Technology: Can't live with it; can't live without it. *Joke* Years ago, I had a laptop hard drive fail. Fortunately, I had a computer tech that was able to recover all of my data. Recently, my external drive failed. Unfortunately, this same technician was not able to help. Ai Networks Data Recovery managed my expectations. And, fortunately, they were able to recover all of my data. I did not know that external drives have a "life span". Had I known, I would have kept two sets of archive files on two separate devices. Learn from my experience and avoid anxiety and expense. The total price I paid to Ai Networks for product and services was more than I would have liked--but their pricing is both competitive and in line with other providers of this type of service. (I called up several organizations specializing in data recovery. I chose Ai Networks: because they were more convenient, geographically; and I just had a "better feeling" after discussing my situation with them over the telephone.) Nothing is guaranteed. I feel fortunate that Ai Networks was able to recover all my data. read more

I'd consider this more informational than an actual review, due to the fact I never received a finished product. This business is unusual in that you front money and enter into the process without any idea of the actual finished cost. I had an external hard drive that failed. The drive contained backups from my MacBook, as well as several digitized videotapes from home and work. I took it to Best Buy Geek Squad and they referred me to AI Networks. I paid 98 dollars (half the regular price for Best Buy customers) to have the drive evaluated. They called back two days later to report the drive was broken and it would take another 4 hours to further evaluate it. I authorized and paid another 400 dollars to move forward. I received another call a few days later saying that they had mapped the drive and it would be one to two days labor to recover just the video files. That would have amounted to another 1600 dollars on top of the money I'd already paid. Of course, there was no guarantee of success, and like other IT projects I'd seen over the years, there is always cost creep. After thinking it over, I elected to cut my losses and not to move forward. In the end, I kissed off 500 dollars for nothing. Had I known how much it would cost for the data recovery, I'd have never even started. Other than the initial evaluation, no one from AI explained how much it could potentially cost in the end. Keep in mind, it was only a few video files and not the entire drive contents. So, if you are in the unfortunate position of having lost your hard drive, know what you're getting yourself into with data recovery. Be prepared to spend thousands of dollars or just save yourself the hassle and call it a loss. The folks at AI were nice and responsive though, and if its a business issue, maybe its worth your money. read more

RED ALERT!! These people got me for $1k twice! I have no problem paying the diagnostic fee, but when the guy calls you and asks what kind of files you are looking to recover then goes ahead with the bench time for the actual recovery and then you get a hard drive back in the mail with exactly zero of the kind of files you said you were looking for, it's pretty aggravating. That happened, TWICE at $1K each for a total of $2K. What's the point of asking you what kind of files you're looking to recover and then you get a brand new 3TB drive back that doesn't have ANY of that kind? I told the guy I needed PDFs, and I got media files. Hey, if there aren't any PDFs on the drive, then don't charge me beyond the diagnostic fee. If there are pdfs on the drive, then why send me a drive back without a single one of those on it? The files on there are potentially worth $10K in military back pay - and now I can't get the drive back so I can send to someone else who will look for the right kind of files. Piss poor service, and now I'm $2k lighter in the wallet to boot. read more

Ai Networks - Data Recovery Near Me - Irvine, California

The best. Reliable reassuring and professional. I strongly recommend their services. Thank you. read more

Total scam. They have 2 names AI Networks and Drivecrash both are not registered with the state. I've used in court they threw away my drive and never paid me my money. RUN. Scam read more

I HIGHLY recommend this company to anyone struggling with lost media files!!! I bought a new phone a few years ago. It ended up being a corrupt device and completely gave out, granting me ZERO access to my precious pictures and videos of my son when he was a baby. I was positively crushed!!! THANK GOD for this beautiful company that was able to retrieve over 1000 pictures and videos, images that I thought I would never see again! The proceas was seamless and they communicated with me the whole time. Lou, the head technician, was kind and thoughtful. He explained everything to me and I received my files on a flash drive in a couple of days. I am amazed at their IT intelligence and SKILL. I truly am grateful! SO OVERJOYED about all my beautiful files that were retrieved for me! 10 out of 10 service! read more

I had an external USB drive that I can no longer see the data. It contains family photos over many years that I don't want to lose. I tried recovered with software tools with no luck. Finally search out for professional help. The first place I brought it to couldn't recovered and recommended DriveCrash in Irvine. I brought it over to DriveCrash for an estimate; initial estimate was way over my budget . I talked to Mike at DriveCrash and he gave me a big discount. I picked up my recovered data in a new 1T drive 3 days later. I was happy to find all photos were recovered... some folders were out of order and required manual sorting but all is good. Thanks DriveCrash magic for the recovery. read more

