I had an old but reliable computer system which I depended on for years, for most of my programming tasks and research work. The processor is a Pentium II 100 MHZ, 8 MB RAM running windows 95 as the main operating system (responsible for booting) together with windows 3.11 for workgroups, with two HDD of 424 MB and 540MB capacity respectively. The two drives C (the master drive) and D were compressed using the MS compression program Drvspace which comes with Windows 95. The compression process yielded 4 drives: C as the master drive, D as the subordinate drive, together with two virtual drives H which is the host for C and G which is the host for D. The system was vigilantly protected and was not connected to the internet. The nightmare started during the completion stages of writing my M.Sc. thesis (the relevant data was stored on the D drive), the system crashed unexpectedly due to a physical problem with the master HDD C comprising some bad sectors. Subsequently the corruption led to the modification of the master disk partition tables, which in turn was interpreted by the BIOS in a manner that led to its failure in finding the system files within the booting sector. Accordingly, the booting process was constantly failing with the message DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER Moreover the data on the four drives was not visible! There was no joy at all, when trying to start the system using a system disk, and when running SCANDISK diagnostics on the C drive, there was the indication that the CVF (compressed Volume File) logical structure is intact, with no bad parts. i.e. the FAT, etc but the directories cannot be accessed, as the drive is dismounted, with the advice to mount the drive through installing Drvspace (already installed). A weak earlier to that event, I heard of PAYAM on the radio with the catching phrase We can recover data that is deemed by many as unrecoverable. Luckily on that day I wrote down their web address. I went to seek PAYAMs services regarding my computer problem. When I first got there, I was given a sheet of paper to describe the problem and list the most important directories to be recovered. I was asked to explain the problem orally as well to a very courteous and good listening member of the team. On that same day I was sent an e-mail by PAYAM, listing and explaining the various methods of advanced software recovery which is on offer, and the agreement terms involved. In few words, the PAYAM team was able to recover the entire data on all drives despite the complications arising from the compression procedure (the data had to be decompressed) and the outdated technology involved. What impressed me the most beside their technical prowess was their quick professional responsiveness to enquiries and questions during the period of recovery. During that duration, I was gravely worried to lose my valuable data, and had many questions and suggestions. A PAYAM team member usually communicated with me through e-mail or by returning my phone call, the very same day I raised an issue or had an inquiry. Moreover, on the recovery day, I had a very pleasant and informative chat with one of the team members regarding the most efficient backup methods and reliable storage devices. I am very satisfied with the result I got from the PAYAM team, I was able to recover data that took many years to collate. and which if lost would have been devastating. I would strongly recommend PAYAM recovery services to all my friends and colleagues when facing similar data recovery problems. I would also recommend them to everybody in need of their services, because from what I experienced, they are simply the best in their field.
