canvassing for support - obviously he doesn't need to. Guess I'm not the only lurker here who decided to speak out finally.
And the certification isn't designed by Scott it is simply that he has arranged to administer and proctor the test at the end of his course. As with any certification it means more than anything else I knew how to answer the questions.. but isn't that all a college degree means? Or any other diploma? What it does do is establish a base level of knowledge. Funny thing though, I've taught MCSE classes to lots of working experienced admins... the certification doesn't mean you can do, anymore than being able to do it means you could pass the cert - but put them together it does indicate that base level of knowledge.
Here is the certification information from the certification body. http://www.iacertification.org/cdrp_cer ... ional.html

I think with all off this in born another DR product, "the certification".

In a few months / years a lot off people will know how to make DR.

The problem that i see you will be the best "teacher", even ACELABS sometimes can not do some disk´s, or other great DR names.

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ZeBong
" что случилось в России - останется в России "
" Россия еще раз"

Well, I saw couple of records of those courses
1. I bet these courses are profitable - the guy can talk
2. The guy who was reading courses is not a DR professional. He knows only top of the iceberg. He's using terms incorrectly he defenitely doesn't know subject deep enough. He reminds me Geek Squad guys. He knows that to put a nut on a screw he supposed to turn screw clockwise but he doesn't know that sometimes screws come with counter-clockwise carving. Something like that
3. The courses can be useful for guys who think HDD is a box with squirrels inside but it wouldn't help to do professonal DR

PS: I guess he is making the thing what the market wants. Many people want to do DR and he's trying to give them what they want. That's evolution I guess

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SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

PPS: For a year I (and some other guys) have been supporting topic about general HDD internals on a popular Russian forum. Some interesting stuff was posted there and what I found out - most of the people just cannot digest this info, they can understand only basics and after that they brains shut down. I think DR is not for everyone

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SAN, NAS, RAID, Server, and HDD Data Recovery.

Usually brains shut down when HDDs power on...

haha, great description! I love it!

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Data Recovery Ireland

Agree with u doomer, DR its not one button "easy" and "quickly" solution wich could be learned on a book or video, this need experience, research,works, etc,in another worlds,our lifes

Hello Doomer. Could you point me to this forum? Is it still existing? I can read in Russian and maybe i can learn some useful information in that forum.

Thanks.

Scott does not have to “canvass” for support. Did anyone notice that all the supporting messages were from people who ACTUALLY attended his course? All the negative ones are from people who never even saw a violin, but feel the urge to answer the question whether they play it well…

After I started specializing in data recovery, I travelled to Russia and India trying to get some training. I spent a lot of money and got some low quality training. One thing – I met quite a few people whose opinions were very much like BlackST’s and Doomer’s. There was something they all had in common. They all referred to some “proprietary software” that they wrote, which enables them to recover data. When I offered them good money for showing me how to change heads assembles, they told me that I was a spy after their invaluable software. During an hour in their shabby dilapidated offices the only phone calls they received was from creditors and landlords. Their “Mercedes” was being serviced, so they couldn’t pick me up. And so on… They were extremely condescending claiming themselves to be the “true data recovery professionals”. The rest of DR community was full of charlatans trying to steal their hard earned secrets. The same story in New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, Minsk, New Delhi, Bangalore – just different accents…

Raptor_pa answered some questions about certification. It is issued by a reputable organization. Without knowledge and experience it obviously means and does nothing, but it helps to differentiate you to land a job. How many in this business do it just for the love of art?

P.S. BTW, I am not hiding under a screen name and neither does Scott. How about you, Doomer?

Sam Roitman
Rescue Your Data Corporation
www.RescueYourData.com

I'm really getting tired of receiving drives from $100 dollar recovery joints that were unable to recover anything. They are costing people their data in the search of a quick dollar. You have to spend money to make money in this industry. If your not willing to spend the money and time then your just another waste of time fly by night company.

I purchased Scotts color book for $10 dollars out of curiosity and downloaded it. While it is highly informative on how a hard drive works, it's composed of 95% software repairs and 5% physical recovery with almost no inside secrets. Most of the information can be found by using google. I can honestly say that I didn't learn a single thing from it. The book is obviously written by someone in software forensics as it rarely focuses on the physical aspect of DR. It gives someone enough information to be dangerous and open up a $100 dollar software recovery company. The entire book of 500+ pages could be cut down to 100 or less pages without the double/triple spaced pages and huge fonts. The pictures are fuzzy and out of focus. I wonder if all the pictures of private software and links to various site are actually legal. It reminds me of the color books I had in my childhood. I HIGHLY doubt anyone could come out of Scotts class as a DR tech. My job is secure and you can have my ten dollars.

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Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

Well guys I really would like to thank you for your efforts any way. All of you but please remember beginners are always beginners show them where to start instead of having fun of them.

Regards,

I think enough has been said on this subject. Whether you choose to go on Scott's course or not is up to you, but it ain't gonna give you a successful DR business with high success rates overnight. DR takes a lot of time and investment.

