Software like this is why you don't throw old hard drives out!

not that it would matter, as long as you can find the drive after its thrown out...

ACR has recovered some seriously messed up drives (bottom of lakes, ocean... etc...) I think they could handle a smelly one hehe

Exactly, I think the only safe way to dispose of a drive is to have it properly melted down!

with Media Tools Professional 2003, there is a function called clean wipe, so that you can overwrite all the data on the drive. Basically it overwrites everything 7 times as I understant it lol. :)

Yes, that is some amazing stuff, Norton has a government wipe but it's all tied up into Windows and can't really do an entire drive etc. like this piece of software could. Absolutely amazing...

sounds like people have some really naughty things on their drives.. ;)

"Sir, we would like to talk to you about your choice in music.. we found out because you left these MP3's on your crashed hard drive. . ."

:)

I work for another recovery company in my spare time. They do a similar thing for a much cheaper price and also handle other FS's other than just windows (mac, linux, SGI, solaris, ...). These guys are pawning off their software (low-level DOS programming is where it's at!, they say) - yea, if that's all you know. Most recovery has to be done without a protective OS. This is why DOS programs are favorable, but also a little tough to write. If you knew how to hook into windows to get low-level access to the drive, you could write the same info under windows and have the OS help you out with many things (compression, encryption, ...) instead of doing it yourself (which these guys' software obviously has to do).

I work for a company called Reynolds Data Recoverty (http://www.data-recovery.com). They have tons of expereince. They have connections with the Maxtor HQ in the same town (i.e. they know what are known bugs and how to fix them, ...) they charge $300-1500 per recovery depending on the difficulty of the recovery (drive-savers is the actual leader in the HD recovery world and they charge by the size ($1,000 per Gig!!! - now that's expensive, but they do really good work too). Personally, I've recovered countless (> 100) linux drives for them in the past 4-5 years (they don't get a lot of linux recoveries and when they do, it's usually a partition tabel or deleted files or corrupt superblock or whatnot) and it's easy to recover, so the customer gets his/her HD back in a day or two, they pay a couple of hundred dollars and they're happy again. Sounds like the software that this guy was talking about in his article only works with windows and the recovery is very expensive even for the simplest of problems.

By advice: shop around before you go blindly with this product.

I don't think it's very expensive personally to pay $150 to get software that lets you recover data on 25 drives. If it happens again, you can use it again.

I agree on the Windows only aspect, that does suck... but then again the majority of people use Windows who would be interested in this sort of a solution.

Also... I would like to say something. I have read a lot of the comments on /. and have noticed that a lot of people think we were paid or something to write this article.
This is FAR from the truth. I saw an article in TIME magazine and it sparked my interest in writing this article. I contacted a couple companies and decided to use ACR Data Recovery for the article. In the top of all of our reviews we put "Sponsor: SPONSORS COMPANY NAME" as a thank you for sponsorship. We do NOT get paid for that. I simply put them as sponsor because they gave us a copy of the Media Tools Pro. I decided to take it off just minutes ago because it was causing confusion.

Basically what I am trying to say is that this is in no way trying to sell their services. If you go with them, great, I know I would trust them to recover my data. However, if you go with a different company, I wish you the best of luck whatever route you decide to go. I simply wanted to let people know data CAN be recovered if it is lost. A lot of people would think that once a drive is formatted or a file is permanently deleted that it is lost forever, and that is far from the truth.

Anyway, thats my blurb.

yes. the techlounge boys get very little $ from posting reviews, as in none, no money at all.

and, all you /.ers out there that are actually reading this rather than just flaming without reading the rest of the techlounge site, please take a look and note the relative lack of ads. now, go to tom's or hardocp, see the difference?

yes, ads are a part of almost every review site. but, if you read many of the reviews here at TTL, you will see that none of them read as ads, most of them tear the product a new one. i have purchased products based on thetechlounge.com reviews, in fact that is how i became associated with their site.

flame all you want, as that is the nature of most forums. but, at least read a bit before you do it here. Brian and Kurtis run a fun site. I have never gotten the feeling that they are sucking up to anyone. if a product is good, they let you know. if it's crap, it gets roasted and left out to die.

i can say that i have never received any suggestions on how to write my reviews. neither Kurtis or Brian ever say, try to make it look good. if you feel we are being dishonest in our reviews, mention it in the forums. but don't send others here with your prejudice.

