Page last updated on Tuesday, April 4 2006 at 1524 UK

Data Recovery and Capture

Finding, recovering and capturing electronic data which might contain evidence

Data recovery is key to successful computer forensics. That’s why we will always have a real person available to discuss your situation with you - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!

During office hours, we will take your call and forward it to a data recovery specialist. Outside office hours, you will automatically be transferred directly to someone who can help you. In either case, this person will remain your point of contact throughout – we believe that a single point of contact is the best way of working with you efficiently.

Service Levels

We offer a choice of service levels depending on the urgency of your situation, from 24/7 and on-site emergency response through to levels designed for less urgent situations. You can chose the best service level to suite your circumstances and budget.

The Data Recovery and Capture Process

Data recovery is only required if the data is stored on damaged media (for example, a scratched CD-ROM or impact damaged hard disk drive). If the storage media is in good condition, we can skip data recovery and move on to the data capture process.

Stage I (initial contact) – the first time you contact us, a data recovery specialist will discuss your requirements with you and you can jointly decide how to proceed. We will tell you how much the diagnosis work will cost, how long it will take, what we need from you and when we need it. We will confirm important details in writing.

Stage II (diagnosis) – this is where we examine your equipment to determine how much data we can recover and any likely problems which might hamper the recovery process. We will explain the likely chances of success and the costs of proceeding with the recovery.

Stage III (the recovery) – with your approval, we will begin to recover your data. We will extract the data from your equipment, convert it to a recognisable format and store it on stable media.

Stage IV (data capture) – with all of your data made accessible, we will use recognised forensic procedure to copy it from the storage media and add it to an evidence archive. This makes the information accessible for analysis without risk of modifying the original data.

What We Will Need

We will be able to tell you exactly what we need when you first contact us. For any data recovery and capture work, we will need the media on which your data is stored. It also helps to have as much information as possible about the data. For example, if the media is damaged, it helps to know how the damage occurred.

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