When it is not only data at stake.
In a company failure, the data loss is rarely the only problem. There are deadlines, customer data, questions of notification duties — and the need that nobody outside the building learns more than necessary. Our process follows from that.
NDA before intake
Confidentiality is settled before the parcel is opened.
Documented chain of custody
Traceable who had access to which device and when.
A named contact
One person who knows the case — not a ticket number.
Never outsourced
Everything in our own lab in Frankfurt.
What is different in a business case
Technically a company hard drive is the same hard drive. Organisationally almost everything else differs: there is a deadline, there are people who have to be informed, and there is data for which you are answerable to third parties.
A business job therefore does not begin with the diagnosis but with two questions: who may learn what, and by when must a reliable result be available? Everything else follows from that — including the order in which we handle drives when several arrive at once.
Confidentiality
Agreement before intake
Your template or ours. Until it is signed nothing is opened.
Access only where needed
What is opened is what the diagnosis requires — no more. There is no reason to read your folder structure in order to repair a drive.
Nothing passed to third parties
No outsourcing, no partner labs, no intermediate stops. Everything stays in-house.
Results encrypted
Handover on an encrypted drive or via an encrypted download.
Deletion after completion
Once you confirm receipt, our working copies are deleted — on request with written proof.
Chain of custody
Every device is recorded on arrival with its serial number, its condition documented and assigned to one engineer. If it changes hands, that is recorded. At the end it is traceable who had access and when.
For most jobs that is a formality. For the one job where someone asks later, it is the difference between an answer and a shrug. If you need stricter documentation — with records and checksums — that is a case for a forensic image.
Servers, RAID and NAS
The most common business case is not a single drive but an array. So the most important request up front: do not start a rebuild. It puts every remaining drive under load for days — exactly the drives you are completely dependent on at that moment — and overwrites the existing redundancy while doing so.
We image every member individually and write-protected and then rebuild the array offline from the copies. The originals are not written to a single time. How that works in detail is on the RAID and NAS page.
In an outage, right now
Process
- 01
A short call
What failed, what deadline applies, who is the contact? Five minutes that shape everything else.
- 02
Settle confidentiality
Exchange and sign the agreement before any devices are in transit.
- 03
Collection or delivery
From the Standard tariff upwards we collect. Handing over in person in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen is also possible.
- 04
Diagnosis and quote
In writing, itemised per drive — with arrays, per member.
- 05
Approval and recovery
Only after your approval. Work happens on copies, never on the original.
- 06
Handover and deletion
Encrypted return, then deletion of our working copies — on request with proof.
Data protection
During processing your data sits exclusively on our encrypted server. It is not passed to third parties and is completely deleted once you confirm receipt.
Where personal data is involved, the processing is contract data processing. We conclude the corresponding agreement — raise it with us before the devices are in transit.
What we work with.
Tools from professional data recovery and forensics. What is used in a given case depends on the medium — not on what reads well.
What we do not hold.
So that you do not find out in the middle of a tender: we do not hold these credentials, and we do not suggest them by staying silent either.
No ISO 27001 certification
We work to the rules described here but hold no corresponding certificate.
No healthcare sector certificates
For procedures that strictly require such proof we are not the right address.
No success rate
We quote no percentage. Without the distribution of fault patterns behind it, it says nothing about your case.
No promise without a diagnosis
What is possible we say after the examination — not on the phone and not in the offer beforehand.
Answered briefly.
Do you sign our confidentiality agreement?
Yes. Send us your template before the devices are in transit — or use ours. Nothing is opened until it is signed.
Do you conclude a data processing agreement?
Yes, where personal data is involved. Raise it early so it does not hold up the process.
We have several drives from a server. How is it billed?
Per drive according to the fault pattern, plus the reconstruction of the array. The quote shows both separately so you can see what you are paying for.
Do we get a fixed contact?
Yes. You speak to the person handling the case — not to a queue.
Can you issue proof of deletion?
Yes, in writing, once our working copies have been removed.
How fast can it be?
From the Standard tariff upwards we collect, and the diagnosis runs within one to two working days. How long the recovery itself takes depends on the fault pattern and is stated in the quote. If a deadline applies, say so at the very start.
Data Recovery Professionals
A worldwide group of independent, owner-run data recovery companies. Members share methods from professional data recovery, forensics and software development — so on rare damage patterns the knowledge of the whole group stands behind your medium.
An outage? Call before anyone tries anything.
The first decisions matter more than everything that happens in the lab afterwards. Five minutes on the phone can make the difference.
Wasserweg 8–10 · 60594 Frankfurt am Main