Hard drive recovery

lukin

I recently had a problem with my computer's hard drive. It got corrupted and I couldn't boot it from Windows anymore. I sent tit to a company that specialises in recovering hard drives and paid quite a lot of money.
I got it back and there was a load of stuff on it but it was all corrupted (Word files unreadable, movie files won't play, executables don't install etc.)
I told them I was dissatisfied and sent it back to them.
They worked on it again and sent it to me. However it is still the same. 75% of files are corrupted (they told me this an email after they charged me).
I am absolutely fuming as they have a policy of "no fix no fee" and I have been given a piece of garbage and charged as if everything was OK.
I am going to contact them again but I don't think they will get my data back so I want a refund.
I read the terms and conditions on their site and it says nothing about percentage of data recovered which leads me to believe they guarantee 100% recovery.
I am prepared to go to whatever means are necessary to get my money or my data back. I'd have to be mad to allow them get away with this.
What should I do?

Cabaal

Data recovery is a very expensive business to be honest and it comes with no guarantees that the data can be recovered, this is why people really should backup there data to a second or even third device. Thankfully I've never had to use such services as I've managed to recover my own files in 99.9% of cases

First thing first have you challenged them on the policy they have to see what their response is?

lukin

Cabaal wrote: »

First thing first have you challenged them on the policy they have to see what their response is?

No but I am mightily p***ed off as they said they could guarantee "95-100% data recovery" when I first spoke to them on the 'phone.

Cabaal

lukin wrote: »

No but I am mightily p***ed off as they said they could guarantee "95-100% data recovery" when I first spoke to them on the 'phone.

I'd query there policy with them before decideding what to do next, perhaps drop them a e-mail so you have the response in writing

lukin

Just spoke to them on the phone there and the guy I spoke to gave me no satisfaction at all. He said that he explained to me on the 'phone that some of the data would be in RAW format and that RAW data was not going to be readable (a lie; he said that this meant the directory structure would be lost but that most of the files should open).
He also said that this was explained to me in an email that was sent to me before I agreed payment (he has said he will send me the email)
I have read the terms and conditions on their site and there is no mention of percentage recovery, it says "We offer a No Fix No Fee service. This simply means if we do not recover your data you do not pay us"
They haven't recovered my data and I have already paid so I want my money back basically.
I have phone number for consumer rights (1890 432 432 or 01 402 5555) so I will contact them later. I no longer want to talk to the company concerned.

Nody

lukin wrote: »

I read the terms and conditions on their site and it says nothing about percentage of data recovered which leads me to believe they guarantee 100% recovery.

Lets cut it down to what it is about, ok? You assumed it would be 100%; they never said anything about 100% recovery.

Secondly; they have recovered some data by your own admission; hence they have fulfilled the requirement of "We recover data or you don't pay". It did not specify "We recover 100% of the data or you don't pay" (which would be close to impossible in general) or "We recover enough that you are satisifed or you don't pay".

Cabaal

Have to agree with Nody on this, data recovery companys are in the business long enough to know that 100% of the data can't be recoevred 100% of the time.

By your very own admission they did indeed recover data, I'd be curious to actually read the actual Terms & Conditions as I'm betting they've covered themselves good and proper. Can you post a link to them or post a copy of them here?

You should never ever ever depend on a third party to get you out of a harddrive crash, data should always be backed up if its that important to you.

lukin

From what you are saying it seems I don't have a good case; they have done me good and proper. He said on teh 'phone that RAW dat means that the directory structure will be lost, he never said anything about the ACTUAL data being lost.
They said "if we do not recover your data you do not pay us". Well maybe they should make it clear that they don't guarantee recovery of all the data?
By the way, the above quoted sentence is not taken from their terms and conditions.

jor el

It seems like you have a good case; no fix no fee is fairly clear. However, I'd be very wary that they haven't covered themselves somewhere, as data recovery is never going to be 100%, that's simply the nature of a hard disk fail, you will loose stuff. So any company offering this on a 100% fix basis won't be in business for long, as they can never achieve that.