Yea I never have told you guys how great of a site you have. Your reviews have made me to decide alot of things (XPoint Case, MX Duo, Sunbeam Rheobus) and decide to not buy a lot of things. I like how you review things because of, as before, your unbiased opinions, and also because you guys always take lots of pictures from all different angles. You never write on a level too complicated for me either, unlike some other places :).

But where's all the flaming at? I don't see any threads. Are people emailing you guys?

http://www.slashdot.org

read the comments people posted about the Data Recovery article.

true. ACR are trying to pawn off their software. thats their job. there are companies in the marketplace that are far better at it, no doubt. but, steve-o just did the same thing as the ACR rep by saying that his company is the leader. i'm sure that there are about 50 companies out there that are the leader. just like how ford, gmc and toyota all say they build the best selling truck. all advertising is deceptive.

i deal with company salespeople and reps in my industry (research science) and they all think that their stuff is the best.

i have no idea how well ACR's stuff is. and i don't care. i always go with what someone i know has used in the past. if my friends recommend it, then i will most likely use it.

no offense to steve-o, i don't doubt you for one second when you say that your company is very good at data recovery. my point is, when companies are releasing statements about their products, very rarely do they say "damn we suck, don't buy our shit. we made this code up last night and i'm not really sure how it works." kind of like how you hardly ever hear anyone say "my doctor sucks, i go to him/her but you shouldn't because he/she will kill you." everyone wants to think that their doctor is the greatest ever.

not everyone can have the world's best doctor.

We are trying to set up a second article on recovering data from mechanical disasters. How much can they recover from a smashed, a burned, or a drowned hard drive?

Hopefully they will agree.

I have to agree with the slashdot crowd. This interview doesn't give ANY information on how data recovery is done, and is little more than FUD and an advertisement for ACR. Quite frankly if you want a leader in data recovery that's probbably Ontrack. I don't work for Ontrack, and have never used their service, but they're at least a well known name in the data recovery biz. The techlounge should be ashamed to post an article like this. (Slashdot should be ashamed to link to it... but then slashdot has no real credibility left anymore anyway).

Some people have suggested that TechLounge has gotten money from ACR for posting this article. At this point that only sounds like it'd be improving the reputation of techlounge. At least they'd have some excuse for posting this crappy interview where "pkzip" is a special utility. Here's a clue to the editor of techlounge: If you get a bad interview of some company representative who's little more than a salesmen, either don't post it, or do a little research and find out what's wrong with what the guy is telling you. If an article makes you look bad, don't post it! Perhaps a better article would try to concentrate of different data recovery firms and the different services they offer? Or maybe you could find out of if "ANY Windows based product will try to write to the drive during the booting process" is really true. Certainly that's true if you're dumb enough to try to boot off the drive, but is it really true if you boot off a seperate drive? I don't definiitively know the answer to that, but that's the kind of research you need to do if you post an article like this.

From the looks of their website ACR seems to concentrate on Windows and Macintosh data recovery, and then there's this line:

All Other Operating Systems… UNIX, AIX, LINUX, XENIX, OS2, Novell, Netware, BSD, Mainframe, AS400, etc.

Umm.... yah. Anyone that's a leader in the data recovery biz is going to have "all other operating systems" be a major part of the business, and not just mention them casually. They haven't even figured out that Novell and Netware refer to the same OS, and "mainframe" isn't an operating system but a class of hardware. Not to mention the fact that BSD isn't really an OS, but a branch of Unix. But that's a minor sticking point compared to the other glaring errors.

After doing a little research, I wouldn't trust ACR with anything more valeable than my term paper that's due tommorow. Sorry ACR, but you just blew it for the tech crowd.

Thanks for the feedback Vellmont. As Brian said, we are currently talking with ACR about recovering some data from some hard drives in their facilities as a Part II of the article.

And BTW: the article was never meant to explain how data recovery works, it was aimed towards showing whether data recovery works. and as we found out it did. A lot of people are trying to read it for something its not.

You don't eat an apple and expect it to taste like an orange.

So you registered at the TTL forums just to post a reponse like this? :evil:

If you actually read the other reponses you would see that they are not advertising for anyone.

The idea that anyone would pressure the TTL into writing a good review is obscene. If someone thinks they have better software/services, prove it.

