ACTION FRONT DATA RECOVERY LABS, INC.

Data Recovery Labs

ActionFront Data Recovery Labs Inc. is a privately held corporation founded in 1989 by Nicholas Majors and incorporated in December 1990. The company name (formerly Datarec.com - Data Recovery Labs) was changed by amendments to the articles of incorporation in May 2000.

The company`s sole business activity is recovering data files and lost information from downed or inaccessible storage devices and network servers. This exclusive focus, combined with a dedication to constant and ongoing research and development has led to widespread demand for our technical capabilities and a reputation as the most technically successful recovery service available - anywhere at any price.

With a current staff of 45 and sales approaching $7 million, ActionFront Data Recovery is a world leader in this highly specialized field of computer services.

In 1990 we changed the industry by doing away with the up-front evaluation fees normally charged prior to starting a recovery project and introduced the world`s first Free Evaluation service for data recoveries.

Our success is in large part due to a policy of performing all billable work with a Data Guarantee that is unmatched in the industry.

In 2001 we became the only data recovery company in the world to be certified to the ISO 9001:2000 standard. ActionFront Data Recovery Labs Inc is the first data recovery company in the world to be certified to the 9001:2000 standard.

ActionFront operates full service recovery labs with professional clean-room facilities in five US and one Canadian location. Since 1996 we have also maintained a receiving depot in Buffalo New York to facilitate the trans-shipment of jobs between our various labs.

ADC - Advanced Design Corporation of Tokyo Japan represents our Asian market and we service European clients through an association with IBAS Data Recovery of Norway.

ActionFront recovers from all types of storage media and platforms. Each section to the left details: loss situations we recover from, the recovery process, price, time, types of service, and technical capabilities.

Since 1989, ActionFront has defined the standard of excellence in the data recovery industry. We provide the finest and most innovative data recovery services available anywhere, at any price!

ActionFront has five (5) full service data recovery lab facilities in the United States and Canada.

We are the first data recovery company in the world to be registered to the ISO 9001:2000 International Quality Standard and the only registered data recovery company in North America.

Data Recovery from Different Media

We pioneered the concept of free evaluations with our no data - no charge policy; and our Data Guarantee is still unique in the industry. Our customer satisfaction level is second to none.

Hard Disk/Laptop/RAID/SAN Data Recovery

Hard Disk Drive Data Recoveries

Recovery from physical and logical damage due to mechanical and electrical failure, software corruption or human error: Computer won`t boot, Inaccessible drives and partitions, Applications that are unable to run or load data, Corrupted data, Virus, Hard disk component failure, Hard disk crashes, Fire & water damage, Media surface contamination and damage, Accidental reformatting of partitions, Accidental deletion of data.

Notebook / Laptop Computers Data Recoveries

Recovery from physical and logical damage due to mechanical and electrical failure, software corruption or human error: Dropped notebook - no longer turns on, Inaccessible drives and partitions, Applications that are unable to run or load data, Corrupted data, Virus, Hard disk component failure, Hard disk crashes, Fire, water, coffee and other liquid damage, Media surface contamination and damage, Accidental reformatting of partitions, Accidental deletion of data.

Fileservers, Application Servers, Mail Servers, Web Servers, NAS devices (Quantum SNAP, Dell Power Vault etc.) and just plain Servers form the backbone of many corporations` business records storage. There may be one hard drive or many, configured together in volumes spanning drives or striped across drives, on permanent hard drives or removable media.

Windows NT and Windows 2000 are the most popular Operating Systems for servers today but we see many NetWare, Apple, Solaris, HPUX, and Linux servers as well. ActionFront Data Recovery Labs technicians are intimately familiar with server hardware from IBM, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard, Sun hardware as well as numerous others.

RAID / SAN / NAS Data Recoveries

Naturally, the individual media in Servers suffer from the same failure points as do drives in personal computers and workstations. The increased complexity of many server operating systems results in additional loss situations: RAID Controller failure, Server registry configuration lost, Intermittent drive failure resulting in configuration corruption Accidental reconfiguration of RAID drives, Multiple drive failure, Accidental replacement of media components.

