Case Studies

Life changing research rescued from server after powersurge | Ontrack

Ontrack — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 14:30:09 GMT

“From Blackout to Breakthrough leveraging Ontrack’s Just-In-Time (JIT) data recovery tool development”

Overview:  Successful data recovery solution after a catastrophic server failure.

In today’s data-driven world, the loss of critical information can be devastating, especially for organizations that rely heavily on digital assets to pursue their missions. This case study highlights how Ontrack delivered a successful data recovery solution for a research organization after a catastrophic server failure threatened the future of their work. 

Reviving a Decade-Old Drive with New Technology

Dave Logue — Wed, 07 Jan 2026 13:32:01 GMT

Customer Background

A long-time Mac user faced a devastating loss when their hard drive, containing thousands of irreplaceable photos and videos, suffered a catastrophic failure. The drive represented years of memories and creative work, making recovery an urgent priority.

Initial Attempt (2011)

The customer first sent the failed drive to Ontrack Data Recovery on August 29, 2011.
Upon inspection, Ontrack’s engineers determined that the hard drive had corruption within the system tables of its firmware, preventing the device from initializing properly.

Despite extensive hardware-level part swaps and engineering efforts, the drive could not be brought to a ready state. At that time, available tools and techniques were unable to overcome the specific corruption issue. The drive was returned to the customer unrecovered and later placed in storage.

Full Data Recovery from LockBit 4.0 Ransomware Attack on Veeam Backup

Dave Logue — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 12:33:11 GMT

When a critical infrastructure provider was hit by the notorious LockBit 4.0 ransomware, the results were catastrophic: all production virtual machines and backup servers were encrypted, leaving the company completely paralyzed.

'Impossible' to Retrieve Data from Backup Tapes of Old Environments?

Ontrack — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 12:31:05 GMT

Another “impossible” data challenge solved by Ontrack.

Rapid Tape Data Recovery: Logistics Company hit by Ransomware Attack

Ontrack — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 12:20:12 GMT

Overview

A large logistics company faced a crippling ransomware attack that targeted its critical backup infrastructure. In an effort to prevent recovery, the attackers accessed the company’s tape library and quick formatted 49 LTO 9 backup tapes, aiming to make the stored Veeam backups inaccessible. With operations at risk and data critical to business continuity, the company turned to Ontrack Data Recovery for an urgent solution.

Surveillance Footage Recovery from Fire-Damaged Camera

Ontrack — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 12:18:09 GMT

Overview: Data Recovery for Fire Investigation

When a fire investigation team urgently needed to recover critical surveillance footage from a fire-damaged security camera, they turned to Ontrack Data Recovery—trusted experts in data recovery services. With the footage stored only on the device’s locally encrypted SSD, traditional recovery methods were impossible. Using advanced techniques and deep technical expertise, Ontrack recovered the 24 hours of pre-incident video that was crucial to the case.

Testimonial: Ontrack saved my data after a hard drive head crash

Ontrack — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:37:19 GMT

Hi there, my name is Aurore Alifanti, and I am a professional photographer. A few weeks ago, I dropped my hard drive, resulting in my data becoming inaccessible. Luckily for me, Ontrack was there to help!

Recovering Lost Family Photos from a Damaged Laptop | Ontrack

Ontrack — Fri, 10 Jan 2025 10:34:54 GMT

In business since 1985, Ontrack has completed a myriad of data recoveries from hard drives to virtualized systems and everything in between. We take pride in retrieving important files for all types of customers, including individuals, small businesses, enterprise organizations, and even governments. While we approach all our work with extraordinary care, there are some data recovery requests that take on extra importance. The story of this data recovery is one such request.

Restore 5100 backup tapes damaged by sprinkler system contamination and freeze drying

Ontrack — Fri, 29 Nov 2024 14:15:18 GMT

The Situation

A customer of Ontrack, a leading pharmaceutical company, needed data management expertise when tapes were found in a basement partially flooded by fire sprinklers. No one knew what was on the tapes, and the data dates back to 1996 when the company in question had not yet been acquired by the pharmaceutical company. About 10% of the tapes had been damaged and contaminated by the sprinkler system before being frozen and thawed by a less knowledgeable data management provider. According to the insurer's requirements, the job had to be completed within 6 months. Since the insurance company financed the tape recovery, they were extremely interested in the amount of data recovered from the compromised tapes. If the data could not be recovered, the insurance company would have to fund the manual entry of the data!

The Solution

The customer shipped over 5,100 pieces of media (a variety of DLT, LTO, Exabyte, DDS, CDs, and other formats) to Ontrack. To clean and inspect so many tapes on time, not enough staff were on hand and no tools were available to automate the task. The team was unsure what to do next until an engineer, Thomas Hanselmann, went home to play with his son. While building a Lego bulldozer with his son, he realized that the Lego package contained a motor that propels the bulldozer. Hanselmann had a light bulb moment and realized that the kit could be converted into an automatic backup tape cleaner. The makeshift Lego backup tape cleaner worked. The Lego machine is still in use. This has been renamed a Lego moment: “Having a complex problem and finding a simple yet elegant solution”.

Ontrack recovered the data and copied it to several 2TB drives that were scanned with their IBM TSM backup software to determine if there were any patents or other valuable historical information in the data.

Ontrack Solves a Data Loss After A Cyber Incident

Ontrack — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 12:26:59 GMT

The Customer

A cyber-security consulting and technology integration company contacted Ontrack on behalf of their end customer, a manufacturer in the metallurgy industry who were the victims of a Ransomware attack. A back-up server was attacked meaning the company lost access to critical backups related to their business in metal and pyrotechnic machines, ammunitions and detonators.