DriveSavers is indeed the actual industry leader here, handling much more complicated jobs than any of the other places I checked, and getting much better results. Also, I paid nowhere near $1,000 a Gig, as mentioned by the poster from reynolds Data Recovery, but it was not cheap. I paid around 2 thousand for a 120GB drive I sent in earlier this year, not 120,000 as the post would have led you to believe. The COO at my company sent in a La Cie "Big Disk" (I know, hee hee) that was 500GB (it was actually a FireWire case with 2 250GB drives inside), and they billed us around 4500 for that one. So I would say 1,000 per 100GB is a more accurate figure, or 100 dollars per Gig. OnTrak quoted nearly the same for the jobs.

i will do a little investigating to see for myself who is really the industry leader.

in reality, most of the time there are more than one industry leader, each with their own advantages, but ill see if one is superior to all others for myself.

also like i said, we will be doing a part 2 to the article soon hopefully.

Wow, what a nice infomercial. I hope they paid you well.

As someone who has worked in the data recovery industry for quite some time... I can't say that I'd call ACR "the leader of this industry"

If you want to see the leader(s) try googling "data recovery" once. :-)
You'll find the big boys listed at positions 1 and 2.
(With number one being 10x larger than number two. Who knows where ACR falls.)

I'd like to point out a factual error in this article.
"The problem is that any program designed in Windows can and probably will overwrite the very same data that you are trying to recover."
This is only true if you are trying to recover data off of your boot drive (C:\ for you non-techies) Your boot drive (usually) has your swapfile, your registry, your temporary files folder, etc. Any time you write to that drive you could potentially lose recoverable data.
So if you want to get technical... Reading that article using Windows is causing IE to write to "Temporary Internet files" to your drive, which *could* be overwriting your data.

However if you have two drive letters (partitions for you techies) it is possible for a Windows program to exclusively lock a drive so no other program can write to it. Effectively flipping a virtual write-protect tab on a drive or a device.

So if you are smart... When you lose data... Power off the computer as soon as possible, and hook it up to another computer. *DO NOT* boot from it.

So yes you can write a Windows data recovery program that won't destroy data.

I also think it is funny how the article says companies that claim to have 20, 30 and even 40 years of experience are 'chop shops’ ... then goes on to say ACR has "almost 20 years of experience " ;-)

Huh, makes you wonder how technical they really are.

Get the f*** over it!

"I also think it is funny how the article says companies that claim to have 20, 30 and even 40 years of experience are 'chop shops’ ... then goes on to say ACR has "almost 20 years of experience "

Huh, makes you wonder how technical they really are."

yeah, almost. i agree with you on that quote, I think Doug messed up a bit on that one. I merely quoted him.

This was in no way an infomercial, and, once again, I was not paid. If you would read the whole article maybe you would see that my intent was to show people who DON'T know about data recovery that there are options available if you lose your data.

It wasn't an in depth article intended for people who have sufficient knowledge on the topic. It was meant to help those who either don't know data can be recovered at all, or that the best route is with programs like Norton Ghost if they do decide to (not a good choice)

As far as the whole industry leader argument goes... They are an industry leader, like it or not. Simply because there are a LOT of other data recovery companies out there that depend on ACR's Media Tools to recover data for their clients.

As a matter of fact, the article I mentioned in TIME magazine about the company that recovers drives that had been shot, etc... They use ACR's software to recover data.

Perhaps if you /.'ers would stop bashing and start trying to leave some helpful feedback, I would take you more seriously.

ooooooooo, take that!

*shakes fist*

go kurtis

:lol:

you make a good point drguy, and one that i hadn't thought of. but, seeing as how that statement you are nitpicking is pretty general i think most people would agree it never really inteded to address the specific event you mention. he was just making the point that windows based programs "could" possibly do this. also, it IS highly possible that many people could run into that problem as many unskilled computer users don't partition their drives and keep separate their OS install and valuable data. i know i didn't partition my hdd when i first started fiddling with computes. of course i know better now, but there are loads of people out there who don't.

please check back on the follow-up article. as you have no doubt noticed, all the uproar over this article has prompted brian and kurtis to pursue ACR's statements further and get the facts straight from the company.

oh yeah, and for any other /. bashers that have come here to say, "you corporate cocksuckers, quit selling out" may i direct you to this link (http://www.thetechlounge.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t...) FIRST!

the techlounge boys tell it like it is. TAKE THAT CORPORATE AMERICA!

lol good example? we had to lock that thread before it ended up getting us sued. that would suck :P

defamation is not something to play around with

well yeah. you had to lock it up because of what other forum users were saying, not what you all said. that was a whole 'nother sack a monkey crap.

man, TTL is just rife with controversy! you guys are like the oliver stones of tech reviews...only not as rich or talented. :D

lol.

