Data Recovery Station: One-stop solution  for data recovery

One day Mahbub Hossain Sahi was having a conversation with his father. He noticed his father was quite upset. Asking the reason, he learned that the only computer at his father's office had been crashed, which used to be the archive of the past five years. It means all the data has been lost too. 

Back then, Sahi was a student of Bhuiyan Institute of Technology and had an immense interest in hardware-related things. So, he wanted to have a look at the hard disk and check whether it could be fixed. He tried hard but could not recover any data. It was 2005, and such assistance like recovering data was not available in Bangladesh either. Basically, this lack of service situation made Sahi more interested in this industry. Hence, he bought a little gadget, HD Doctor for Maxtor, which can read hard drive documentation.

"I did not have enough knowledge about data recovery at that time. But the good thing about that incident was I started learning about data recovery all by myself. I bought types of machinery and got in touch with many experts from all over the world working in this arena. Being inspired by them, within a year I started a website titled Virtual Service and Research Centre. Later, in 2012 when I understood the market demand, I commercialised it and changed its name into Data Recovery Station," shared Sahi, founder of Data Recovery Station.

This company is a one-stop solution to recover your lost data from any device- HDD, laptop, MAC, RAID, Window, SD/CF, CCTV, pen drive and Linux. It is the country's first and only in-house hardware-based lab data recovery service that offers a fast, secure and hassle-free world-class data recovery service to its clients since 2006. With the assistance of five experienced experts, who are equipped with 'STATE OF THE ART' technologies, it helps you avoid a data loss tragedy. 

And for that, it has different packages starting from Tk1,000 to Tk50,000. According to Sahi, any data can be recovered if it has physical existence in any device from hardware to server. It does not work with virtual data recovery as the data cannot be accessed physically.

Placing an order is pretty easy here. All you need to drop your device and let the experts analyse its recovery chance. Once these two stages are done, customers are notified about the quotation, and Data Recovery Station waits for the customer's approval. 

In the process, if you are just curious about the estimation of price, you would not have to pay for this free consultation. Only after agreeing with the quotation, they receive the order and send the media into a specialised data recovery lab. And in the last step, the customer confirms the data, clears the payment, and receives the delivery.

Usually, it takes two days to solve a problem. In some cases, it also provides prompt services and takes a few hours to solve. But sometimes, it takes even months to reach any conclusion. However, it depends on the cruciality and sensitivity of the issue.

Manhub Hossain Sahi. Illustration: TBS

 The organisation has served around 7040 customers, and its success rate is more than 95%. "There were critical moments when we could not provide any solution. Usually, after receiving the quotation, when clients disagree with it, they try a few other options which only make the hardware more damaged. So, at last, when they come back to us with the device, it is not found in any situation of recovery," Sahi explained while expressing his struggle.  

However, reaching this customer number and standard service was not an easy task for him as he did not have anyone to look up to or show him a pathway. He had made his own way. But he always found support from a few of his friends from different forums, who had stood by him to make this journey happen. 

When he started, he hired a place, bought a few technologies to start taking care of different cases and solving those. "Simultaneously, one or two organisations had also started providing this same service, but they didn't provide solutions to all kinds of problems. I was aspiring to be a one-stop solution hub for hardware-related problems. But after meeting with them, I  realised I lag on the advertisement strategy.  As I was not financially stable, I could not focus on that instantly," shared Sahi. 

 Sahi then started working with the organisations. He used to solve their bounced cases. Very soon, he started gaining popularity through words of mouth due to his quality services. His previous clients or local stores also began to refer him to other clients.

That is how Data Recovery Station has grown, and it achieved the trust of customers. While sharing experience, Sultan Mahmud Sarkar, senior manager e-commerce of Brac Bank, said, "In 2013, I was in a big fuss as one of my computers at the previous work station crashed. I talked to a few experts, but most of them said it would not be possible to recover. As my last hope, I came to the Data Recovery Station, and within two days I recovered all my data. Fast forward seven years, I still take service from here and even refer this place to my known people because of its good service."

But this industry did not grow even 15 years later. According to Sahi's observation, as people are not yet entirely dependent on saving data virtually, clients do not want to spend money to recover data. "When things will be fully digital, people will understand the value of data and how price-sensitive this industry is. And I feel that is why there is not enough workforce either. So, once the demand grows, the market and workforce will follow it automatically," he added.

Five years down the line, Sahi hopes Data Recovery Station will turn into the most reliable place for  its customers. He has further plans to offer commercial IT courses on data recovery to create enough workforce for this industry and educate people about the value of data.