What's with the name change, you ask? First of all, we found out that some people were confusing us with another data recovery company with a similar name. We do our best to maintain a reputation of excellent customer service, speed, and great prices. We wouldn't want our reputation to be on the line because of another company's bad service or high prices! Secondly, we are getting ready to launch a whole host of new flash drive related products and services beyond just data recovery. So, no, it's not an identity crisis. Stay tuned for what's next!

If not, or if you have any comments or questions, send us an email (admin@flashbackrecovery.com), give us a call (1-888-806-6567) or chat with Jon via the online messenger at www.flashbackrecovery.com

Here is a very well written blog post from a recent FBR client expressing how painfull it is to break a flash drive. (Used with permission- Thanks Ashley!)

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Gone in a 'Flash'

http://abjorgensen.blogspot.com/2010/01/gone-in-flash.html

I believe I may have experienced my first panic attack last night. Beau was gone brewing with the guys and I had plans to get a lot of school work done before my nice, three day weekend. I baked a Tombstone pizza, put on my sweats, and settled in my chair for some unit planning and grade updating (sounds great, I know). My plans for second semester were coming along nicely and I was loving the fact that my weekend 'to-do' list was becoming noticeably smaller.

That is until I decided I was thirsty.

Who knew that the sudden quench for a glass of V8 Splash would end any sense of accomplishment, glory, or confidence? Who knew that the simple brush of my leg on my computer screen would send my laptop tumbling to the floor? Who knew that my computer would land just perfectly on the carpet...just perfectly on my entire teaching career, aka, my flash drive.

I immediately went into panic mode. I gasped. I screamed. I cried. I picked up my broken vessel, the piece of plastic that stored my wedding day slideshow of pictures, my Masters Prospectus, my entire semester of units, worksheets, handouts, and tests, and attempted to bring it back to life. How could something so small, store so much, and suddenly leave you unable to reach it? How could my files just disappear? How could I be so stupid not to back them up???

I desperately searched our desktop computer, looking for anything that might resemble old files, stored data, pieces of the last three years of my life. It seemed everything I found that I had backed up was unimportant. I could piece together just that...pieces; however, knew my winter break work of new unit design was long gone. Vanished. Just...like...that...

Beau was gone. I was home. I proceeded to do what I always do in a predicament. First, I called Beau. Crying hysterically. Next, I called Mom. Crying hysterically. With blue and pink plaid pajama pants, a hooded sweatshirt, and blood-shot eyes, I drove like a madwoman to Best Buy to see if the Geek Squad could give me a glimmer of hope. No dice. No hope. Just a shrug, a 'sorry, there's nothing we can do,' and a piece of broken plastic.

Today, I went to school on three hours of sleep. I arrived at 6:30 AM and was able to salvage a few important files from my recycling bin (good thing I'm not an avid recycler). I vented to my students (who were very concerned), tried to be optimistic, and started retyping the documents I needed to start next semester (which happens to be Tuesday). The loss of sleep is actually affecting my mood in a positive way (or maybe that's from the 'Pants on the Ground' song I can't get out of my head). I also have one glimmer of hope. Hope in the name of FlashBackRecovery.com.

For $99, there is a 94% success rate of retrieving data from a broken flash drive. I will forever be indebted to Ryan, the owner of the Washington company, if he fixes it. His website says he can repair "flash drives broken in two, run over, or soaked in a washing machine cycle." My flash drive is still intact, just a little looser than normal. I tucked little USB in a padded envelope and sent it by priority mail to the West Coast. I will know within 2-5 days if my files were found. I will be on pins and needles until then. Until then, I will also struggle with the decision of starting to redo what I've worked so tirelessly on. Do I risk sacrificing productivity this weekend to hear good news or work to recreate files only to find my files restored? This will be the tune of my weekend.

Wish me luck. Say a little prayer. And a little advice...back up your files :/

Now for the rest of the story....

 

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Thank you FlashBackRecovery!

http://abjorgensen.blogspot.com/2010/01/thank-you-flashbackrecovery.html

782. 782 files lost in the blink of an eye last Wednesday night. 782 lesson plans, units, activities, worksheets, Power Points, college essays, Masters research, resumes, cover letters, wedding photos, and lists. 782 files and three times the amount of time, energy, and investment.