We get it. You really carry the torch for these guys, eh? We are past understanding that "the company from the Time article" uses Media Tools. That is like a mantra for you and Roberts. You repeat it like fact, when you clearly do not know what you are talking about. Every data recovery firm uses a range of tools that they did not write in house. As well as some that they did. If ACR relies only on Media Tools, they are not getting a lot of recoveries. There is simply not 1 single app or bundle of software that can handle every problem that will lead you to need data recovery. Not even Media Tools. If a data recovery firm only used in house software, their success rate would be low, and their development costs high.
But you and Mr. Roberts saying that without qualifying it makes it sound as if without ACRs software, other data recovery companies would not get recoveries, or specifically "the company from the Time article". I don't understand. Do you have an agreement with this company also that forces you to mask their identity? And why thinly veil unqualified accusations? Whatever serious reviews you have done in the past, this does not qualify. In the forum, you are just repeating what Mr. Roberts said, and qualifying nothing. How is it that you know what other data recovery firms use? And why do you assist Mr. Roberts in focusing on that aspect of data recovery services, when clearly the expertise of the data recovery engineers is what gets recoveries, no matter what commercially available products they use? Do you really believe the fluff you printed? Odd, because you have been a serious journalistic site in the past. In this piece, you didn't even research. Just repeated baseless claims. This was a bad piece, plain and simple. And you continuing to carry the torch makes it worse.
Media Tools is widely used among many firms, I am sure. As well as other tools. When I send in my data, I want experienced engineers, not someone who really believes there is one tool for every situation. I am a sys admin and have had to send in several drives to a few of the leading firms. I do back up, but trust me, the MBA types upstairs never do. I have only tried the leading 2 firms, but both got back good results, using some commercially available tools at some point of the recovery, I am sure. What seperated one from the other was service. Their prices were close to the same. I never tried ACR, but have used Media Tools myself.
The article also states that service guarantees are lies (how? this is also not qualified) that prey on the insecurities of people. So the focus of the story is clear. You don't need a company that is serious about it's work ethic and service level, but just one that made or uses Media Tools. Beyond that they are all liars. Success rates and promptness are predatorial, and me making thinly veiled slams at a leading data recovery firm is good business. Bad journalism. That is why "we /.ers" did not take it seriously. That is why there was a stream of slams for the posting. Perhaps this kind of pandering is acceptable journalism for your site, but at /., forgive us, we want a serious look at a subject that we discuss. How embarrasing for you that we are not as dumb as you had hoped. I hope your upcoming "Part 2" takes a more serious look at the results produced by the major firms out there, and not a continuation of that infomercial. I hope for your sake, because I for one will not be reading.
You said, "Perhaps if you /.'ers would stop bashing and start trying to leave some helpful feedback, I would take you more seriously." There is some feedback for you to take seriously. I think the other "./'ers" just didn't think all of this explanation was necessary. But clearly, for you, it was.

Discerning ./ Reader

Oh of course, clearly for me it is. Once again the bashing which you amazing /.ers just can't resist.

The problem here is that once again, you are looking at the article as something that it is not.

If you don't like the interview I did, then fine, I understand that. I can see how one would question the interview, as it leaves many things out in the open for questions.

The simple point which you must understand is that this was merely an introductory article in the sense that it is not meant to explain how data recovery works etc. It is merely meant to show that data recovery IS possible, and that it DOES work.

I couldn't care less where you decide to take your storage media to have it recovered or what software you use. That is all up to you, the user. I just wanted to show people that there are options.

And I have no doubt ACR uses software from other companies, but just the simple fact that other companies do use their software to recovery data, no matter how often they use it or how much they actually rely upon it. This makes them AN industry leader. Not THE industry leader, as there are clearly larger, and possibly better, companies out there.

I can not, however, recommend these companies from personal experience. The only reason I recommended ACR is that they had great service, and their program was easy to use and very effective. Had their software not worked, I would have exposed them for being a crap company. It just is not so. I tell things as I see them.

And regarding the TIME article, ACR has agreements with the companies that use its software so that they can not name them. As such, I can not tell you that company X, Y, and Z use their software, it is simply what I was told by Doug. Is it true? I don't know and it would be hard to find out since ACR has agreements with those companies.

What would be your suggestions if I was to edit the article? As of right now if I was to edit it I would probably just remove the interview, since it doesn't seem to add much, and it is creating a lot of controversy.

