PARTNER FAQ
How do I get started?
The best place to start is with a phone call or email. That way, we can recommend the best service for your client, provide the appropriate price range, and connect you with an Evaluation Agreement for you and your client. We can also email you a ground shipping label to get the job to our lab, just ask!
What can we discuss over the phone?
When you call us, we will provide a price range based on the device type, the failure symptoms, and any other details and/or context you can provide to us. Unless you have a technician review the media in a lab, there’s no way to get a reliable estimate. We always provide the job’s final price before you have to make any commitments (except for PRIORITY and EMERGENCY service – call for further details).
How do I complete the evaluation agreement?
You can complete our online intake form by clicking here.
Please provide as much detail as possible on this form. In particular, describe the circumstances of the failure and whatever remedies you may have already tried. Detail the exact spelling of directories, subdirectories or file names you wish recovered. The more information we have, the easier it will be to diagnose and successfully recover your data. We cannot proceed with the diagnosis and quote until we have a completed and signed Evaluation Agreement.
How will we communicate with each other while you are working on my customer’s hard drive?
Flashback Data provides two sites for tracking the progress of all jobs 24/7.
The Client Tracking portal is emailed to the contact indicated on the Evaluation Agreement. Customers and Partners are always invited to call or email anytime you have questions about an update, or want further details.
The Partner Tracking portal is emailed at the time the VAR ID is created, and is always available to the partner. This site provides the latest updates on all jobs past/present for as long as the partnership exists.
Will I be contacted before any major work is done?
Flashback Data will first contact you with a firm quote for standard recovery service (not Priority or Emergency – call us for details on those expedited service rates and expectations). If you decide to proceed with the recovery, we will assign your project to the next available engineer.
Priority and Emergency customers are more time sensitive, and pay for immediate attention. In these cases, Flashback Data will first attempt to recover the data. Upon a successful recovery, we will send you a file listing (a sneak preview of what we found) along with the recovery bill.
Will you outsource the recovery?
Not all companies claiming to offer data recovery actually conduct the recovery in-house. Others provide logical recoveries (meaning we do not have to disassemble the drive), but do not work on devices with physical damage or extreme firmware/operative corruption. Flashback Data does not outsource recoveries. All of our work is done in-house by our own engineers.
What is your success rate?
There is no such thing as 100% success rate in the data recovery industry. Any company that claims a 100% success rate is typically skewing the data. They will label more challenging jobs unrecoverable before they start, which allows them to keep their numbers favorable.
Flashback Data understands that when you ask us for our success rate, you are asking us what your chances are of getting your data back. For this reason, all customer jobs are factored into our recovery rate, even “DOA” drives, and our recovery rate is reliably in the 80-85% range. Some months are higher, depending on product releases and system updates, but that figure is a solid representative average. We have our own clean room and experienced clean room technicians, so we take on jobs that are a lot more challenging than some other agencies and repair shops. This is why our recovery rate can go up and down a bit more than other companies.
What might cause a device to be unrecoverable?
There are occasions when physical damage to the drive’s internal components is so severe that the data cannot be salvaged. This typically happens when the platters of a drive have been physically scratched and dinged by the arm and head (the part of the drive that reads the platter of data). This type of damage comes from a couple possible sources, including opening the drive in an improper environment without proper experience. Such crude procedures, almost invariably, cause critical damage to the logical structure of the data itself and/or the internal physical components of the drive.
Drops and falls can also cause this physical damage from internal components, often knocking parts out of alignment or loose into the drive. Powering up the drive after platter damage can also cause further damage and scratches. Additionally, customers are known to disassemble drives and investigate the platter – this in itself can cause significant amounts of damage to the platter that wasn’t there before. Platters should only be exposed in a clean environment.
If the drive platter was previously exposed to the environment, this greatly increases our risk, and will incur a $100 evaluation fee.
For phones and tablets, deleted data and factory resets will render your data unrecoverable. Deleted data can often be found on hard drives, but with modern mobile device technology, data is essentially gone for good within moments of being erased.
