The folks at Kroll Ontrack — a computer forensics and electronic discovery firm headquartered in Eden Prairie — have been helping regional flood victims in their own particular way.The company is offering discounted data recovery services for waterlogged computers.
This month, Kroll is waiving its $100 evaluation fee and will retrieve data for a flat fee of $850, with 10 percent being donated to the Red Cross. Regularly, this service can reach $2,500.
"Because of the floods, we've taken it down to what we hope is a fair price," Todd Johnson, Kroll's vice president of operations, told the Associated Press.
Data can be salvaged from PCs and Macs, iPods and even cell phones. The offer applies to flood victims in the five states that had regions declared federal disaster areas: Wisconsin, Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio and Oklahoma.
"We've done data recovery on a laptop that was dropped from a helicopter, on a laptop that had been submerged in the ocean for a year," Johnson told the AP. "One time there were even bullet holes in the hard drives."
Kroll offers these tips for people with water-damaged devices:• Never assume that data is unrecoverable
• Do not try to power-up damaged equipment
• Do not shake or disassemble
• Do not attempt to clean or dry
• Do not use common software utility programs
In St. Paul, the Legislature yesterday approved $157 million in aid to help seven counties rebuild after flash flooding last month drenched southeastern Minnesota.
More information on Kroll's data recovery services is available here.