UNIX / Linux Servers-Data Recovery

Fileservers, Application Servers, Mail Servers, Web Servers, NAS devices (Quantum SNAP, Dell Power Vault etc.) and just plain Servers form the backbone of many corporations` business records storage. Windows NT and Windows 2000 are the most popular Operating Systems for servers today but we see many NetWare, Apple, Solaris, HPUX, and Linux servers as well.

Naturally, the individual media in Servers suffer from the same failure points as do drives in personal computers and workstations. The increased complexity of many server operating systems results in additional loss situations: Server registry configuration lost, Intermittent drive failure resulting in configuration corruption, Multiple drive failure, Accidental replacement of media components

Data Recovery Process

ActionFront Data Recovery Labs technicians treat Server and RAID loss situations as high priority cases.

Initial diagnosis determines whether the media is accessible to our lab equipment. 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.

Multiple-drive servers are typically `destriped` onto ActionFront media so that file system repairs can be performed and the data files extracted. 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 destriped image.

ActionFront Data Recovery Labs programmers 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.

Data Recovery Price

Each data recovery case has its own unique characteristics. Based on the high volume of cases handled by ActionFront we can classify most single hard drive recoveries into two broad categories: External and Internal.

The actual price of any case is determined by two main factors: The cost of components and the total lab time spent on the case and what proportion of the work is done by junior, intermediate or senior technicians. In turn, the amount of lab time and seniority of staff needed are affected by: The File-system type(Various Windows systems such as FAT32 and NTFS, MAC or UNIX) and the degree of file-system rebuilding required. This is the amount of logical repair work required for an external recovery or as the follow-up steps for an internal recovery.

The historical lab success rate on a certain type of data loss situation on a particular model also affects the price. Note that there is no charge at all if the data cannot be recovered.

ActionFront`s Labs have recovered from thousands of RAID, SAN, NAS and Unix/Linux Server devices over the years. As you may expect, no two data recovery scenarios are identical in all respects. Therefore, this uniqueness makes it impossible to give a realistic indication of pricing without knowing all the facts for a particular case. Generally speaking, pricing starts at about $2000.00 and goes up from this point.

Over the phone, our highly trained Customer Service Consultants will be able to give you some idea of what pricing you would be looking at given your particular configuration and set of circumstances.

Data Recovery Turn-Around Time

ActionFront has geared its entire service to recover your data as fast as possible. Each recovery case starts with a free evaluation which starts immediately on receipt of the media and generally takes 2 to 24 hours to complete. The process involves several hours of work and testing. Complete recovery turn-around time including analysis and recovery is usually between 1 and 5 days. Some severe cases can take considerably more time.

Tapes, Removable Media & Database Data Recovery

Tape, DLT, DAT etc Data Recovery

ActionFront Data Recovery Labs is under contract with Quantum Corporation to provide the world`s only manufacturer-authorized data recovery service for DLT and SDLT tape cartridges.

Quantum is the licensor of all DLT and SDLT tape drives and tape media. ActionFront performs DLT & SDLT recoveries under the name Quantum Storage Data Services. If you have data loss issues involving DLT or SDLT, please contact us

Server and Personal Computer Tape Backup systems using 4mm DAT, Travan, Exabyte 8mm, LTO and the various QIC formats are popular and necessary to safeguard your data. When these tapes fail the situation is normally catastrophic as they were often the only remaining repository of their data. Popular backup software such as Legato`s Networker, Cheyenne ArcServe, Veritas BackupExec, Microsoft NTBackup, Dantz Retrospect plus the unix tar and cpio utilities (and many more) all use different internal formats which ActionFront programmers understand and extract data from.

Tape data storage can be inaccessible for a number of reasons: Tape drive failure has corrupted tape headers, Tape media stretched or snapped, Fire & water damage, Media surface contamination and damage, Accidental reformatting or erasure of tape, Accidental overwriting of headers, Tape backup software corruption.