782 files lost...

...and, yesterday, 782 files recovered!

Recovered thanks to Ryan and his team from FlashBackRecovery.com. Although the website for the company declares a hopeful 94% success rate, to be honest, my hope was dim. Maybe because it sounded too good to be true. Maybe because Best Buy told me I might as well throw the broken and 'crushed' flashdrive away. Maybe because I heard horror story after horror story from people with similar experiences the next day at school. Whatever it was, I was not hopeful. But, I had nothing to lose and for $99, it was worth a try.

FlashBackRecovery was the best $99 I've ever spent! I sent my flashdrive in Thursday and received my files, all 782 files, on Monday afternoon! The process is so smooth, the people I worked with were extremely helpful, and I now have my files saved in three different places! I had no idea anything like this existed, but I will be sure to spread the word!

My vita and credentials, Master's Prospectus, wedding pictures, and teaching career are saved thanks to FlashBackRecovery.

So thank you, all, who listened to my cries for a time machine, or those who shared similar horror stories.

P.S. I am now looking at alternative forms for saving my information.

We can recover files from almost any flash drive. The following is one of the few exceptions.

Today, we thought we would take you behind the scenes of the FlashBackRecovery.com data recovery lab. We'll be demonstrating data recovery from a SanDisk Cruzer Micro. SanDisk flash drives are notoriously difficult to recover compared to other brands of flash drives. This is the one exception. If your SanDisk Cruzer Micro stops working, has no obvious physical damage, and has no indication when you plug it in to a USB port, this is how it's done...

Remember the ZIP drive? It was sure nice to finally be able to carry my files around. Though, the large disks were kind of bulky, and never mind the fact that they were anything but universal, i.e. you had to have a ZIP drive to read a ZIP disk. What a pain, actually! (Some of you from the younger generation probably have no idea what I’m even talking about.) In any case, there’s no denying USB flash drives represent a big improvement over all previous data storage technologies. We’re now able store huge amounts of data in our pockets and access it from any computer. We can run software on a flash drive. We can even install an entire operating system!

Hey, why not just store all our files on a flash drive and use it like a portable computer?

Well, sure, why not? But there are a few things you need to know before you launch into mobile digital euphoria. 

The problem: Flash drives break really easily. When using a flash drive, one slight bump of a knee is all it takes to break your flash drive in two and separate you from your important files and programs. Not only that, the technology on which flash drives are based can only withstand so many read/write cycles before it wears out and will no longer work. Finally, USB flash drives are made up of hundreds of tiny electronic components that can (and do) fail, rendering your flash drive useless and your files lost.

The solution: Always, always, always back up your files every day. “Ugh, but what a pain” you say? Not any more! iDrive will back up your flash drive automatically and keep a copy of your files on an encrypted online server…for free! The only catch is if you want to back up more than 2GB, you’ll have to pay $4.95 per month. But as a paying customer, you'll get a whopping 150 GB of automatic online storage! And with that much storage space you might as well back up your entire hard drive. Check it out at www.iDrive.com

Plan B: Hey, stuff happens, right? And if you ever do break a USB flash drive and find yourself tragically separated from your important files, FlashBackRecovery.com offers 2-5 day data recover services for a flat rate of just $99. And if you need your files right away, we offer 24 hour service for $299. We can recover all types and brands of flash drives with either physical or logical damage. Send us your flash drive, we’ll recover your files and upload them to our secure files share server for you to download. In the unlikely event that we can’t recover your files, you pay nothing and we’ll even mail your flash drive back to you free of charge. 

Your know, ZIP drives did have one thing going for them...the cool bzzzeeerrr-clunk sound they made when you hit the eject button. : )

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In keeping with the halloween spirit, I thought I would share a few spine chilling tales of lost files we've heard over the last few months.

Case #1: A man, whom we'll call Bill, called us and proceeded to explain his preparations for his wife's 50th birthday. The party was just two days away and there were to be over 200 friends and family in attendance, many of whom had flown in from out of state. He went on to tell us how he had booked a beautiful chateau in upstate New York, hired an expensive caterer, and gone all out in the decorations. But, oh, the real centerpiece of the event was to be a masterfully orchestrated presentation of pictures and videos highlighting the memories he and his wife had made over their 26 years of marriage. He told me how he had spent months gathering photos and video clips and pieced it all together with her favorite music in the background. Then something terrible happened. That morning, as he was reaching for some papers, his laptop computer fell on the ground and snapped his flash drive in two. It didn't take more than a few seconds for the gravity of the situation to hit him. His face pale and his palm beginning to sweat, he picked up the phone...