Extreme water or electrical damage can render mobile data unrecoverable. Overfull storage can also greatly increase your risk of a major failure.
What happens if the data is unrecoverable?
Some companies will charge you for the recovery even if they are unsuccessful. You shouldn’t have to pay for a recovery when none of your data was recovered.
Flashback Data offers a No Data – No Fee Guarantee with our standard service (except in the case of previously opened drives).
The No Data – No Fee is not available for RAIDs, or drives that have been through a fire or flood. Priority and Emergency services pay a non-refundable evaluation fee to move their job to the head of the queue and for uninterrupted, exclusive service.
Our policy of “No Data – No Fee” means you are not liable for any costs incurred unless we recover the data you listed as critical. The first step to ensuring that you get what you are paying for is to be as specific as possible when listing your critical data. The next would be to review the file listing we provide, so you can see that the data you need most is part of the recovery.
Some companies do not provide such a list, will take your money, and only offer a disclaimer that they cannot guarantee the integrity of the data. Flashback Data is happy to provide additional integrity tests upon request in the interest of absolute satisfaction.
How will my data be returned to me?
Not all companies give you a choice of destination media. You can purchase a flash drive or hard drive from us, or if the recovery is small enough, we can upload it to a secure cloud service for you.
Destination Media Charges: Media from Flashback Data does cost extra, depending on the size of the destination device you wish to purchase from us. If you provide your own destination drive, we will waive the destination media fee.
Emergency Recovery: Normal business hours are from 8am-5pm CST Monday through Friday. Emergency service provides 24/7 services 365 days per week. Our techs work on your drive until the data leaves our lab. Flashback Data has arrangements with Continental and Southwest Airlines for same day shipping of the original media and/or parts needed to complete the recovery.
Shipping: Flashback Data can provide a UPS Ground shipping label directly by submitting a case online.
How do I package and ship my media to you?
Hard disk drives and other computer storage media can be critically damaged by static electricity, shock, and other factors, often resulting in additional damage. Use the following instructions for shipping and proper handling of your media.
Static – make sure your media is placed in anti-static bags before packing. If not available, simply wrap the media in aluminum foil.
Shock and Vibration – Shock and/or vibration can cause further damage to your media. To insure the media is protected at all times, package the media in a box with at least 2″ of padding (i.e. foam, bubble wrap) on ALL 6 SIDES. Please do NOT pack with Styrofoam peanuts. Failures caused by shock and/or vibration account for one third of all HDD failures.
Laptops – If the hard drive is inside a laptop computer the drive needs to be removed before shipping if possible.
Please remember to include the Evaluation Agreement form in the same package as your media.
Will the warranty be voided on my media?
No, as long as Flashback is the first to open the hard drive. Flashback Data is authorized by all leading manufacturers to work on all drive brands including Maxtor, IBM, Western Digital and Fujitsu, Seagate, Toshiba, Hitachi Quantum, Samsung and more without voiding the warranty. We will apply a Flashback Data foil sticker on the warranty seal, which protect your warranty with any manufacturer. If the seal is broken before we receive the drive, we will not add our sticker to the seal.
Will the warranty be voided on my media?
No, as long as Flashback is the first to open the hard drive. Flashback Data is authorized by all leading manufacturers to work on all drive brands including Maxtor, IBM, Western Digital and Fujitsu, Seagate, Toshiba, Hitachi Quantum, Samsung and more without voiding the warranty. We will apply a Flashback Data foil sticker on the warranty seal, which protect your warranty with any manufacturer. If the seal is broken before we receive the drive, we will not add our sticker to the seal.
Can I drop off my drive?
Yes. If you live within reach of our office facilities, we encourage this to save time. During the pandemic, we always appreciate a heads up when someone is on the way so we can keep everyone safe. Please wear a mask to our office, and remain six feet from our employees while they ask intake questions.
Our Address is:
Flashback Data
4029 S Capital of Texas Hwy
Suite 224
Austin, TX 78704