Since 2006, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has required new vehicles be made with a similar technology that functions as a black box inside automobiles. Facts such as how fast you were going, road conditions, and whether you were wearing your seat belt are recorded. In many states, this data is accessible by insurance companies without the car owner ever being aware.

Are car black boxes a violation of privacy, or an appropriate safety mechanism? Tell us what you think!

Well, a jury in New York recently convicted William Balfour based on information provided through digital forensics of his cell phone. A forensic investigator provided testimonial that triangulated Balfour’s phone at the time of a murder of which he was accused. The jurors indicated the cell phone records were the key to making their final decision.

So what are the odds of recovering data from a memory card that has literally been digested by a human stomach? Pretty good according to Blackstone Forensics! The company believes the solid state nature of these memory cards can preserve the data through extreme environments, and data should be recoverable in spite of the disk’s journey.

While we certainly don’t wish any of this on anyone, we enjoy reading stories about the cutting edge of data recovery and digital forensics. But short of an event like this, we hope DriveFish can help you with all your data recovery needs!

When you trust DriveFish to handle your disk recovery, you can be assured your information will be kept private, and we will only look at the data if you want us to find specific files of importance. In the case of a full recovery, we should be able to get all of your files back to you without ever seeing them. We are happy to sign a non-disclosure agreement before handling your drive.

Our network is completely self-secured and offline as well, meaning your data is never put on a machine connected to the internet. This keeps it completely safe from intrusion. All our backups are encrypted and handled on site by qualified engineers under strict non-disclosure.

At DriveFish, the integrity and security of your data is our top priority.

Seagate has been manufacturing hard disks since around the late 70′s and design good hard drives. In our experience, Seagate data recovery isn’t needed more that another type of hard drive. We have lots experience with Seagate drives because of how available they are to consumers.

Have a Seagate hard drive in need of data recovery? Just fill out our easy online form and send us the drive. If you have a warranty we are happy to RMA the drive once we complete the recovery process – just let us know what the RMA number is and pay shipping costs.  For your peace of mind, our labs do not invalidate any warranties.

Seagate Data Recovery? Click here!

• Use a box! A box  is very important and will prevent further damage to your hard drive if there is any physical damage and even damage when there was none to begin with. Don’t use a padded envelope and please don’t just wrap it in brown paper and put stamps on it (even though we had a succesful recovery on that one -whew!).

• Use an air carrier like UPS or Fedex with a tracking number and insurance. We do not recommend the United StatesPostal Service (Post Office).

• Antistatic! The hard drive should be either placed in an antistatic bag or simply wrapped in paper. If you can find antistatic foam peanuts those are best but if you wrap the drive well bubble wrap will do. Don’t use regular foam peanuts – you’ve probably had them stick to your pants or dress before. Static = Bad!

If you follow these simple recommendations you will ensure  that your hard drive will arrive to us safe and secure!

It is hard for people to accept, but we want to help people. We see no future in keeping secrets. Some people may take the tips we have here and move forward with their own recovery. Maybe they will be successful! Others will think twice about endangering the integrity of their data and send it to DriveFish to be safe. One thing is for sure, regardless of whether you are paying us a fee, we are always happy to offer advice and consultation about your data recovery issues. If you aren’t sure what to do next please call us! One of our friendly engineers will be happy to help you understand any questions that you may have. We know it is strange but please accept it! We want to help you get your data back!

To the recovery firms that have sent emails, made phone calls and made threats regarding this blog:

We appreciate your position. You have made a lot of money for a long time by overcharging and price gouging and deception. You would like to keep making that money by doing things like outsourcing and double-charging. While we can’t blame you, we can inform people of your deceptive tactics. Remember before you waste any more paper, telecommunication resources or network traffic sending us threats: The absolute defense against libel is the truth!