Removable Media – Data Recovery (Diskettes CD DVD Zip Media Flash etc)

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.

SQL, Oracle RDBMS Databases – Data Recovery

Data stored in SQL Server, Oracle, SyBase, Exchange Server, Access and other databases maintained on networked Fileservers. Relational and object database management technologies are fundamental to modern IT systems, often underpinning the lifeblood applications run by the entire corporation.

Naturally, the individual media in database Servers suffer from the same failure points as do drives in personal computers and workstations.

Experienced System Administrators and DBAs know that a relational or object oriented database environment is fragile unless supported by comprehensive and well-tested backups. Unfortunately, it is all too common for devices to become corrupt beyond the scope of routine recovery methods. Failures still occur in even the most well-configured system, such as: Backup files not recognizable by database engine, Database locked as `suspect` preventing access, Deleted or dropped tables, Accidentally deleted records, Corrupted database files and devices, Damaged individual data pages, Accidentally overwritten database files & devices.

Data Recovery Process

Initial Diagnosis and Logical Recovery Process

Recovery of damaged tape media often involves cleaning, splicing & respooling healthy segments of tape into new carriers using specialized tools. Specially configured tape drives using customized hardware and software tools are used to create a raw image from whatever portions of tape that are readable.

Normal system maintenance routines are unable to recover all data in situations where underlying media failure or structural corruption has eliminated key pointers; indeed those routines will often exacerbate the damage.

ActionFront Data Recovery Labs technicians treat Database loss situations as high priority cases. If hardware problems or operating system configuration problems have rendered the basic data tables inaccessible or damaged then our technicians proceed just as they would for a Server/RAID recovery.

ActionFront Data Recovery Labs technicians can then analyze the contents of the raw sector images to identify the tables and records containing your desired data. This data can then be extracted and the entire database rebuilt, if necessary.

Data Recovery Turn-Around Time

ActionFront has 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 tape media and usually takes 1 to 2 days.

Complete recovery turn-around time including analysis and recovery is usually between 2 and 10 days for Tapes Recovery and 1 and 5 days for Removable Media and Database Recoveries.

Our hours of operation are 9am to 7pm EST Monday to Friday (All Labs), 9am to 5pm Saturday (Toronto Lab only). If you have an emergency situation, we have technical staff on call for weekends and after hours in all locations.

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.

Data Recovery Price

As you may expect, no two data recovery scenarios are identical in all respects. Therefore, this uniqueness makes it impossible to give a realistic indication of pricing without knowing all the facts for a particular case.

ActionFront`s Labs have recovered from thousands of Tape, DLT recoveries over the years. Generally speaking, pricing starts at about $1500.00.

ActionFront`s Labs have recovered from thousands of removable devices over the years. Generally speaking, pricing starts at about $100.00 for media such as floppies and low-end smart media, $200.00 for ZIP, $400.00 for JAZ and $500.00 for optical media per side.

ActionFront`s experience in these database types of recoveries ranges from the most straightforward and basic all the way through project level cases that have taken months to resolve. Generally speaking, pricing starts at about $2500.00 for the most basic and can be in the $10,000.00 and up range for extremely complex.

Over the phone, our highly trained Customer Service Consultants will be able to give you some idea of what pricing you would be looking at given your particular configuration and set of circumstances. Sending in your media for a no obligation evaluation will give us all of the information we would require to give you a firm quotation for the recovery of your data.

Media Restore Service, Forensic Support and Electronic Data Storage

Media Restore Service

ActionFront Data Recovery Labs is under contract with Quantum Corporation to provide Media Restore and Data Migration Services for DLT and SDLT under the name Quantum Storage Data Services. If you require Media Restore or Data Migration Services to or from DLT/SDLT, please contact us.

