A prospective customer who is in need of data recovery service for a failing hard drive or other device has already suffered one catastrophic failure which has caused the loss of their data.  By understanding how data recovery works and some of the most common scams and mistakes made in the industry a mindful consumer can protect themselves from a second and more permanent catastrophe that will result in the permanent loss of their data.

Those that know me have probably heard me mention the CryptoWall ransomware more than once over the past few weeks.  That’s because from a technology perspective something extraordinary has been happening that is forcing us all to clean up our approach to how we deal with security. The malicious software that we’ve all gotten used to seeing and dealing with has by comparison been poorly written, crudely designed and limited in the amount of economic damage that it could do.  The ‘payload’ of these earlier forms of malicious software was almost petty when compared to CryptoWall; usually using the victims computer to send spam emails, display ads or ask for a credit card number with which to unlock a fake product and rarely if ever affecting the data stored on that computer.   CryptoWall on the other hand has been engineered to a quality level that rivals anything that the world’s largest and best funded software publishers have been able to produce—complete with a working payment system that accepts credit cards and law enforcement has been completely frustrated in their efforts to trace. This was illustrated in November when a TN County Sheriff’s department became a CryptoWall victim and chose to pay a $572 ransom for the decryption key to unlock their departmental data.  The article mentions no suspects.

Variations of CryptoWall have been in circulation since the first quarter of 2014 and new versions that close up previously found weaknesses in it’s design just as fast as each new means to counter it has been identified.  This has occurring with an efficiency that rivals any of the worlds largest and best funded software publishers and in just the past few months a weakness in CryptoWalls encryption algorithm has been corrected and the ransomware has become adept at finding and destroying any data backups within reach of the afflicted computer as well as connecting to mapped network drives and encrypting the contents of an entire network which it then holds for ransom by demanding payment through bitcoin in varying amounts usually between $500 and $2000 but reportedly can be as high as $10,000 the largest ransoms being demanded from victims who do not pay within the first 4-7 days.  While IT programming circles generally regard the authors of malicious software with contempt, not just for the criminality of their trade but for the sloppyness and inherent weakness of their designs.  CryptoWall in contrast has been designed, updated and re-released with an almost institutional quality inflicting immeasurable damages on small and medium size businesses around the world while the reported impact to large corporations has been less pronounced.   has in all likelihood taken about $100million out of the United States in the past few weeks. on as a bug or weakness is with a level of efficiency that’s been unrivaled by the world’s largest software publishers.

A large amount of malicious software was detected on Station9 and removed. These are all Trojan horses and/or PUP’s (Potentially Unwanted Programs). The infections that are occurring frequently now (not just at TSU but everywhere) are due to end users inadvertently installing software from untrustworthy publishers and once a malicious program is given permission to install you might not be able to revoke that permission. Antivirus and Antimalware software is designed to remove infections, but if the Trojan horse or other malicious program was given control of the computer even once after the user account control system warned that “This program is trying to make changes to your computer, do you want to allow this?” then you might never be able to fully revoke that permission without having the computers entire operating system reloaded first. Antimalware software is designed to detect and remove infections but there is no way to fully account for everything it did while it was there. It’s common for Trojan horses and other malicious software to leave instructions behind that cause the computer to connect somewhere and re-infect itself at some point in the future and these instructions are indistinguishable from legitimate processes until it’s too late. If any of these machines report additional infections in the next 30 days they should be reloaded.

While searching for web content we were presented with the above captioned web site asking us to install “Extreme Flash Player”.  As a computer service center we see infected computers on a daily basis, along with computer owners seeking virus removal in Milwaukee who are dismayed that their antivirus product didn’t prevent the infection.  When it comes to trojan-horse programs, the very nature of having a computer means that at some time or another you will need to install software on it– so the computer must allow this to happen. As computer users we need to be aware of what we are installing and cannot expect anti-virus software to know the difference between something we are installing because we know what it is and we need it, and something that the computers user has just been tricked into installing. For this reason every computer comes with something called User Account Control shown here. User account control has been designed by Microsoft as a last line of defense against malicious software and gives you the opportunity to take one last look at what it is that you’re installing on your computer.