I had about 700 songs on an old iPod. While trying to import them to iTunes everything became inoperable. I took it to 3 other places that gave me a sad face and said -sorry. One place had the information for Data Crash Recovery. They fixed it!! This was music I use at my office, it was all added from CD's that have since been sold. This music was not to be found any other way. They did it!! I am so pleased. Thank you read more

Go ask for Paul whenever you're looking to get your stuff fixed! He is very accommodating and is willing to work with you to make stressful situations easier! Thanks Paul! read more

They keep your credit card on a PAPER file and have a line in their contract that says if you give them a bad Yelp review they can charge you $10,000 for each point you lower their score....is that a company you want to do business with??? ****BE WARNED, this company goes by a SECOND NAME with stellar reviews as well. It's called DriveCrash Data Recovery**** read more

I had taken my external hard drive to another place and they could not recover any of my data. I brought to Drive Crash and Mike was able to recover 100% of it. Thank you Mike, you are a live saver! read more

If I could, I would give a zero-star rating. Our office took our server that had crashed to Ai Networks (also known as DriveCrash @ drivecrash.com), and after they "fixed" it, was brought back to our office. However, when it was hooked up, it kept giving us an error message and wouldn't work. We called Ai Networks to try to have them troubleshoot the problem, but they were 100% unhelpful since we had already paid them. We took the server to a tech place closer to our office in Downtown LA, and we found out that the reason our server wasn't working was because Ai Networks had failed to reattach the hard drive. Are you serious? We paid $3,000 so they could fix our server, and they forgot to do something so basic as to reconnect the hard drive, and then refused to help. Please never go here and waste your time and money. read more

I had lost some video files that were irreplaceable. I am a videographer in SW Oklahoma. I sent my external passport to Ai networks to recover my files. They recovered every single one of them! They are very honest and really listened to what I had to say. Their prices are fair. They are very professional and I would highly recommend them to anyone who needs data recovery of any kind. Thank you so much! Hayden Photography, LLC. A big thank you to Lou and Stephanie!! read more

UPDATE: After we wrote the previous Yelp review, Lou called and threatened to SUE us if we didn't remove our review. Honestly can't believe he thought that kind of threat would work. This is further exemplifying their dishonest philosophy in how they approach their business and customers. Also happy to update that had all of our data restored from another company for much lower cost and with a regular, honest company. read more

I am a video tech director, and since I'm always working with external hard drives and video footage, I have visited many data recovery experts. Drives break, no one likes it. I understand that a few people may have had bad experiences here, but I think that it's based on how well their data recovery went. Ai Networks has no control over how bad of shape your drive is in, but I guarantee they will do their best to recover what they can. I think Lou is very professional and informative. He always returned my calls, and was able to give me the clear details on what was going on with my drive. My drive was in bad shape, but he was able to find all the files I needed. I had a data emergency, and needed the lost video footage immediately, and Lou was able to recover what I needed faster than any other specialist I have visited. All in all, I recommend giving these guys your business. I'll definitely be back when these problems arise again. read more

Had a small thumb drive I used to keep all my personal and most used documents on. One day I went to retrieve some files from the drive and no matter what I tried, the drive would not read or show up on any computer. Of course, one of the documents on the drive I absolutely needed to retrieve for work, so I made some calls and looked into different data recovery options and ultimately found Ai Networks. From the first phone call, Louis was extremely helpful and recommended several solutions to help avoid this happening again in the future. He gave me a full overview of their process for recovering data, and let me know right from the start that they would do everything they could to help, but nothing is certain, and it would all ultimately depend on how damaged the data was. Obviously those are not the most comforting words to hear, but at least the gave me a realistic expectation of what I was in store for. I think the main thing people need to know, is this is a extremely pricey process in general, but unfortunately it can be the only play you have when your drive goes bad. It is a process that may not always work but if the information is that important to you, they will definitely do everything they can to get your data back. Ultimately, Ai Networks was able to retrieve all the files from my old drive. I got really nervous for a bit when the main file I needed would not open after it was recovered, but I transferred the data to a backup drive I have, and when I tried opening it up from there, I had no issues and it opened just like the first time I created it. Thank Louis and thank you Ai Networks! read more

Great customer service! Had an issue with a drive. Louis Kiapos was outstanding in his work with my issue and provided fantastic customer service! read more

I have to say that when it came down to recovering years of photos from an external hard drive we had been storing them on I had no idea who to go to, who to trust or how to even choose what to do. I took a gamble on these guys and I have never been happier with the results. The guy (Louis Kaipos) who helped me from the moment I called in - and I am east coast and they are west coast - was unbelievably reassuring that if something could be done that they would do their best. Let's be honest - it's not a service your gonna put in someone's hands to try! You really want them to do their best and I think 80,000+ photos and videos on the line - I know I would have been devastated if I could not get them back. I want to stress - Louis went above and beyond to help me on saving the files and pictures and worked with me on pricing and took the time to get it done and even when it took several months to complete this process they were fair and just and in the end they retrieved most of what was available and were just good people to talk to and work with. Thank you and I recommend them to be trusted with your stuff read more

