Wanted: Feedback from service people - esp computer techs

OK.

I dealt with a client in April or May. During the job, I used a program to retrieve as many photos as possible from her HD.
Having to do that was due to an error on my part, but I did recover a couple of hundred photos, some of them the personal ones she wanted.

Last week - around July 1st - she contacted me because a guy in the IT department where she works had said he could 'get all her photos', for a crazy fee of course.

I don't happen to still have her old hard drive. How long do you hang on to such things, tech people? Should I still have it in case?

Thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Catty1

OK.

I dealt with a client in April or May. During the job, I used a program to retrieve as many photos as possible from her HD.
Having to do that was due to an error on my part, but I did recover a couple of hundred photos, some of them the personal ones she wanted.

Last week - around July 1st - she contacted me because a guy in the IT department where she works had said he could 'get all her photos', for a crazy fee of course.

I don't happen to still have her old hard drive. How long do you hang on to such things, tech people? Should I still have it in case?

Thanks.

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What did you do that required recovery software? Was there physical damage to the drive? Partition deleted? Formatted? LOW level formatted?

What was the original problem you were asked to address?

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ALL her data? That's a bit of a stretch to promise to a client. Data recovery can be easy or very difficult/impossible, depending on the circumstances.


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Data is ALWAYS the customers responsibility. Of course, you should always off to do a full backup of a drive before you perform any work, just do not do that for free. It's THEIR data and they are asking you to work on their machine. If they choose not to back up their data, that is not your fault.



As for hanging on the a old HDD... We usually just give it back to the customer. It is their property after all. We offer to destroy it if they want us too, but they rarely do.

Obviously, do the best you can and make the customer happy. But never cease to remind them that thier data is their responsibility and offer ways to help them protect it if they already do not. If you don't want to make yourself responsible for the backup, offer them things like Carbonite or other online backup solutions. Modem DPM solutions are the best, IMO, way to do plain data backups. Databases, Exchange Servers and other "all the time live" things require other solutions. But, IIRC, you work with mostly home users. So Carbonite, etc, should be just dandy.

:)

PS - it was one of about three jobs I have done very late into the night, which is NOT a good idea. To make along story short, I partially reformatted her original drive. I must have restored her MS Office etc...and I am not sure that I did NOT give her her drive back. But even if I was there back in May, I can't recall all the details.

Searching my backup and main computer for invoice, etc...so far no luck. It may be on my Win 7 drive, which this computer will not accept. Hmmm....will try an adapter on it.

I know I have asked clients about their old HDs...so not sure what I did here. RATS.

When your memory goes. you can forget it...

It's easy to assume that I screwed up royally. However, the program I used recovered all the pics that were there, I am sure of that.

How and what do I tell her? :(

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Catty1

PS - it was one of about three jobs I have done very late into the night, which is NOT a good idea. To make along story short, I partially reformatted her original drive. I must have restored her MS Office etc...and I am not sure that I did NOT give her her drive back. But even if I was there back in May, I can't recall all the details.

Searching my backup and main computer for invoice, etc...so far no luck. It may be on my Win 7 drive, which this computer will not accept. Hmmm....will try an adapter on it.

I know I have asked clients about their old HDs...so not sure what I did here. RATS.

When your memory goes. you can forget it...

It's easy to assume that I screwed up royally. However, the program I used recovered all the pics that were there, I am sure of that.

How and what do I tell her? :(

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First, start doing what I suggest. :)

Next, tell her the truth. It was a long time ago and you do not have the drive any more. It IS just photos....

Access has a wizard that creates a "work order" managment system Make on for you. Document EVERYTHING.

Good Luck!

I would assume that a month or so would be long enough time for anything to happen, which is how long I would be keeping the drive. AFAIK, you're not required to keep things such as that once business is finished.

You maybe more harder on yourself than needs to be.

most people unless theyre new to computers,, knows that backing files up is much a good idea an do it frequently enough that little to no keepsakes are lost.

my brother had to reformat a previous computer of mine an felt super bad about it cuz he thought i lost all my pictures. but i had just recently backed up my stuff. i still lost some pictures,, but i was just happy to have my computer back up an running an still have almost all my pictures than verses the alternative of nothing.

Thanks, everyone. I just sent her an email. Hopefully I can now put this behind me.

The support is much appreciated.:)

Like Puck said data is allways the clients responsability. At my work we'll keep data untill we need room on the shop drives, oldest data goes first.