Our Services

Removable Media Data Recovery

If you would like to book in your media or receive a free quotation, please contact us.

1. Examples of Data Loss Situations
2. The Recovery Process
3. Turn Around Time
4. Removable Types, Brands, Models and Interfaces

1. Examples of Data Loss Situations

Recovery from physical and logical damage due to mechanical failure, software corruption or human error.

• Inaccessible media
• Corrupted data
• Virus
• Fire & water damage
• Media surface contamination and damage
• Accidental reformatting
• Accidental deletion of data

2. The Recovery Process

Each data recovery, file recovery, undelete, raid recovery, disk recovery or disaster recovery case begins with a free evaluation to determine the potential for recovery and to provide a firm price-quote for your review. Initial diagnosis determines whether the media is accessible to our lab equipment. If so, the first priority is to create a raw image of the data on our media so that logical analysis can determine the nature of the data loss situation. If the media is inaccessible our lab will test the components and closely examine its internal health to determine the extent of physical damage.

Recovery of crashed hard disks often involves replacing failed or damaged components in a clean environment and using specialized hardware and software tools to create the raw image. Failed components typically include electronics, read/write heads, head assemblies, magnets & drive motors.

Logical recovery uses the raw image by examining the low-level data sectors and determining what fixes to file system structures are needed to get access to the important data. Sometimes the existing file system structures are missing or damaged so much that data has to be extracted directly from one or more fragments of the raw image.

We have created a full set of software tools used by our technicians to analyze, fix & recover data from raw images of all operating systems. Once a recovery has been successfully performed, file lists are created and data validity is checked.

3. Turn Around Time

We have geared its entire service to recover your data as fast as possible. When dealing with such a wide variety of problems, estimating time before the problem is diagnosed is difficult. That is why, each recovery case starts with a free evaluation.

The free evaluation is started immediately on receipt of the media and generally takes 2 to 24 hours to complete. The process involves several hours of work and testing. (Mirroring alone may take up to 24 hours of computer time with extensive re-tries for badly damaged devices.)

Complete recovery turn-around time including analysis and recovery is usually between 1 and 5 days. Some severe cases can take considerably more time.

Our hours of operation are 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday. If you have an emergency situation, we have technical staff on call for weekends and after hours.

Time estimates are based on procedures and expertise required to recover the data you require. You are not charged by the hour. A firm quote is provided for your approval following the evaluation.

4. Removable Types, Brands, Models and Interfaces

Diskettes in 3.5" format with 720Kb & 1.44Mb capacities, 5.25" format single and double-sided to 1.2Mb capacity.

CD ROM, CD R/W, DVD-R, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM disks.

Optical Formats for standalone & multi-cartridge Jukebox storage systems:

ISO 3.5": 128Mb, 230Mb & 640Mb
GigaMO 3.5" 1.3Gb, 2.3Gb
ISO 5.25": 650Mb, 1.0, 1.2, 2.3, 2.6Gb WORM and R/W
Panasonic 5.25" 1.5Gb

Pinnacle 5.25" 2.6Gb & 4.6Gb
Imation 120Mb SuperDisks
Iomega 100Mb, 250Mb and 750Mb ZIP disks.

Bernoulli 44Mb, 90Mb, 105Mb and 150Mb 5.25" cartridges.
1Gb & 2Gb JAZZ cartridges.

Syquest 44Mb, 88Mb & 200Mb 5.25" cartridges.
230Mb & 270Mb 3.5" cartridges,
1.0Gb SPARQ & 1.5Gb SyJet cartridges.

ORB 2.2Gb Cartridges

FireWire and USB removable / portable drives from Iomega HDD, LaCie, SmartDisk, Western Digital, etc. Iomega Mini-USB drives in 64Mb, 128Mb and 256Mb capacities. ATA & SRAM FlashCards such as SmartMedia and CompactFlash

How to Submit a Recovery Case

Email your collection details to calldesk@proactiveco.co.za and our courier will collect your notebook, laptop or preferably just the hard drive for recovery. Alternately bring your drive to our premises. See map for directions.

Careful packaging is important to preserve delicate electronics like hard drives. See Packaging Instructions to help avoid shipping damage.