Given that the web site we just went to told us to install “Extreme Flash Player” should be the first point that arouses our suspicion. The user account control dialog box then tells us that we are about to give control of our computer to “Guangzhou Shibei Information Technology Co. Ltd”. At this point a computer user must decide whether they trust what they’re being told to install as clicking “Yes” will give full control of the computer over to the software that you’re installing. Unlike viruses, Trojan Horses are programs that the computers user has chosen to install and this is how malicous software gets installed onto peoples computers. Clicking yes on the User Account Control dialog box shown here will give any program full access to your computer be it a malicious program or not. Clicking yes on the User Account Control dialog box shown here will give any program full access to your computer be it a malicious program or not.

There are a number of different products on the market that are designed to remove Trojan Horse software and thus avoid a potentially costly computer repair bill, but the best solution is always going to avoidance. Trojan horses are not specific to the PC and Mac, Tablet and Cell phones are equally susceptible to them. There is no computer that is immune to infection and damage if the computers user is willing to install unchecked code onto the machine. The moral of this story is not to rely on anti-virus software to protect you from malicious software. In many cases having an anti-malware protection system installed will help to remove a trojan horse however if the malicious software is not removed immediately then in most cases you will be faced with what would have been an avoidable computer repair.

If you are located in the Waukesha or Milwaukee metropolitan areas then IT Connect computer service center can make sure you will not lose any of your documents and other personal information that is stored on your computer. If your computer is infected with a trojan horse then you are most likely to need the help of a professional so as to make sure that the infection does not come back and that you don’t lose any of your data.ojan Horse infections there is little that can be done to prevent computer users from installing them.  The trojan horse, by definition is not a virus, and anti-virus software provides a very poor defense against them.  The best approach to Trojan Horses is avoidance; be wary of any software that asks you to install it in order to view content.  While there is a program on most computers called “Flash Player” that is real and useful for viewing certain types of websites, a real update to Java or Flash will either happen automatically, or appear in the ‘tray’ in the lower right corner of the screen.  Anything appearing in the web browsing window itself if more likely to be malicious and should not be installed.

Clicking yes on the User Account Control dialog box shown here will give any program full access to your computer be it a malicious program or not.

The nature of having a computer means that at some time or another you will need to install software on it– so the computer must allow this to happen.  As computer users we need to be aware of what we are installing and cannot expect anti-virus software to know the difference between something we are installing because we know what it is and we need it, and something that the computers user has just been tricked into installing.  For this reason every computer comes with something called User Account Control shown here.  User account control has been designed by Microsoft as a last line of defense against malicious software and gives you the opportunity to take one last look at what it is that you’re installing on your computer.  Given that the web site we went to told us to install Extreme Flash Player should be the first thing that arouses our suspicion.  The user account control dialog box then tells us that we are about to give control of our computer to Guangzhou Shibei Information Technology Co. Ltd. At this point a computer user must decide whether they trust what they’re being told to install as clicking “Yes” will give full control of the computer over to software. Unlike viruses, Trojan Horses are programs that the computers user has chosen to install and this is how malicous software gets installed onto peoples computers.   There are a number of different products on the market that are designed to remove Trojan Horse software and thus avoid a potentially costly computer repair bill, but the best solution is always going to avoidance.  Trojan horses are not specific to the PC and Mac users, cell phone users, and owners of Tablet computers are all equally susceptible to them.  There is no computer that is immune to infection and damage if the computers user is willing to install unchecked code onto the machine.  The moral of this story is not to rely on anti-virus software to protect you from malicious software.  In many cases having an anti-malware protection system installed will help to remove a trojan horse however if the malicious software is not removed immediately then in most cases you will be faced with what would have been an avoidable computer repair.

If you are located in the Waukesha or Milwaukee metropolitan areas then IT Connect computer service center can make sure you will not lose any of your documents and other personal information that is stored on your computer.  If your computer is infected with a trojan horse then you are most likely to need the help of a professional so as to make sure that the infection does not come back and that you don’t lose any of your data.

