Time to Brush Up on Drobo Data Recovery

[LarrySabo]

You are right, Luke. Given that I'm likely never to see another Drobo, my price would have to cover the cost of the Pro upgrade plus the time to image 4-5 2TB drives and recover ~5TB of data. When the Drobo began going sideways, he managed to back up a lot of his critical data before it became a paperweight.

When I ball-parked $500 minimum for the recovery, the customer mused that at some point it might be worth him just buying the software and doing the recovery himself (which I'm sure he's capable of doing). Given that all the drives have the same date and two of the five are already on life support, he would be reckless to not replace all the drives with new (non-Seagate) drives. It's getting to be expensive; I'm glad it's not my problem!

 

[LarrySabo]

Here's an update on my Drobo case. Just as I finished cloning/imaging the drives, my client decided he would rather attempt the recovery himself, given privacy implications. (He’s a senior consultant with an international consultancy and says my seeing his customer and project names in a file listing would require him to file an incident report with his regulator, which he would rather avoid.) So I loaned him my RAID enclosure containing two 4TB drives, and two other clones.

He used the ReclaiMe Drobo recovery trial to attempt the recovery but progress was glacially slow. After delayed progress reports because of international travel he stopped replying to my e-mails and phone calls. I’ve sent a registered letter saying if I don’t get my drives back within 30 days, it will become a small claims court case. That letter has been awaiting pick-up at the post office for the past week. I suspect I’ll never see my drives or RAID enclosure again, let alone an “attempt” fee. <sigh>

 

[jol]

Conclusion ?!
Do not lend/give your working tools for anyone ever again

 

[LarrySabo]

@jol, at least not without a deposit of equal value. The ironic part is, he said he could let me do the recovery and nobody would ever know, but being honorable or having integrity is doing the right thing when nobody else would ever know whether you did or not. So much for integrity. If it turns out he hasn't replied because he's dead, I'll forgive him.

 

[jol]

If it turns out he hasn't replied because he's dead, I'll forgive him.

You hope he is dead ?!

 

[LarrySabo]

Not at all. I'd rather just get my equipment back. I was trying to be funny.

 

[lcoughey]

For a while, we used to recover data to our own internal drives on which we would send the data back to resellers. After they copied the data off, they would ship the drives back with the next project. Unfortunately, we were either not getting the drives back or they were coming back damaged. So, now we have a zero exception rule to not lend out our drives. They can provide a drive of their own or purchase one from us.

In Larry's case, I don't see why you would lend a client anything for them to not pay you for your services. Part of the cost of doing data recovery is having the equipment and knowledge to do so. So, by your providing him with the drives, enclosure and where to get the software to do it on his own, you have basically provided him with your services at a cost to you and free for him. At the very least, the cost to do the recovery should have been the same as if you were doing it plus extra fees for the use of your equipment and training.

 

[Jared]

For a while, we used to recover data to our own internal drives on which we would send the data back to resellers. After they copied the data off, they would ship the drives back with the next project. Unfortunately, we were either not getting the drives back or they were coming back damaged. So, now we have a zero exception rule to not lend out our drives. They can provide a drive of their own or purchase one from us.

In Larry's case, I don't see why you would lend a client anything for them to not pay you for your services. Part of the cost of doing data recovery is having the equipment and knowledge to do so. So, by your providing him with the drives, enclosure and where to get the software to do it on his own, you have basically provided him with your services at a cost to you and free for him. At the very least, the cost to do the recovery should have been the same as if you were doing it plus extra fees for the use of your equipment and training.

+1 to this. The fact that you've done the research and know how to do it is ultimately what you're getting paid for in this business. While I'm open to give out a ton of information on forums and whatnot, that's only for the benefit of those who are reading up online doing the research themselves. If someone shows up looking for a service, I'm going to sell them one, not teach them how to do it for free.

But, I think too many of us got into this business helping people and it's a hard thing to shut off. That's why I have my wife deal with the customers 90% of the time. She says I'm "too nice" and "always doing favors for people who don't deserve it". :lol:

 

[LarrySabo]

I agree with you guys.

He found my name because of a post I made about ReclaiMe now offering Drobo recovery as a feature of ReclaiMe Pro, and saw that I was local. He has a strong technical background but didn't have the equipment to clone/image the drives and attempt recovery himself. The deal was, he would pay $2.000 if I did the recovery successfully, or a $200 attempt fee if not. Once he raised the privacy concern, my choice was to loan him the clones/images I spend a week on and charge him $1,500 for my services if he was successful or $200 if not, or to take it or leave it, privacy be damned. That required me to trust him to truthfully report success/failure and to return my equipment. Unfortunately, that trust appears to have been misplaced. I'm way too trusting and a poor judge of character, obviously.

 

[Jared]

So he may have succeeded, stiffed you, and stole your equipment. Next, he'll be starting a competing data recovery service down the road from you. Then using your equipment to steal your customers :shock: .