Frequently Asked Questions

How much will it cost?

The costs for our data recovery service vary depending on what type of media needs recovery and the complexity and the amount of engineering time required. Our costs are consistently some of the lowest because, unlike many of companies, Fields have all the necessary specialist expertise, facilities, hardware, software and laboratory facilities onsite, so we never have to outsource our work to any other company.

Since its launch, Fields has changed the dynamics of the data recovery industry throughout the US and internationally; built on an ethos of combining a high job turnover with unprecedented high recovery rates.

The higher than average volume of throughput has enabled our engineers to build a huge knowledge base of all common faults on specific media. This has resulted in the turnaround times for recoveries being dramatically reduce, thus reducing the amount of resources required per recovery and, in turn, the costs you incur.

Fields Data Recovery can recover data from all types of media; e.g. a basic 3.5 inch floppy disk from $50 to a multi-disk RAID system, which typically takes 4-days to diagnose, analyze, configure and re-build, resulting in a cost upwards of $5,000.

Currently, our standard data recovery fee for a desktop or laptop hard drive, with a logical failure, is $625.

How quickly will my recovered data be returned?

The engineers at Fields Data Recovery know how important data is to our clients and every effort is made to complete the recovery process in the shortest time period possible. Unfortunately, no two recoveries are exactly the same. That is why each recovery starts with a FREE diagnostic.

The FREE diagnostic is started within one hour of our engineers receiving your media and generally takes between 24 and 48 hours. This process involves testing each component to identify exactly the cause of failure and how much data can be recovered.

The turnaround for analysis and recovery is also usually between 24 and 48 hours (obviously, some severe cases can take slightly longer).

The time estimates we provided are based upon the procedures and expertise required to recover the data in each individual circumstance. However, our clients are not charged by the hour, instead you are provided with a firm quotation for the complete job, following the evaluation.

Fields Data Recovery also holds an extensive inventory of components and parts for all types of media (dating back 18 years), reducing the delays in sourcing specific parts.

The fastest recovery completed by our engineers was a 3.5 inch floppy disk, which required a simple recovery process, and took just six and half minutes.

Our longest recovery was in 1998, from a fire-damaged seven disk RAID system and, due to the extensive damage to the hard drive cases, the diagnostic took four days to complete and the recovery itself took a further seven days.

Our average turnaround from receipt of your media to the dispatch of data is currently 72 hours. (Emergency services can be provided on request.)

How will you return the recovered data to me?

Once your data has been recovered we can restore the files to whichever media you care to specify. The standard means of restore include CD, DVD or a new replacement hard drive. Currently, we recommend that 20 GB or less of data be returned on DVDs, whereas when the amount of recovered data exceeds this amount, the data is generally returned on a replacement hard drive.

What systems can you recover from?

Since our launch in 1992, Fields’ engineers have recovered data from virtually all types of systems. The most common type of recovery we perform is from hard drives with either a physical or logical fault. Common hard drive types include: SCSI, SATA or IDE and are produced by manufactures, such as: Maxtor, Fujitsu, IBM, Hitachi, Seagate, Conner, Samsung, Western Digital and Toshiba.

We are also regularly called upon to recover data from various types of RAID systems and Network Attached Storage devices, such as: Quantum Snap Servers, Iomega NAS series, Maxtor MaxAttach, NSS uStor, as well as, HP / Compaq devices.

What file systems and operating systems can you access?

We have the capabilities to recover data from literally any operating system. 96% of all recoveries we complete are from operating systems such as: Microsoft Windows (NTFS, FAT32, FAT16) MS-DOS, OS/2 (with FAT and HPFS file systems), Linux (with ext2fs, xfs, reiserfs and jfs file systems), Apple Macintosh (with HFS and HFS+ file systems), Novell NetWare, Sun Solaris, QNX, & BSD-based systems.

However, we have seen a number of systems with customer built, specifically designed operating systems. These include: operating systems designed for engineering equipment, manufacturing plants, music recording studios and many more. If you would like to discuss a specific requirement, please call one of our data recovery experts on our Toll FREE number.

How much data can be recovered?

88% of recoveries allow us to recover 100% of the data from any media. In general, we often find it is just as efficient to recover all of the media's data, as it is to recover specific, individual files.

Have you come across this before?

Over the past 18 years we believe we have witnessed just about every conceivable cause of data loss and worked on every type of media. However, if you feel you have a fault that could be unique, please call our Toll FREE number, where our specially trained data recovery assistances are on hand 24 hours a day.