Wait for his email that was supposed to explain exactly what they guarantee, and also scour the terms and conditions again for their get out of jail clause, because there has to be something there.

After that, if it's still not clear what they actually guarantee, and what the no fix no fee policy covers, then you should contact the NCA through their website, consumerconnect.ie

lukin

jor el wrote: »

It seems like you have a good case; no fix no fee is fairly clear. However, I'd be very wary that they haven't covered themselves somewhere, as data recovery is never going to be 100%, that's simply the nature of a hard disk fail, you will loose stuff. So any company offering this on a 100% fix basis won't be in business for long, as they can never achieve that.

Wait for his email that was supposed to explain exactly what they guarantee, and also scour the terms and conditions again for their get out of jail clause, because there has to be something there.

After that, if it's still not clear what they actually guarantee, and what the no fix no fee policy covers, then you should contact the NCA through their website, consumerconnect.ie

I'm glad someone agrees with me;I've read their terms and conditions and nowhere does it say that they don't guarantee 100% recovery.
I work in IT myself so I know a thing or two about data recovery; it seems clear they were dishonest. I have calmed down a bit now but am still determined to get my money back (or at least a large percentage of it).
It's a company outside Ireland so I have to contact eccireland.ie.

Nody

lukin wrote: »

I'm glad someone agrees with me;I've read their terms and conditions and nowhere does it say that they don't guarantee 100% recovery.
I work in IT myself so I know a thing or two about data recovery; it seems clear they were dishonest. I have calmed down a bit now but am still determined to get my money back (or at least a large percentage of it).
It's a company outside Ireland so I have to contact eccireland.ie.

And I'm also quite sure that their terms does not include the fact that you could want to have your HDD back painted yellow and hence you would have the right to have it back in yellow as well by that reasoning.

What I'm getting at is their T&C does not have a negative specification of everything they don't promise; what they will have is what they DO promise and if that does not include 100% recovery then you can't expect 100% recovery.

the_syco

I'm assuming that they gave you the stuff back on a different hard-drive, yes?

Also, if it's caused by a hardware fault, getting anything back is good. If the data loss was caused by software, unless you preformed a dban, or something stupid like continuing to write to the drive after the incident that caused data loss to happen, you can usually get it all back.

The fact that many files, movies, etc, was corrupted makes me think that the problem was cause by hardware corrupting (or you did something stupid, as listed above).

If the files were recovered, but lacked the directory table, try running the demo of O&O Data Recovery to see if it can find the files. I have found this program to be very good at finding files after the directory table got wiped (accidently formatted the disk, and reinstalled windows to it).

Heck, you may be able to get your files back yourself.

=-=

As for the "no fee, no fix", look at what percentage that they count as a "fix". If they counted 50% of the data as a fix, they may try to keep your money by saying they fufilled their contract.

Dymo

How much money are we actually talking about here just to get a perspective on how much you should be entitled to get back, its obvious that you were mislead by there conversation.

m4r10

While we all agree that 100% recovery is not possible, I can't see why the OP has to pay full price for only 25% of data recovered. IMO, the OP should insist for a partial refund.

smelltheglove

Some companies ar ebetter than others than this. I am surprised you sent it abroad to be honest when there are so many places that can do it here. I brought a laptop to be repaired once, my required info was backed up but there were some personal pictures and that which I did not back up. I did not request for these to be founbd, just to get the thing working again, no fix no fee. I was told it could not be done. Took their word for it and later sold it on to a fella looking for a good shell. The fella got back to me a week later to say he had located all my files and would stick them on discs for collection if I wanted:eek: Needless to say I was pretty p'd off that I took for gospel what the first place told me, I loved that laptop. Anyway point is, get a second opinions, someone else, local may be a lot a better, may not but Id take my chances if I was you.

dudara

johnmichle515 This is the consumer issues forum. Please stick to the Consumer Issue under discussion, where possible.

dudara