What many of these unscrupulous internet advertisers do is to have the hard drive shipped to them.  When they receive it they then recover the data, do something that kills the drive and then call the unsuspecting customer with a price quote of anywhere from $1500 to $3000.  Should the customer decide that they’re not willing or able to pay it then the company simply ships their hard drive back to them knowing full well that from that point no other company will be able to recover it.  This means that the customer ends up either losing their data entirely or paying what is essentially a high-tech ransom.

When shopping for data recovery services a well-informed consumer will shop locally, make sure that the company has the right tools to do the job (i.e. they have a class 100/ISO 5 certified clean room) and that they will be able to get a free diagnostic report and a firm price quote on the data recovery job before turning over possession of the drive to the would-be data recovery company. Local companies rely on their local reputation and are far more likely to be reputable than internet businesses where the company is located in a distant place where dissatisfied customers (or victims as it may be) are unlikely to come knocking on their door.

If you are local to southeastern Wisconsin, then IT Connect provides data recovery service in the Milwaukee and Waukesha metropolitan areas including an on-site ISO 5 certified clean room.  If you are not local to southeastern Wisconsin then the best way to find a data recovery service provider is to look locally first– make sure that the company has a class 100 or ISO 5 certified clean room and that they will provide free diagnostic services that you can be present for and receive an exact price quote before entrusting them with the crashed or failing hard drive containing the only existing copy of your irreplaceable data.

“How did this happen?”  In the data recovery industry we hear those four words all the time.  The fact of the matter is that if you aren’t doing regular backups of whatever data on your computers hard drive is important to you, then you are eventually going to lose it.  That much is inevitable.  Computer hard drives consist of an aluminum or ceramic and glass composite platter, with a highly polished platinum coating attached to a spindle and while the computer and hard drive are powered on it’s spinning at 7200 RPM’s while a read/write head on a mechanical arm flies and moves over the surface at a distance of three nanometers away from its surface reading and writing data magnetically onto the surface of the platter (also known as a disk or disc because it looks like one).  Hard drives contain lots of moving parts: the motor that turns the spindle which is floating on top of ball bearings to rotate the platter(s) at anywhere from 5,400 to 10,000 RPM’s while the drive arm moves the read/write heads over the spinning media surface.  Ball bearing can wear out, electric motors can seize up and freeze, and circuit boards and silicon chips slowly break down as they are exposed to heat and temperature changes.  If the drives read/write heads ever fail, or the drive is bumped, set down hard or otherwise jolted it can cause the heads to come into contact with the surface of the disk causing what is known as a head crash.  All these things can and will cause the temporary or permanent loss of the data that you have been storing on your computers hard drive.  A relatively new technology known as solid state eliminates some of the movement related mechanical failures but wear out with use at approximately the same rate as conventional hard drives.   To summarize– if you aren’t doing regular backups of your data then losing it is inevitable.
computer hard drive
Open hard drive with visible spindle, platter, head, actuator and arm.

Computer hard drive data recovery companies specialize in recovering data from crashed or damaged drives but as any data recovery scientist or company will tell you; not all hard drive crashes are recoverable.  One study found that each and every individual data loss incident costs the organization or individual on average $2,900 in lost productivity.  The best way to approach data recovery for both the individual and organization is to make sure that you never need it in the first place.  Doing regular backups means that when your hard drive does eventually fail, you will be able to recover your work from the backup and will not end up having to buy a potentially costly data recovery job and/or losing your data entirely.  RAID (redundant array of inexpensive drives) and other high availability systems help to reduce the incidence of data loss, but in no way will completely prevent it.  Data can still be erased, corrupted or a hard drive can go into a partial state of failure (what we call the ‘walking wounded’) which can still result in data being lost or damaged.

In spite of popular assumptions, hard drives were never intended to last forever and will all fail eventually provided that they remain in use.  A brand new hard drive is almost as prone to failure as an old one, although studies have been conducted that indicate that the times when a hard drive is most likely to fail are within it’s first six months of use, and then in its third year of use and drives continue to fail at a predictable rate throughout all stages of the computer hard drives life cycle.  Hard drive manufacturers themselves concede that their drives will inevitably fail by releasing statistical information regarding the hard drives that they produce relating to the products mean time to failure. These numbers are often based on some overly optimistic assumptions, and some questionable math causing it to appear that many drives will last longer than they do.  The simple fact that the manufacturers of the hard drives are releasing MTF (mean time to failure) statistics at all proves the point that every drive is going to fail eventually.

