If your main server for accounts goes down or one of your drives containing a ledger full of clients’ information fails (this can happen during the peak months at year end or tax season), then you want it recovered ASAP while maintaining confidentiality. Our finance data recovery services from Oxford serve accountants, advisors and financial departments across Oxfordshire and the remainder of the U.K., all work done in-house, under a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), with an auditable trail. Your clients’ records remain within the U.K. at all times.
The client databases, ledgers and account servers: recovered by our own engineers, confidentially, with NDAs in place and a chain of custody document as standard.
When financial records are involved, the state of original data matters equally to the data itself: auditors & regulators may need to know what was there. Take an image prior to restoring; do not dispose of failed media.
Accounting platforms (client files), client record storage (beneath accounting platforms), client file storage (shared drives).
It is those arrangements which are important not to take lightly when working with data which isn’t really “your” data.
Standard practice is signing NDAs instead of requesting them. All work is done through one named contact and all data remains within the United Kingdom throughout. Recovered material is then provided back to you on new media. Once an agreed upon retention date has expired, all other copies are deleted.
When a failure may require reporting (a data breach of personally identifiable information or an incident related to an insurer or the Financial Conduct Authority), imaging the affected system using a read-only method provides evidence of what existed at the time of the failure. This costs no additional money and provides protection for a position you may not yet know you’ll need to defend. Restoring from a backup file over the original destroys the original file.
Finance jobs are often very time-sensitive, and this affects how much value we should place on prioritising jobs that have to get done quickly.
Failing on something with just two weeks left until your deadline for filing will likely require a greater response than failing on the exact same thing in a slow period. It’s good to know that right off the bat. With priority handling, we move the job to the head of the queue and begin imaging all of the directory areas you’ve specified; we’ll deliver the ledgers or client files as soon as they’re available (while the rest of the imaging continues).
In terms of time, speed cannot replace sourcing a donor part; nor can it replace reading a failing drive safely. We do not charge a premium when speed does not make a significant difference. Server recovery charges start at £500 +VAT; array recovery starts at £500 +VAT; single disk recovery starts at £300 +VAT. All include free 48-hour diagnostics.
We will have an engineer review your device after you send it into our lab for a no-cost evaluation (free diagnostic) with a short note on what happened, and provide you with your exact quote in writing prior to doing any work.
Data recovery begins by sending your drive to us. When you do so, be sure to package it carefully, put a note in there with some information about what occurred (and include your contact info), and then ship it to us. Once we perform the diagnostic at no cost to you, we will confirm your exact price in writing before we start working on your device.
Sending it by post? We recommend sending via a trackable and insured delivery method. If you prefer to hand-deliver it, then you can do this Monday to Friday, from 9am to 5:30pm. No prior appointment is required; simply package the unit as described previously.
Want some additional details first? Please fill out the form on our website with a description of your problem. An engineer will then review your information and provide you with a customised quote based upon that review.
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Some quick answers to questions that are commonly asked of us.
Yes. First, our engineers recover your data by imaging the faulty storage area. Then they check all your data for logical integrity (i.e., structure). They don’t just extract files as this can result in files being complete in bytes but refusing to open because they were captured mid-write.
Yes. A non-disclosure agreement (NDA) is always signed prior to starting work. Work runs through one named contact. Data remains within the United Kingdom during the course of the work. Recovered data is delivered back to you on new media, while any copied data is deleted once a pre-agreed data retention period has been reached.
The way we perform the work changes. Our engineers take a copy of the affected systems read-only before making any restoration. This maintains the original state of the systems which is what an insurer, auditor or regulatory body would require you to provide proof of. Making restorations over the top of the original first removes the evidence.
Yes. It would be good to know this at the start. The priority service allows your job to move to the front so that we can deliver the required ledgers or client files as soon as possible (and whilst the remainder of the process continues).
If you do have the recovery key then yes; the drive is first imaged as read only and then the volume is unlocked from that image (not from the failed hardware). However, without the recovery key there is no way that any firm could decrypt it and therefore we will advise you during the diagnostic.
For servers, RAID and NAS devices from £500 +VAT, and for a single drive from £300 + VAT. There is a free 48 hour diagnostic which will also include a fixed written quote prior to any work being carried out and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data.
A free diagnostic, fixed written quotation, all under non-disclosure agreement (NDA), in house, within the U.K.