Data Recovery Services by Seagate Recovery Services

RAID, SAN, NAS Devices

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.

1. Examples of Data Loss Situations - RAID / SAN / NAS

Back to Top

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

2. The Recovery Process

Back to Top

ActionFront Data Recovery Labs technicians treat Server and RAID loss situations as high priority cases. An initial diagnosis determines whether each media device is accessible to our lab equipment. If so, the first priority is to create a raw image of all data from accessible media onto ActionFront media so that logical analysis can determine the nature of the data loss situation.

If some of 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 images of all the server's media by examining the low-level data sectors. Technicians must determine both the exact layout of volumes which span or are striped across multiple drives and what fixes to filesystem structures are needed to get access to the important data.

Multiple-drive servers are typically 'destriped' onto ActionFront media so that filesystem repairs can be performed and the data files extracted. Sometimes the existing filesystem 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, destripe, fix & recover data from raw image drives from all operating systems. Once a recovery has been successfully performed, file lists are created and data validity is checked.

3. Recovery Pricing for RAID, SAN, NAS

Back to Top

ActionFront's Labs have recovered from thousands of RAID, SAN, NAS 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. 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.

4. Turn-Around Time

Back to Top

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 diagnostic evaluation.

The 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 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.

5. Brands, Models and Interfaces

Back to Top

Workgroup, Departmental & Enterprise servers from all manufacturers including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq, Dell, Sun and NEC.

Standalone and rack-mounted RAID arrays using SCSI, Fibre Channel or IDE drives from all manufacturers including EMC, IBM, Compaq, Hewlett-Packard and Hitachi.

Network Attached Storage devices such as Iomega NAS P400 series, Quantum Snap! Server, Maxtor MaxAttach, NSS uStor and HP / Compaq TaskSmart and SureStore devices.

6. Operating Systems and File Systems

Back to Top

7. Preserving your Warranty

Back to Top

ActionFront has established agreements with most manufacturers regarding preserving warranty during data recovery service. See List of Manufacturers. If your manufacturer is not in the list, please call as ActionFront has agreements with additional manufacturers which have requested us not to post their company name.

If the seals on a media must be broken in order to extract data, ActionFront will re-seal the media upon completion of service with a tamper resistant sticker which the manufacturer will accept for warranty purposes. You will also receive an invoice receipt to indicate you have pursued data recovery services with ActionFront.

When in doubt, enquire with the manufacturer about keeping your warranty while pursuing data recovery.

How to Start a Recovery Case

Back to Top

Please Contact us. Talk to a senior consultant first. Then send us your media using the online request form.

Critical Response Services

Back to Top

If you have a critical situation and need immediate help, Call Us. The Critical Response Service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

In Lab Service

This service is for mission critical data recovery, where the media can be taken to one of our labs. In the lab, dedicated resources and critical response team members are committed round the clock to your recovery case until its resolution.

Onsite Service Q

This service is available for situations where immediate shipping to one of our labs is not feasible or desirable. A tech or team of techs can be dispatched to stabilize and analyze the circumstances of your failure. Response is as fast as it takes to catch the next plane to your location. This service is not for everybody but if you have a situation that merits this level of service, ActionFront is ready to help.

The Critical Response Team is comprised of our best data recovery technicians. They are called on for every kind of situation imaginable from multiple drive multi-Gigabyte and Terabyte RAID servers , Jukeboxes, custom installations and configurations, SQL Database corruption, to tape failure and custom file extraction from corrupted backup sets. Whatever the situation, these techs are ready to help.