So when is the last time you ran a full backup of your computer system?  Do you have a disaster recovery plan in place for your business or home computer?  The time to think about disaster recover is long before the event occurs and should consist of understanding what can and will happen to your data, planning, doing backups and then testing to make sure you are actually able to restore from the backups you have created and that the recovered data is good and accessible.

If you need help with backups, disaster recovery planning or data recovery, IT Connect offers expert support in all stages of disaster recovery planning, testing and implementation for the Waukesha and Milwaukee metropolitan areas.  This includes backups, planning, testing and data recovery services.  Contact IT Connect today in order to prevent a potentially costly data recovery tomorrow.

While most of us have heard someone say their ‘hard drive crashed‘ at some time or another, the definition of a hard drive that has ‘crashed’ is not commonly understood by any means. To most people, a hard drive crash simply means that something happened that caused them to lose their data.  The term itself has changed over time– originally having been known as a ‘head crash’, where the hard drives read/write head crashed into the surface of the disk causing damage to both the drive head and the disk from which it was reading and writing its data.  Hard drive crashes date back to the early days of computing and were a catastrophic failure; and still is to some degree, requiring that the hard drive be completely replaced and an often costly data recovery job if the user of the computer hasn’t made a recent backup copy of their data.

Over time, the term ‘head crash’ has evolved into ‘hard drive crash’ and has come to mean any type of physical or logical failure that causes the computer user to temporarily or permanently lose their documents, photos, videos, music and other data that was being stored on their computer.  A drive crash in itself is inevitable; every hard drive will at some point fail if its used long enough.  Hard drives are filled with moving parts, including one or more mirror like round platters that are spinning upwards of 7200 rpms and a number of read and write heads that are moving back and forth over the spinning platter or ‘disk’ magnetically altering the surface in order to store and change the data that is on the drive.  Like any complicated mechanical device hard drives are prone to failure.  The failure can be logical, where the problem exists only in the catalog like system that tells the computer what is stored on the hard drive and where it is, or they can be mechanical where some physical component of the drive is actually broken.  If you have any doubts as to whether your hard drive was designed as a disposable device where failure is inevitable you need only look at the manufacturers specifications and ratings for the drive.  Every hard drive made by every manufacturer has been studied to determine the mean til to failure (or MTF). Most manufacturers are overly optimistic with their mean time to failure statistics, but the fact that they have a mean time to failure rating at all tells you that the drive will indeed fail eventually.  

Although the meaning of the words have changed over time, the general principles of hard drives have not. For this reason it is important to remember that any documents, pictures, music, videos or other data that is not backed up (meaning a copy is stored in more than one place) is subject to being lost forever.  While there are many different data recovery service providers performing data recovery to retrieve the data from all the crashed hard drives that haven’t been backed up prior to their moment of inevitable failure, not one of them can come close to claiming 100% success in recovering data from a crashed drive.  The simple fact is that if your data is not backed up then you very well may lose it forever.  If your hard drive has crashed and you don’t have a backup, then you will probably find yourself in need of data recovery services.  Data recovery services vary in price and complexity; from the giant industrial ‘clean rooms’ with workers in white suits to well meaning computer enthusiasts attempting to use software to bring back the inaccessible data.

If your hard drive is crashed it is important to do some research– or at least make sure that you understand the basic principles of data recovery prior to making any decisions.  Very few decisions can be as costly or risky as what to do when your hard drive fails and you seem to have lost your data.  In most cases the data can be retrieved if the data recovery job is handled just right– however without the right knowledge, you may end up paying thousands of dollars to recover your data from a single hard drive when you didn’t need too, or worse yet you could let some well meaning technology enthusiast attempt to recover it, only to find out later that the failed attempt caused additional damage to the drive where recovery of your data is no longer possible.

