Whether you are bringing in a computer for service or you want us to dispose of your computer in a secure manner, you can be sure that we will handle your data as if it were our own.
Your Data While We Service Your Computer
We respect each person's data regardless of the content. Whether it's pictures of your dog, your tax returns, or confidential information is irrelevant to us. We treat all data as equally important and strive to keep it safe, keep it secure, and keep it private.
Our approach to service is to solve whatever your underlying issue is and not just wipe the machine and reload from scratch. This allows us to even keep your program settings the same so that it's just as you remember it (except for being broken).
When purchasing a new computer, we copy each file and setting to its appropriate place on the new machine. There should be no searching for documents in some obscure location. The same goes for your program settings.
Recovering Your Data
What We Can Do For You:
If you believe your hard drive has failed or may be failing the best thing you can do is turn off your computer immediately. If your hard drive has bad sectors on it that are repaired while retrieving your data it is heavily advised that the old hard drive no longer be used and the data be migrated to a new hard drive.
- Migrate data from one good drive to another.
- Recover files deleted accidentally.
- Repair bad sectors.
- Repair a broken master file table (MFT) or master boot record (MBR).
- Repair a broken raid 1/5/6/10 array
We are happy to give a free "in-shop" consultation on a dying hard drive. As a general rule of thumb if you hear no repetitive clicking then there's a good chance we can help you. If it's clicking like a metronome/grinding/squealing/ then you may want to consider using Ontrack Recovery.
What We Are Unable To Do In-House:
Metro Data, Inc. is proud to be a Kroll Ontrack®’s Data Recovery Certified Partner. Our Certified Partner status extends many benefits to our customers.
Kroll Ontrack, originally formed as Ontrack Data Recovery in 1987, is the largest, most experienced and technologically advanced provider of data recovery products and services worldwide. Performing an average of 50,000 data recoveries annually, Kroll Ontrack pioneers many of the tools and techniques used in the data recovery industry.
- Perform clean room services where the drive platters are removed from the hard drive.
- Repair drives experiencing cascade failure. This is where bad sectors cannot be repaired faster than new ones are created.
If you think that you'll need the services of a clean-room recovery, click below for a free quote.
The Proper Destruction of Your Data
We constantly hear "I have this old computer and I have no idea what to do with it. Can you get rid of it for me?" Yes we can. It doesn't matter whether the data is top secret or your collection of cat videos. We take a double layered approach to the destruction of your data.
Securely Wiping the Hard Drive
When possible, we prefer to securely wipe a drive so that it is physically usable but the data is not recoverable. We routinely give away computers to those who do not have or cannot afford them. To do this, we overwrite the hard drive multiple times with random data before finally writing nothing but zeros to the drive. All data on a hard drive is stored in ones and zeros and this is called a low level format. By first overwriting it with random data and then by nothing but zeros, the original data is all but unrecoverable while the drive is still functional. Upon any request however, we will happily destroy the hard drive.
Destroying the Physical Hard Drive
Upon request, or any time we physically cannot overwrite the drive we opt to destroy it instead. We have two methods of destruction. The first method is to open the hard drive by taking the top of. The insides resemble a record player and a record. We take out the disc/platter out from the case and snap it in half. As data is read in the same manner as a record, circularly around the platter, it is impossible to recover any meaningful data from half a platter.
Likewise, we also subscribe to the method of putting multiple drill holes through the drive which has a similar destructive effect to the ability to retrieve your data.
For more information, call: 410-667-3600