ActionFront`s Media Restore Services are often the solution to situations where the support equipment, time and resources are not available to restore archived data. Data stored on legacy media such as tapes, or on alternative platforms like Unix or Novell may now be required but the operating environment and people know how are long gone. The media restore service is also used for restoring data evidence in archived data systems.

ActionFront begins the process with a free evaluation to determine the nature and extent of the requirements. A firm quote is then presented for review and approval. 

Media Restore Services Price

ActionFront`s Labs experience in these types of scenarios ranges from the most straightforward and basic all the way through project level cases that have taken months to resolve. As you may expect, no two scenarios are identical in all respects. Therefore, this uniqueness makes it impossible to give a realistic indication of pricing without knowing all the facts for a particular case.

Over the phone, our highly trained Customer Service Consultants will be able to give you some idea of what pricing you would be looking at given your particular configuration and set of circumstances. Sending in your case for a no obligation evaluation will give us all of the information we would require to give you a firm quotation for your media restore requirements.

Media Restore Services Turn-Around Time

Timing for the media restore services is not possible without evaluating the specific requirements. For example: Timing could be only a few days for 2-10 tapes or several weeks for 1000`s of tapes. A good estimate of time is provided at the completion of the initial evaluation along with a firm quote for your consideration.

Forensic Support and Electronic Data Storage

ActionFront is a member of the High Technology Criminal Investigation Association (HTCIA ) http://htcia.org

eForensics, Digital Forensics, eDiscovery all revolve around the process of finding information (resident on digital media) that can be certified as evidence in a criminal, civil or corporate investigation.

Data Recovery can be an important step in the eForensics process. When the media being investigated is rendered inaccessible (e.g. accidentally or intentionally damaged or corrupted) or the number of media large (e.g. 1000 tapes) or the data is on old technology, professional in-lab data recovery/media restore is often required. Providing access to the data on the problem media is where ActionFront can help.

Unlike many data recovery companies, we do not claim to be experts in forensics; we do however understand and actively support eForensics. Many law enforcement, legal and corporate investigators rely on ActionFront when they need data recovery in the course of an investigation.

ActionFront`s focus is to make the data accessible and useable and provide chain-of-custody support based on our ISO 9001:2000 certified process. We leave the actual forensics work to our customers who are eForensics experts.

ActionFront`s experience ranges from the most straightforward and basic to the most complex. Initially over the phone, our highly trained Customer Service Consultants will be able to listen to your situation and requirements and give you advice on how to proceed and how our service may be of help. Call our Toll Free Number 1-800-563-1167

Case Studies

In a recent case, a large bank`s customer data was exposed when their end-of-life servers were sold off in an ``un-scrubbed`` condition due to a clerical error. They retrieved their drives (2 RAID sets) but were unable to access the data, even with 3 days of support work from the original vendor. ActionFront recovered their data within 24 hours of being called in - on a weekend.

Swiss Air Disaster

``Presented to ActionFront Data Recovery Labs for valued assistance during the investigation into the tragic crash of Swiss Air Flight 111, on September 2nd, 1998 near Peggy`s Cove, Nova Scotia`` Insp. A. Lathem O/ic Swiss Air Task Force

Murder Investigation

During the course of a recent investigation, the police seized the computer of a murder suspect accused of killing his wife. After briefly reviewing the contents of the system, the hard drive failed and the police were unable to make the forensics image they required. The system was brought to a specially secured area in the ActionFront lab where a senior technician worked on it under the supervision of a police officer. This particular case required an ``internal recovery`` including a head-assembly transplant and the resulting mirror image contained some errors. The programmers were able to repair the damaged file structures ultimately resulting in a virtually perfect recovery. The police used the mirrored data to complete their investigation and justice prevailed.

Child Pornography

A notebook PC belonging to a suspect in a child pornography case was physically damaged and the data on it could not be accessed in the police crime lab. (The police believed that the suspect had attempted to destroy the notebook.) The police called ActionFront. We set up a secure area with a dedicated senior technician and invited the detective to oversee the data recovery procedure. This case involved fixing the hard drive PCB and the internal ribbon cables and soon yielded a perfect image. Based on the recovered data the police were able to conclude a successful investigation.