I'm sure we won't hear from a lot of the virgin posters here again now that they've added to this discussion. Anybody who has been a member of this forum for some time knows who Doomer is and/or who he works for. He's got more technical ability and knowledge than all the people combined who've been to Scotts course so to Mr Roitman, I suggest you keep chipping away at your $100 recoveries and who knows, maybe you'll be back when Scott needs a dig out next time...

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Data Recovery Ireland

I can't imagine ANYONE who is "specializing in data recovery" flying to Russia and India just to come back to the States and do $100 or $200 recoveries. I think the time is coming where a drastic break from the norm is coming, because the industry can't keep trying to compete with $100 recovery companies continually losing people's data or giving them the impression that their data is unrecoverable. Legitimate companies aren't going to lower their prices, and customers are always going to shop for the best deal. Whether that gets them their data back or not is something else. Just in the last 3 weeks I've received 4 drives that had been sent to some of these low buck companies. The customer was told the data was unrecoverable, but wanted to give it another shot. Only 1 of the drives had scored platters, and the other 3 were recovered with just a few hours of work, and ordering the necessary parts. I'll just be happy to see some of these guys just in it for a quick buck, or those that are in it with no concept of how involved this work is to be completely weeded out. I myself had to learn, and I continually learn, and I have built up knowledge over years that is no where near as vast as some on here. However, in all that time, I was never so careless or so into it for the almighty dollar that I ever put a customer's data at risk. Unfortunately many of these companies do that each and every day. I just wish someone would speak out publicly with regard to this crap.

At the end of my post I was saying how I wished someone would speak out publicly on these low buck recovery firms. Well, I did a search for the term "cheap data recovery" and I was surprised at what I found. The first two results linked to this article: http://www.articlesbase.com/data-recove ... 15578.html

I hope people looking for data recovery read that article and take it to heart.

To CK: could you please, please get through your brilliant head that one should never, ever criticize something he has no clue about! When Doomer expresses his negativism about Scotts's videos - it's fine - he saw them. But neither he (she), nor you have not been through Scott's class. There is no magic in data recovery. It is a subject like any other and it can be learned. Especially, if companies like Seagate did not make our life so difficult and gave those of us who work for Seagate unfair advantage.

Again, anybody, but an experienced DR professional with a clean room experience (this, most likely, refers to you and Doomer) can benefit from Scott's class. If you wish that a course like this existed when you struggled like blind kittens - get over it. Look how many people you can help now! At this very forum. CK's evaluation of NINJA vs DeepSpar is invaluable. And it is several years old. Plus his (hers?) technical answers.

And what is all this crap about $100 recoveries? Do you a have a chip on your shoulder or some kind of inferiority complex? When someone occasionally brings a disk with an accidententally deleted folder, I charge $100 for this "recovery". I often charge Iraq and Afganistan vets only $100 or $200 (whether they can afford it or not). Otherwise, my software recoveries start at $400, and clean room at $1,000 plus cost of donor(s).

And to "thatdellguy" who bought Scott's manual for $10. It is worth exactly $10! What did you expect for $10? It is useless to anyone who has not attended the class. You can download the class detailed outline from his website - it will be more useful to you than that PDF. And it is free.

Sam Roitman
Rescue Your Data Corporation
www.RescueYourData.com

And the fussing continues. And Still no-one answered the original
question, which was about DISTANT LEARNING.
I'm quite sure the in-person classes are great, but the original poster
asked specifically about DISTANT LEARNING. So far no-one that
has taken that course has replied, and no offence to Scott, you
by all rights are prejudiced about the course.
I remember taking a Mail-order course in my younger years for
upholstery work. It was quite comprehensive, BUT, the only way
I was able to truly get proper training was through in-person training.

So if anyone that has taken the Distant Learning course would like
to reply, I'm sure that info would be welcomed. How/where are they
now in the DR industry, are they successful DR pros, or are they
doing $100 recoveries?

@sam: how much do you charge for recovery of a WD 5000 AAKS with seized spindle, circular scratch (fallen usb box) and how many days for doing it? Or a Samsung F1 1TB where GEO and/or tables are unreadable or MC has serious damage ? Common cases nowaday. Don't tell us you learnt how to work on Samsungs with that courses , because even ACE tools ( the legend of all legends in DR ) can do little and very few people has done independent R&D on the matter. Or what about Quantum drives or MX740 where head compatibility is less than zero? Fireball As with mono head mono platter but...head gone - the rest is ok. It is very different from replacing a Pcb on Calypso or image a drive with Ninja, then do logical recovery. Give a detailed answer here to the cases I posted, tools to be used and procedure. Won't hurt anyone.

This is just as expected - 'Data Recovery Certificate' + 'make a cleanroom out of an old box'
'In the first four months after the course I had 11 drives SOLELY because I have this certification on my website.'

Sounds like someone trying to make a quick buck .. Still it will keep us professionals in business when you amatuers mess up