DriveSavers Recovers 45GB of Sensitive Data For The U.S. Air Force

DriveSavers, in data recovery services, announced at FOSE Conference 2009 that it successfully recovered 45 GB of critical data for the United States Air Force.

Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina experienced an unpredictable backup failure, which compromised access to every file on the squadron’s 12-drive RAID server. At risk were crucial data for 350 computers. Archives for the base housing office were at risk of permanent loss, information that Congress mandates to be kept in perpetuity. Vital training data including fire safety as well as flight readiness records were also no longer accessible. Without these records, Air Force students would be required to repeat training causing delays and increase costs to the training program.

"The crash happened in stages, and I thought that I could initially solve the problem myself," said Dean Johnson, systems administrator for The Civil Engineering Squadron at Shaw AFB in South Carolina. "But, when the Adaptec system controller failed, I stopped my recovery efforts immediately. I knew that if I fired up a new controller and it started a new array, I could kiss my data goodbye."

After a recommendation from Adaptec system controllers, Shaw AFB turned to the experts in data recovery for help. The drives were sent to DriveSavers and analyzed in its certified ISO 5 cleanroom. While it was initially thought as a RAID 5 array, which would have allowed rebuilding of the system using data stored on a spare drive, it was discovered that it was actually configured as RAID 0 with data striped across all 12 drives. DriveSavers’ engineers were able to unravel the challenge of the unknown order of the drives, and recover a full 45 GB of the most-wanted data.

"The value of the recovered data far exceeded the cost of recovery," said Johnson. "If the data wasn’t recovered, we would have been illegal in the eyes of our major command, and eventually it could have gone up to Washington, DC."

"When sensitive data is being recovered, maintaining a high level of security isn’t an option, it’s a requirement," said Scott Gaidano, president of DriveSavers Data Recovery. "Our company is the only data recovery provider in the world that is SAS 70 Type II compliant, the highest level of certified security possible."

DriveSavers has invested in the most advanced research, technology, equipment, state-of-the-art facilities, training and certifications to ensure DriveSavers delivers the highest quality and most secure data recovery services available.

For over 20 years, government agencies, major film and television companies, global enterprises, and financial institutions have turned to DriveSavers for data recovery. DriveSavers has successfully recovered critical data for government agencies including Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Center and The Smithsonian Institute.