Be Aware Or Be Robbed Blind

I often hear horror stories about people being taken advantage of by technicians and companies with no moral standards, but this one takes the cake.

One of my clients, a small business owner, had a sudden issue with her hard drive. The issue having the symptom of a BSOD shortly after starting to load windows. Ok, so she called the company she had purchased the computer from, one of the largest in the North America, and they said 'You could run scan disk, but you might be better off sending it for data recovery.'

Well, she called me, and all I could think was that if she was going to get a free estimate, that wasn't so bad. And when she told me the name of the company, I knew the name instantly. One of the biggest in North America. So hey, free estimate, no hassle, lightening service. Why not send it in?

So they respond after a few days saying that she could get a real good deal since the data recovery would be very easy. 'A very good recovery' they called it. Ok, so it was going to cost $1475! Plus, a 250Gb hard drive at $140. Now around the same time I had picked up a 1Tb hard drive (1000Gb) for $108.

Here is the real kicker. She said, 'Nope, the data isn't worth it. The information can be re-entered, and the files redone for drastically less.' But I said, hey bring it by, I'll look at it.

The next day her friend dropped off the drive. I plugged it in, booted my computer. Hey, I just copied via copy paste all of her stuff. Bang, like that. Nothing wrong with that drive at all.

Then I ran Scan Disk on it, and it found some problems with the file system, and fixed them. All that had ever been wrong with that drive was that it needed a simple 8 minute diagnostic and repair routine run on it. Drive was fine. Computer ran. End of story.

Oh, the big company she got her sys from, well, they did replace the drive free under warranty. And in fact she is still happy with that company.

But think about that for a second. The copy paste to recover her data took maybe 20 minutes, it was a lot of stuff. Oh, let me clarify that for you. It took me about 45 seconds to start the copy, then I worked on other things while it ran. And the Scan Disk, well, 8 minutes to run, and it took me about 15 seconds to start it. And again, I worked on other things while it ran.

And an expert company, one of the top in the field, wanted to sell her a disgustingly over priced hard drive, and charge her $1475 for 1 minute of human time, and 28 minutes of computer background time. Do the math, that's $50.86 per minute! And only the scan disk was needed!

Now, I have to say that this incident was quite sickening, and I am quite certain that it is also common place. The problem is, technically, the data recovery company probably didn't do anything legally wrong. They could have said 'Ain't nothin wrong with that drive baby, just run a scan disk and you're good to go'. But they were asked 'Recover this.' So they estimated. Still an outright ignorant price, and morally, its disgusting. Legally... well... I think we all know how that one goes right?

The moral of this story is simple. Learn a little about your computer (or more) and find yourself a techie you can trust. Someone with a soul, and a heart, and not just a lust for money. Protect yourself by knowing. Or else, the system will burn you. That is the only warranty.

This is also why I prefer to say I'm a programmer, and don't bother saying I'm a technician. I'm proud of the work I do, but I am so ashamed of what others do in the industry, I'd rather not be branded in the same pack.

To all of the good technicians out there, I salute you. Now I'm not religious, I'm just a spiritualist, and I like to sleep well. That means, I have to deal clean and even in all I do. For those like this data recovery company, I hope that before you really burn, you actually grow some humanity, and a little moral understanding, maybe some ethics, and goddess help us, maybe a soul?

Watch your back my friends, because sometimes, you are swimming with the sharks, and if you lack knowledge, that is a gaping wound that will get you eaten whole. (at least financially)

Take care, and know your pc!

Trin