If your hard drive has crashed and you don’t have a backup that you can easily recover your data from, the first step is to determine what the data is worth to you.  Is it irreplaceable or will it not be much of a problem if you can’t get the data back?  If the data is something that is important to you then it’s advisable to consult with a professional data recovery lab.  Most reputable labs will provide you with free no-obligation diagnostics that will assess the extent of the damage as well as the options for recovery.  A reputable data recovery lab will use equipment that is designed specifically for working with damaged hard drives and can diagnose the problems without subjecting the drive to further damage in the process.  As they say in the data recovery industry; the more people and places that have tried to recover data from the drive before it gets to the data recovery lab, the lower the chances are that the data will still be recoverable.

If you are local to the Milwaukee, Wisconsin area or would like to use mail-in service, IT Connect’s data recovery lab provides free diagnostics for crashed hard drives. 

When making the decision to either repair or replace a broken computer it is important to remember why you have the computer in the first place and what makes it valuable to you. In most cases the computer is used to store and access photos, email messages, contacts, documents and other important data that is an important part of daily life. Treating a computer like a television set that you can simply throw away after unboxing a new one is usually not an option given the importance of the data that is on it. This is why it is important to make sure that you have a computer service provider with a good reputation for not losing any of this valuable data. A computer repair or replacement that is performed incorrectly can result in a permanent loss of everything you have often spent years to create and accumulate and to simply discard it all and start over with a new one is simply not an option. The greater portion of computer repair work often involves backing this data up and preserving it prior to performing any work on the computer as well as setting up the email system, moving contacts and other data and reinstalling important programs such as Word, Excel, Outlook and any other necessary programs. If you run a small business then you may also have additional software systems that need to be moved such as Quickbooks or other accounting software that needs to be backed up and reconfigured on either the existing or new computer. If you are an expert in computer repair work then you can most likely back up and restore all of this data yourself. If not, then you will need a reputable computer service center to take care of it for you. Determining the true cost of computer repair work involves subtracting the cost of backing up and moving the data and other programs and then subtracting that from what you are being quoted to repair your computer; since buying a new one will still require this same work to be done before you can start using it. This is the very reason why corporate IT departments employ departments of highly skilled IT workers to manage the companies’ data instead of simply throwing the equipment away and buying new whenever something breaks down. In short the real value of a computer usually lies in what you have on it as opposed to the nuts and bolts.

Buying a new computer still involves the time and expense of moving all of your data and important programs. For this reason it is usually not advisable to go with a cheap computer from a big box retailer since the most expensive computer ends up being the one that breaks down requiring many hours of data backup and restoration in order to prevent the loss of data. When shopping for a new computer it is at least as important to consider the brand and model as the hard drive and memory sizes and CPU speed. Two computers that have the same hard drive and memory sizes and CPU speeds may be built with vastly different quality of components. While a typical home model computer from a big box retailer might appear on the surface to be the same as a computer that is labeled for business use when it comes to RAM, hard disk size and CPU, a business computer is labeled as such since it is built from better quality components that are less likely to break down resulting in a loss of your valuable data. Since a moderate amount of data and programs can take an entire day (or more) to backup and restore it is usually advisable when purchasing a computer to buy a computer that is labeled for business use since business computers are built with better quality components and make it far less likely that you will end up needing to buy a computer repair in the first place. If your computer does break down during the warranty period then the manufacturer covers only the repair itself and does not usually include the backup and restoration of your data and other programs in their warranty repair services.

In conclusion, the decision as to whether to repair or replace your existing computer is a complicated one. If you are not already an expert in computer repair projects then it is advisable to consult the best computer repair service company you can find in your local area. A qualified computer repair service company can help you determine the true cost difference in repairing or replacing your existing computer and will assist you with selecting a quality replacement computer and move all of your data and other programs should you need to replace your old desktop or laptop computer with a new one.