You want my editing suggestion? Yeah, pull the interview. Quite simply, he (Doug Roberts) takes swipes at other companies in his field, very unprofessionally, and without any qualification of his points. I appreciated the service I got from other companies, and they never slammed his company or his business practices. I did not feel lied to when I was guaranteed a time frame (that was met) or success rate. Why would he say these things about companies doing exactly what he does, with more experience and respect? It's not just that it was guerilla marketing (what do you think the Time piece was?), but that he indirectly took swipes at the business practices of a company whose identity he made no real effort to veil. It was unprofessional. I can't imagine someone from one of the other firms making baseless claims about ACR, and then calling it a tech review. He also made some technical errors, further damaging his credibility.
As for me flaming you in my last post, I simply did not understand how you could continue to repeat his baseless claims, such as what tools other firms use, or if it is bad business to offer faster service. True, there is no oversight board to verify a firm's claim of success rate, but does that make the other firms liars? His credibility can hit the crapper and it would make no difference to TheTechLounge, but your credibility is paramount here. Look at the other services before you flame their practices on word of mouth from a marketing guy.
Sorry for my snide closing in my last post. Like I said, previously I have read many good reviews on thetechlounge.com. I just think the last article lacked credibility, and posting it on slashdot was a mistake (the latter point I'm sure you more than agree with).
Perhaps a more in depth look into data recovery services (not just ACR) would go a long way to giving an actual review of data recovery. We know data recovery is possible, or we'd be on E! Online's website for our news. But who gets the tough ones? Who offers a high service level? I have been treated well by a couple of firms, and I did not like to see baseless claims made at their expense. I am sure that if you took a look at the top 2 firms at least, and even compare them to ACR, you would find they did not deserve thinly veiled swipes at their credibility. Perhaps that type of review would be worth a read on slashdot.

Apologetic Flame Artist

well with that said, perhaps rather than having part 2 be us looking at ACRs services, perhaps have it be something based on discussions and perhaps even data recovery experiences (us trashing a couple dirves and having them recover etc), and compare them a little rather than just saying ACR is good, but we don't know about other companies.

Up until now all I have written is reviews for thetechlounge, this was my first article... they will only get better, that I can assure you. I didn't think it would get posted on slashdot either.

wow, a well thought out response. thanks slashdotter for your candor and professionalism. please don't be a stranger to our forums! :D

i agree, i think giving ACR a little grilling in an attempt to cut through the marketing is a great idea. i don't think that they thought their little marketing blurb/standard form-letter response was going to invoke such scrutiny. but, i'm glad it did, well all except for the flame wars part. at the very least, it will make the company stand behind their claims.

i'm looking forward to the next article.

Can it recover harddisks that have been erased with, say, Secure Harddisk Eraser http://www.linux-kurser.dk/secure_harddisk_eraser....

Staying out of trouble
Follow these steps to minimize the effects of a disk failure and protect your system:
• Always back up all your files, including fonts, desk accessories, config.sys, autoexec.bat, and other customizable files.
• Don't ignore warning signs. If you have unexplained system or application crashes on a Macintosh, check first for a virus, and then have your system checked out at an authorized dealer. Likewise on the PC side, if your system seems slower or you get frequent "abort, retry, fail" messages, first check for a virus and then have your system checked out.

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File Recovery Software
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Hay kurtis,

Nice article, I didn't have a clue how to go about recovering data myself or that there were companies out there that specialise in it. I'm sure it will be useful some time in the future! Looking forward to part 2, if there is still going to be one (sorry I got a bit bored with all those guys rating about your article and skimmed a bit).

I think it would actually be quite entertaining to see you beat up some disks in various ways and see what could be recovered ;-)

heh, that is an OOOOOLD article. i don't think i'll be doing a part 2, too much other stuff to do :-P

Haha it did kick up quite a storm though didn't it? That /. guy certainly seemed to take offence! ;-)

I would not just trust this interview for my data recovery job, smart shoppers actually do research before they go to any company. There is a website that is online called datarecoverycomparison.com that actually allows you to review your data recovery experience, and review the company that you had the experience with. Most people with nightmare stories can post them on this site and have that company exploited to the public, shedding light on their corruptness and unprofessionalism. Also if you have had a good data recovery experience you may post that on this site in support of that company. Then each company is rated on a 1 to 5 star system, 5 being the best, 1 being the worst. If smart consumers go on this site and help expose the unethical hard drive recovery jobs that they have gone through, they will help other consumers avoid these companies, and hopefully help these companies go out of business; it will also help the companies that are trustworthy and professional flourish within the recovery business. Feel free to check it out and leave reblah blah blah.

If I'm a spammer I'll never fix Max's edit.