Sourcing data recovery work.

[Puff]

When I first started Data Rescue 911, it was with the intention of providing affordable data recovery (explained further below). After a while I also started getting into computer repairs such as re-installs, virus removal...etc however, I am not nor have I ever been excited about providing those type of services because that was never my intention. My intention was to provide affordable data recovery direct to the consumer however, I'm starting to think that my targeted audience should have been other PC repair shops and moonlighters/part timers who for whatever reason do not do their own recovery work.

In the past couple of months that I've been open, I have been able to recover data from drives that other local repair shops could not and have one shop down the street that regularly sends his customers that need data recovery to me.

I know a lot of you do your own data recovery work however, there are probably just as many people out there who do not or part timers who just don't have the equipment and/or experience and those are the techs I would like to target.

The two types of recoveries that I have the skills and equipment for are logical recoveries and recoveries that involve media errors and/or weak heads.

My flat rate for logical recoveries has been $149 retail and my flat rate for more advanced recoveries involving media errors and/or weak heads is $299. What I would like to do is offer these services to repair shops/techs at a discounted rate $90/$175 so that they could provide data recovery services to their customers and still make a profit.

Recoveries that require internal repairs/part swaps or pcb swaps I do not do because I do not have the equipment and/or resources for those types of job plus many people are not willing to spend upwards of $800 for a recovery unless of course it's a business client or someone who's personal data is really that important.

I would appreciate any input....good or bad and suggestions as to pricing and working with other shops in this capacity.

Thanks

 

[layoric]

Sounds good, that's what I'm known for as well, in my local area. I get Universities, businesses, and other computer repair shops coming to me as well. Seems like you've got a nice price point for others to mark up as well.

 

[WarrenZ]

When I first started Data Rescue 911, it was with the intention of providing affordable data recovery (explained further below). After a while I also started getting into computer repairs such as re-installs, virus removal...etc however, I am not nor have I ever been excited about providing those type of services because that was never my intention. My intention was to provide affordable data recovery direct to the consumer however, I'm starting to think that my targeted audience should have been other PC repair shops and moonlighters/part timers who for whatever reason do not do their own recovery work.

In the past couple of months that I've been open, I have been able to recover data from drives that other local repair shops could not and have one shop down the street that regularly sends his customers that need data recovery to me.

I know a lot of you do your own data recovery work however, there are probably just as many people out there who do not or part timers who just don't have the equipment and/or experience and those are the techs I would like to target.

The two types of recoveries that I have the skills and equipment for are logical recoveries and recoveries that involve media errors and/or weak heads.

My flat rate for logical recoveries has been $149 retail and my flat rate for more advanced recoveries involving media errors and/or weak heads is $299. What I would like to do is offer these services to repair shops/techs at a discounted rate $90/$175 so that they could provide data recovery services to their customers and still make a profit.

Recoveries that require internal repairs/part swaps or pcb swaps I do not do because I do not have the equipment and/or resources for those types of job plus many people are not willing to spend upwards of $800 for a recovery unless of course it's a business client or someone who's personal data is really that important.

I would appreciate any input....good or bad and suggestions as to pricing and working with other shops in this capacity.

Thanks

How is your data recovery business going now? I'm sort of in the same boat - I'm studying the PDR market in my area and from what I can tell there seems to only be mom-and-pop pc repair shops that do very little data recovery or there are a few big data labs. Nothing in between. My plan would be to partner with these PC repair shops and see if I can get their data recovery business. I'd also like to try and outsource the work to a lab for a lot of the internal repair stuff.

 

[Porthos]

@WarrenZ Digging up 6yr old threads? Bored I guess

 

[WarrenZ]

@WarrenZ Digging up 6yr old threads? Bored I guess

A little... lol.

Hey I don't want to be that new guy on the forum who people get mad at for not doing any research. =) Plus, I really am interested to see how his business is going...

 

[Kitten Kong]

A little... lol.

Hey I don't want to be that new guy on the forum who people get mad at for not doing any research. =) Plus, I really am interested to see how his business is going...

I very much doubt you will get any response. The OP was last seen on TN in Nov 2010. 6 years ago.

You could pm him. If the email address used to register with TN is still 'live', then he will get the PM.

However.. I have just checked said email address, and note that the corresponding website is no longer valid. Domain name lapsed, website does not exist.

Unfortunately, I think that may tell you a few things as to how his business ended up.

 

[DataMedics]

Personally I think your price point is way too low if you're planning to specialize. If you're going to offer a professional data recovery service, IT professionals will expect you to be able to do the advanced work like writing custom file search algorithms, recovery from odd file systems like VMFS, and a million other odd situations. I do logical recoveries at a price of $300 each with a maximum discount of 20% and I regularly lose my shirt on cases when it ends up requiring three or four days of research and custom scripting to accomplish the task. Remember, by the time an IT shop sends the case to you they've already tried the typical off-the-shelf data recovery software and are now expecting a miracle. So you won't be getting many easy cases anymore once you specialize.

$300 is the current minimum base price companies can do this work for, and often it's not enough to cover the time required to do a proper job in the tougher cases.

When it comes to hardware issues, the price needs to be much higher. Especially when you start getting into doing clean room work. These are by far my least profitable cases even at my current price of $650 + parts. I can totally understand why larger companies like DriveSavers charge $2000+ for them. I'm doing most all these cases myself, but if I had to pay a top level tech $100K/yr to do them my price would have to double at least.

The only really profitable cases are the minor hardware issue ones and botched firmware cases. You can get pretty fast at fixing those after you do a few thousand of them.

 

[lcoughey]

My guess is that the OP bought a DeepSpar Disk Imager and was trying to build a data recovery business around that. I don't sense that he actually knew a lot about data recovery at that time and like was less capable than those he was asking to send him work.