Johnson: Our average recovery is around US$1,000. We do it in a two-step process. When we receive a drive or server, we do a first-step evaluation, which is typically around $100. Within 24 to 48 hours, we are able to provide a complete report on their situation and let them know what's recoverable and what's not. The entire turnaround time is three to five days.

What is your success rate?

Johnson: We can recover data from almost every device we get in. We could recover 99 percent of the data, and if we're not able to recover that one file, it's unsuccessful.

Burmeister: Take aside drives that are physically damaged, and we're close to 100 percent able to recover data. After Hurricane Katrina, we received hundreds of what we call flood jobs. Even there, we are close to 70 percent to 75 percent successful. Drives that have been in fires, drives that were intentionally thrown around by customers ... pretty severe things can happen, and we can still get at it if the media is more or less intact.

What are the most common failures you see?