Employee Sabotage

ActionFront has recovered data in several cases involving human resource disputes. Typically, a ``disgruntled employee`` has been fired or disciplined ``for cause``; for example they have stolen client data or downloaded pornography onto corporate computers. The employee has tried to destroy incriminating evidence by deleting files or physically damaging the system. Sometimes they have been fired for non-technology related reasons but sabotage the employers` computer systems as a method of revenge. The employers or their legal team send the media to ActionFront to regain access to their data or to find evidence that can be used against the offending employee.

Help once Data is Recovered

Restoring your Data from CD / DVD

Before copying your data to your hard drive, please be sure that you have a bootable operating system and that there is enough free space on your hard drive to hold the recovered data. It is also advisable to transfer only data files. Actual programs should be re-installed from original sources prior to the transfer of data.

The recovered files and/or folders have been transferred to one or more CD/DVD-ROMs. The files on a CD/DVD-ROM have their ``read only`` attribute set because a CD/DVD-ROM is a ``read only`` device. Consequently, the files cannot be modified or changed directly on the CD/DVD-ROM. To allow the files to be modified or written to, it is necessary to copy the files to your hard drive. After copying the data to your hard drive, the files` ``read only`` attributes must be unchecked to allow write operations.

DVD Note
Before proceeding further, ensure you have a valid DVD reader that was manufactured in year 2000 or later. All formats use a common file system (ISO 9660 + UDF).

1. After your system has successfully started up, place the CD/DVD in the CD/DVD-ROM drive.

2. Double click on the ``My Computer`` icon. You should see an icon of your available hard drives and an icon for the CD/DVD-ROM drive.

3. Double click on the CD/DVD-ROM drive to see the recovered data on the CD/DVD. Verify the files and/or folders you require are present.

4. Double click the hard drive and folder that you wish to copy the data files and/or folders to.

5. Now use your mouse to select and drag the required data files and/or folders from the CD/DVD to the destination folder on your hard drive.

6. Now that the data has been copied from the CD/DVD to your hard drive, the read only attribute must be unchecked. Select all the files within a folder by using your mouse to highlight them. Then click the right button of the mouse to bring up the properties box. Now simply uncheck the ``read only`` attribute checkbox.

Your data can now be loaded and modified directly from your hard drive.

Guidelines for Using your Data Drive

1. The drive supplied is a data drive only. It will not boot on its own, nor can you run programs from the drive.

2. You will need to connect this drive to a working/host computer as a ``slave`` or second hard drive. The host computer must have a compatible Operating System to see the data drive correctly.

3. Make sure the drive is NOT set up as a master on the primary IDE cable. See the Installation sheet supplied with the drive for more details.

4. Refer to your computer manual for details on how to configure your computer to recognize the new drive.

5. You will not be able to connect this drive to a laptop. A laptop/notebook usually has no provision for adding this type of drive.

6. Upon successful installation, the new drive will appear as a new drive letter on your computer.

7. It is recommended you back up your data files immediately!

Note 1: A copy of your recovery is kept for a minimum of 14 days after delivery of your data.

Note 2: Any warranty claims should be handled through the manufacturer.

Note 3: If you don`t understand the instructions above, it is highly recommended that you seek

Data Emergency Guide

ActionFront offers a number of resources to deal with and understand data recovery.

Data Loss Situation

A data loss situation is usually characterized by: the sudden inability to access any data from a previously functioning computer system or backup; the accidental erasure of data or overwriting of data control structures; data corruption or inaccessibility due to physical media damage or operating system problems.

Data loss can be caused by physical damage or `soft` (logical) problems:  no access to ``C:`` drive or cannot read a floppy disk; corporate data server crash; medical images backed up on a digital tape cartridge can no longer be restored.

