Case Studies

Life changing research rescued from server after powersurge | Ontrack

Ontrack — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 14:29:28 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. 

Missing Dell EqualLogic LUNs Recovered via Remote Data Recovery

Ontrack — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 11:47:09 GMT

The Situation

A large municipal event center in the US lost data on a Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN configured with in a RAID 50 running VMware ESXi™ 5.5

VMware snapshots filled up the datastore causing the system to crash. The customer attempted to delete one of the snapshots, but after four hours of processing without success, they had to give up. Working with VMware support, they were able to get the VMware ESXi 5.5 host to boot, but were missing critical data from six of the iSCSI LUNs. This system was unique because it was using the EqualLogic LUNs as raw device mappings (RDMs) attached to the guest instead of the traditional virtual disks (VMDKs) on VMFS datastores.

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

Ontrack — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:38:27 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 10:35:43 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 14:15:49 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 12:27:35 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.

When a Data Center Data Recovery Becomes Disaster Recovery

Ontrack — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 09:27:39 GMT

When a customer loses most of their data center to water damage, it is nothing to take lightly. We received an emergency call just like this recently. An enterprise level company had a burst pipe which flooded and physically damaged portions of their data center. We immediately went to work.

Case study: dd command causes vital data to disappear

Ontrack — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 11:22:27 GMT

Over the years, the workplace has evolved in many areas. None so prevalent as the IT environment. Today, many companies have had to encourage much more complex systems in order to keep up with the advancements in technology. Because of this, administrators and employees now have to be aware of a variety of commands in a variety of systems, so it is no surprise that sometimes mistakes are made. Most of these mistakes are minor, but unfortunately, some fall into the major bracket. One that comes to our mind is the case of a Korean managed service provider in May of 2018 where the dd command caused a huge data error.

Ontrack helps global pharmaceutical restore 400 virtual disks following cyberattack by disgruntled employee

Ontrack — Fri, 04 Oct 2024 08:24:45 GMT

The Situation

The customer was in the process of acquiring another company, which had most of its systems virtualised. When the company’s users left the office on Friday all of the systems were operational and when they came in Monday morning the users were not able to access the virtual machines.

Ransomware Recoveries on Tape – Server and NAS Systems

Ontrack — Mon, 30 Sep 2024 12:11:07 GMT

Challenge

This customer suffered a cyberattack wherein the attacked volume was originally used to back up data to LTO8 tapes at regular intervals. Most of these backup tapes were in the tape library at the time of the incident and were quickly formatted by the attackers. However, the customer saved an original unformatted tape with a relatively old backup date, which was then completely restored to the now empty Windows volume with a total of 6 TB. Only then did the customer commission Ontrack to examine the data recovery options.

Case Studies

Life changing research rescued from server after powersurge | Ontrack

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

Missing Dell EqualLogic LUNs Recovered via Remote Data Recovery

The Situation

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

Recovering Lost Family Photos from a Damaged Laptop | Ontrack

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

The Situation

The Solution

Ontrack Solves a Data Loss After A Cyber Incident

The Customer

When a Data Center Data Recovery Becomes Disaster Recovery

Case study: dd command causes vital data to disappear

Ontrack helps global pharmaceutical restore 400 virtual disks following cyberattack by disgruntled employee

The Situation

Ransomware Recoveries on Tape – Server and NAS Systems

Challenge

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