By Jason Roskopf

1. Industry Certifications:  Although not required by law, industry certifications prove that a computer service technician meets the minimum requirements when it comes to their level of knowledge in certain key areas.  A computer service technician should at the minimum possess certifications from CompTIA for both A+ and Network+ and anyone supporting servers, networks and network infrastructure should have a certification from Microsoft for MCSE (Microsoft Certified Systems Expert).  In short there is only one reason why a computer service or network technician would not possess these certifications—because they can’t pass the test.  While it is possible to succeed in a corporate job with no certifications, an IT services consultant will be faced with a much wider variety of issues on a daily basis and will be ill suited to provide quality IT support without MCSE certification.  Certifications can be easily verified through Microsoft by clicking on this link.
2. Size: If the company that will be servicing your computer and network systems is too small that may not be a good thing.  Many small IT firms consist of a single owner/operator who will inevitably need to take off from work for vacations, sick time, bereavement, or other life issues.  If there is a computer or network emergency that occurs at a time when this person is not available then what will your business do?  Likewise IT firms that are very large often lose touch with their customer base and/or have a large amount of overhead they need to cover that will be reflected in their fees.
3. Length of time in business:  How long the company has been in business is a good indication of how well they interact with their customers.  A computer services company that is not able to maintain good relationships with their customers does not usually manage to stay in business for long.
4. Reputation/Customer Reviews:  Stories from current and past customers are a great indication of what type of customer experience a computer network, service, repair or data-recovery business provides.  Every business is going to have a few dissatisfied customers at some point, and reading these reviews to see how the company has responded to them can be a great indication of how far they are willing to go to make sure their customers are happy.
5. Speed:  When your computer or network is down then that is an immediate problem.  You aren’t going to want to wait two weeks to get your computer back or to have your network brought back online.  If you call during business hours and get voicemail or are told that someone will get back to you then that is a good indication that you may end up waiting for a long time to have your problem solved.
6. Cost:  How much does the company charge for diagnostics?  Beware of any computer service company that doesn’t charge a fee for diagnostics.  Performing proper hard drive diagnostics can  take anywhere from one to three hours and includes testing hardware first to rule out the possibility that software problems are being caused by failing hardware.  Just because a hard drive is running and successfully loads up the operating system doesn’t mean it will pass diagnostic tests.  Look for a company that charges a low flat rate for diagnostics.  Computer repair companies that don’t charge for diagnostics aren’t charge for it because they don’t do it.  They may be able to get a computer running again by performing a software repair but if the original problem was caused by an underlying hardware problem that went undetected then the problem will reoccur in the future for the same reason it occurred the first time; often right after the service providers labor warranty expires.

Who you should trust to with your valuable data is something that many people do not consider until it’s too late.  Once your data is lost or you’ve paid money for a computer repair only to have it happen again then it’s usually too late to go back and fix it.  By following these key principles you can make sure that your computer or network is serviced correctly and efficiently and that your data is safely and securely preserved so you can remain productive when it comes to satisfying your own customers.

By Jason Roskopf

Also known as the Blue Screen of Death, the problem could be one of a number of issues. To find the source, it helps to read the Microsoft error code on the screen but it can be hard to understand. Many times it’s the hard drive going bad. Or memory (RAM).

If you’ve recently added hardware then a driver might be the problem. A new software application could be the culprit. Removing the new item can be a fix.

At this point, your best bet may be to bring the computer to a nearby computer service center. Technicians are experienced in troubleshooting this particular problem. You’ll save time, frustration and possibly data.

At I.T. Connect, our Microsoft certified technicians will discuss the issues you’re experiencing, perform thorough diagnostics and identify the source of the problem. We’ll resolve the issue and get your computer back to you as soon as possible. Our normal turnaround time is 24 – 48 hours.

By Jason Roskopf

By Jason Roskopf

We recently worked with Todays TMJ4 on a special investigation into used computers that were being sold by a Milwaukee used computer retailer. Of the three computers that they brought to us we found names, personal photo’s, documents and other private information about the computers previous owner on all of them.

Correctly and fully erasing a computers hard drive takes several hours to complete, so for many recycling centers the temptation can be great to resort to the “quick erase” that doesn’t permanently remove your data; and that’s IF they are willing to take responsibility for removing your data at all. At I.T. Connect we recycle old equipment and will fully erase old drives for our customers free of charge.

Don’t let your personal information fall into the wrong hands; when recycling an old computer you should always either make sure that whomever you are using for recycling services is someone that you can trust to fully erase it or remove the computers hard drive completely and retain possession of it. Give our Milwaukee computer repair service center us a call to learn more about your computer and cell phone recycling options.