Physical Causes of Data Loss

Physical problems include mechanical failures due to: shock from device being bumped, dropped or moved while operating causing a head crash or platter misalignment; device exposed to extreme temperatures prior to use. such as water, fire etc; Stiction-the read-write head assembly gets ``stuck`` on the disk media due to deterioration of the lubricant or because it has failed to retract to its rest (parked) position.       

Data Recovery

Data recovery is a highly technical and labor-intensive process usually performed in a controlled lab environment.

Common Recoveries: Involve hard drives and floppies that are usually from single-user personal computers.

Complex Recoveries: Involve hard drives, RAID arrays, tape and optical media or corrupted databases and file systems usually from multi-user business systems.  Data storage at the high-end has become a very complex field.  In the case of these complex situations data recovery can be seen as ``troubleshooting data storage``.

Whether common or complex, each data recovery case is unique and the process can be very resource intensive and exceedingly technical.

Data Loss Prevention

Data loss is extremely disruptive to both individuals and businesses and data recovery can be a costly process. Back Up Systems-whether it is a single notebook or desktop computer or corporate server, backing up data is fundamental to prevent data loss.  Backing up data means making a copy of critical data onto some other media and storing the back up separately from the main file set in use; Practice Restoring from a Backup beforehand; Never Upgrade without a Verified Backup; before upgrading any system, perform a complete backup and restore procedure.  Many data recovery cases involve upgrades that have gone wrong. 

Document Systems-List applications and ensure that data is being backed up regularly from all of them. Organize all original software and hardware documentation and original copies of software.

Practice Preventative Physical Maintenance: Keep the equipment under favorable environment conditions regarding temperature and humidity. Install protection from power outages and power surges. Clean the dust from the inside of the system. Clean tape and optical drives periodically through the use of special cleaning disks and tapes.

Data Recovery Process

In a data loss situation, what NOT to do is very important!

Never run a program or utility that writes to or alters the problem media in any way. Do not power up a device that has obvious physical damage. Do not power up a device that has shown symptoms of physical failure such as mechanical fault. Activate the write-protect switch or tab on any problem removable media such as tape cartridges and floppies.  (Many good backups are overwritten during a crisis.)

If you are having data access problems and your media has no symptoms of physical failure or damage, try and check some obvious issues before deciding if you need data recovery: Read or briefly review this guide to the end. Are the power and drive cables properly connected? Is configuration or driver information correct? Try the defective unit with a different adapter/controller interface or on a different computer. Is there an experienced technician at a local store or the company help desk that you can consult, if these steps are beyond your capabilities?  (Make sure whoever is in contact with your data loss situation is fully aware that they should do nothing during their troubleshooting that will risk hurting your data.)

ActionFront`s Data Recovery Process

Initial Inquiry and Consultation Process
The ActionFront CSR (Customer Service Representative) will follow the medical oath to ``do no harm`` and seek to analyze, preserve and stabilize the current situation.  Once a data loss situation has been confirmed, they will help you ship the problem media to the nearest ActionFront Lab.

The Recovery Process Begins with a Free Evaluation
After carefully inspecting the problem media and reviewing all the information available about the case, the ActionFront technicians provide a full diagnostic report to the CSR, who then provide the customer with a definitive quote.  The diagnostic is performed and the quote provided at no cost to the customer.

Fixing Physical Problems
Approximately 70% of cases have some sign of physical failure.  If this is severe, some (temporary) hardware fixes may be necessary before even the diagnosis can be completed.  These would include: A ``board swap`` whereby a defective PCB (printed circuit board) on the drive is exchanged for a working board. A ``head transplant`` whereby a defective read/write head on the drive is exchanged for a working head. A ``platter or motor transplant`` for certain models.
 
Obtaining a Mirror Image (Making a Copy of the Data)
As the problem media may completely fail under repeated use, a ``mirroring`` process (i.e. making a special copy of the data from the problem media) is the first priority during the diagnostic phase.  In most cases all subsequent recovery activities take place on the mirrored copy.