Case #2 School is certainly a lot of hard work, but no homework I ever had could compare with the time and energy that goes into a doctoral dissertation. Sarah called us about a month ago, and through her sobs, managed to explain how her flash drive just stopped working after she accidentally pulled it out of her computer while some files were still transferring. "Can you help me?" she asked.

Case #3 Tracy's computer had to go to the shop for some repair. Being ever prudent with her files, she decided to back up all her family pictures to he flash drive before sending it off. A week later, she got a phone call saying how her computer had been destroyed in transit and they would be replacing it with a new one. "Well that's good news" she thought! That is, until she plugged in her flash drive and a message appeared saying "USB Device Not Recognized." "Oh please, don't let me lose my daughter's baby pictures." She thought to herself as she searched the internet for a way to recover them.

These three stories have two things in common: First of all, each one is true (except for maybe a little embellishment) Secondly, they all have a happy ending. Each one of these customers got their files back in less than two days for $99. FlashBackRecovery.com has a 94% success rate recovering files from broken flash drives, and offers 2-5 day data recovery service for just $99, or next day service for $299.

As you might already know, losing important files is a painful experience. So how does one avoid it? Well, the obvious solution is to back up your files on a daily basis. But let's be honest, nobody really remembers to back up their files daily, besides maybe ubergeeks and paranoid schizophrenics--no offence to ubergeeks and paranoid schizophrenics.

Well now there's a solution for the rest of us! iDrive is a convenient and easy to use program offers free, automatic, online flash drive data backup. The only catch is that you can't back-up more than 2GB of files with the free account. But if you like, you can get a whopping 150GB of online data storage space for just $4.95 a month. Not too shabby if you ask us. Plus, with that much storage space, you could even back up your entire hard drive. 

Just go to iDrive.com, sign up for a free account, download the free software, and select your flash drive as the drive to back up.  You can either schedule a daily backup, or set it up to back up your files continuously whenever your flash drive is plugged in to your computer.

Very cool program, IOHO.

www.FlashBackRecovery.com

Why are flash drives so prone to failure? As the storage capacity of flash drives increase and prices fall, quality seems to be the last thing on flash drive producers' minds. Consequentially, flash drives are becoming even more likely to fail. Most of the flash drives our customers send us have become physically damaged by someone bumping into them while they are sticking out of the USB port. But more and more of the drives we get have just stopped working. Sometimes an error is displayed saying "Device Not Recognized" and sometimes there is no indication at all.

In any case, there is hope! FlashBackRecovery.com has a 94% success rate recovering data from flash drives that have either become physically broken or logically corrupted. Our experienced data recovery engineers can rebuild broken circuit boards, replace damaged components, and even remove the NAND memory chip and read it externally if need be. All this for a flat rate of only $99 for 2-5 day service or $299 for next day service.

www.FlashBackRecovery.com

If you do a Google search for, say, "fix a broken flash drive," you will find a plethora of promising advice, software, soldering instructions and lots of other information that just might convince you to dust off the 'ol soldering iron and try to recover your files yourself. Or maybe your neighbor or coworker has offered to solder it back together for you.

-- WARNING -- WARNING -- WARNING--

We at FlashBackRecovery.com receive flash drives almost every day that have undergone botched attempts at DIY data recovery. While we always do our best to undo the damage, it's often just too severe and the customer's files are lost.

Don't be fooled into thinking data recovery is as easy as reattaching the connector by soldering the four pins back on to the circuit board. More often than not, the copper traces that connect the various components on the circuit board have become severed, or the solder pads on which the pins of the connector were attached have separated from the circuit board. What does all that mean? Soldering the pins is probably not going to fix it, and will likely only cause more damage.

Why risk your important files? The skilled data recovery engineers at FlashBackRecovery.com will recover your files in 2-5 day for just $99, or in 24 hours for $299.

www.FlashBackRecovery.com