When your device’s data is lost, it can be detrimental. Fortunately, people like Chris Seeley are highly skilled in recovering it for you. Chris has been developing his business Data Clinic since 2002 and now has a thriving team of experts with convenient locations across the UK. No matter what device you need help with, Data Clinic use state-of-the-art techniques to recover your data.
Hi Chris, welcome. First of all, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
I’m just over 50 years old and live in Derbyshire. I’m married and have 3 children.
When did you realize that you were skilled at recovering data from hard drives and phones?
In the mid 80’s. I grew up with the ZX Spectrum and reverse engineered many programs to discover how they worked. In the 90’s I disassembled the early computer viruses and wrote whitepapers on how they functioned. Some of my work was published in anti-virus publications. Working out how to restore data that had been infected by computer viruses led me into data recovery.
What motivated you to found Data Clinic?
Data and computers had always fascinated me since I was a kid. I went to University and studied computers, then I got a job for a big UK computer company who were stuck in the past. They really didn’t have a clue so after a few years I started my own computer company so I could do my own thing and do it right.
How has the company grown since its foundation?
I founded Data Clinic back in 2002 and it was originally just me working in Manchester and the North West of England. As Data Clinic grew and took on additional staff, we opened a data recovery location in London and now we have many regional offices in the UK in places like Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, Birmingham, Sheffield and Northampton. We’ve recently opened another two Data Clinic offices in Belfast and Leicester. We have a lab staff of 5 and 5 other non-technical staff. We started off recovering data from hard drives and when the smart phone came along we worked out how to recover the data from those too.
Can you tell us a bit more about the services that you offer?
We provide data recovery services from all types of hard drive and mobile phones. We work with anything from single hard drives to multiple disk RAID 5 servers, and all types of phone whether they are Apple or Android based. Our customers range from private individuals all the way up to multinational organisations. We do a fair amount of celebrity work for rock stars, actors and famous chefs as well.
What kind of processes do you use to recover data?
We have class 100 cleanrooms that enable us to open damaged equipment in a clean air environment. Our techniques are predominately hardware based as software data recovery can’t really achieve that much. By using hardware, we are able to interface with the equipment at a much lower level. Outside of GCHQ we believe our data recovery skills are unmatched in the UK.
You also support the charity Mustard Tree and Derbyshire Cricket Club. How important is giving back to the community to you?
I am extremely grateful for Data Clinic and its success. It’s important to give back and let things flow. What goes around comes around.
Finally, what would you say is the most unique thing about your company? Why should people choose you?
Over the 18 years we’ve been in business we have assembled a very good team of data recovery specialists. We are passionate about what we do, we want to succeed, so we will always go further for our customers and recover their data when other companies can’t. Plus, our customers get a personal service from us rather than just being a job number.
Thank you Chris for your time!
You can follow up with Chris Seeley at https://www.dataclinic.co.uk