I had a 2TB network hard drive that held all the pictures of my two kids since they were born -- nearly 15 years of photos, images, and videos. The drive crashed and didn't know what to do. I was resigned to the fact that I would just have to depend on my own memory to treasure the years. Then I found Ai Networks. Louis and his team was incredibly communicative and set expectations about being able to recover the data. They walked me step by step through their process and was able to recover ALL my pictures. You've brought all my memories back. I can't thank you enough. read more

CAVEAT EMPTOR - CONSUMER BEWARE AI Networks (or DriveCrash) has failed to render services in a timely fashion. I was initially told that it would take 3 days but it has now been 3 weeks to recover data from a crashed hard drive. I took a hard drive to the company on 2/16/12, as they stated they could and would recover my data for $95. The following day I was contacted by Lou and was informed it would be another $95 to fix it. I felt the company has misrepresented their services as they did not follow through with what they claimed they would do with the initial $95, but I agreed to pay the additional $95 to have my drive fixed. After the company started working on my hard drive I was told that it was badly damaged and would cost approx. $900 to repair. I felt that I was not given a true picture of the problem. I negotiated with Lou due to financial hardship and company agreed to repair for a total of $595 instead of the initial $95. I was charged immediately but did not receive my hard drive for another 3 weeks and my data had not been recovered. I felt the company was giving me the run-around so I reported them to the Better Business Bureau on 3/1/12. I then found out from BBB that there were other complaints of the same nature against them. After that, the company wrote in their response that the hard drive and refund would be ready in 48 hours. I called them to pick up the drive and they told me that it was not ready. I called back in 2 days and was told it would be ready to be picked up on 3/12/12. I picked up the drive , but was told the refund would take ANOTHER 7 days. Their initial statement that the drive and refund would be ready in 48 hours was again not correct. 2 weeks after their promise, I still hadn't received a refund. I called the business multiple times and they claimed that the refund was credited to my card. After multiple phone calls to the business, and broker service that handles their accounting, I finally received a refund on 3/27/12, 43 days after I had originally sought the company's services. I then took the drive back to a national data recovery service that had evaluated my drive in the first place and they determined the drive was not in the original condition the company received it in, and the data was completely unrecoverable. The business destroyed the drive completely! I recommend that customers research the other comments against this business through BBB and exercise extreme caution before doing business with them. read more

Had some photos from a wedding that were accidentally deleted on my laptop. Took it in to try to save them and was first charged $95 and then another $380 for 2 hours bench time. Was told it would be ready by Friday. Never heard back, so I called them at the end of the day. They said oh yeah, it's been ready but you'll have to come back Monday because we are closing. On Monday I was charged an additional $380 (for them to categorize files that had nothing to do with my photos) . As it turns out, nothing was recovered. We called to verify this was not a billing error... Avoid this place. Paid almost $1000 for nothing. read more

I had my MacBook crash on me and it wouldn't turn on. At the time I didn't have my files on the cloud and I needed files for a job search. I talked to Mike about my issue and he reassured they could fix it! Got my MacBook back and my files on a hard drive. Just in time for me to get an interview and the job! Thanks AI and Mike for making this process simple and stress free. read more

These guys were a joke. They are disorganized, and promise the world, but deliver very little. They have no idea what the status of your project is, always say they will have to call you back, but never return calls. You have to give them a CC number to start the process, and they just seem to add charges to it. After $2500 in data recovery fees -- they put a bunch of junk data on a drive (that they charged me for) and said that was the best they could do -- never mind that I gave them drives to put the recovered data on. Consumer beware. read more

***CONSUMER BEWARE*** After my hard drive crashed, I called them and they seemed really nice on the phone and gave me the reassurance that my data could be recovered. So I sent it to them. When I knew that they received it I called them and asked them for and update, told me that the drive was in really bad shape and would need a clean room recovery. I authorized them to do the work, without giving them my credit card information and then my women's intuition went off and I called them and asked them to send my hard drive back and that is when the issues started. Lou told me that he had jumped through hoops and that he went through all of this hassle to make sure my drive would be recovered ASAP and that in a year and a half he never had anyone ask for there drive back before recovery. I told him that I had found a company close by that would do the recovery for me and they were a lot more pleasant on the phone to deal with. He first told me that they would pay for shipping to return the drive back to me, then he said I needed to pay for the shipping but they needed my credit card, I did not trust him so I called UPS to pick it up and send it back to me. I did not trust them to send it back to me, I was afraid it would never get it back. I also thought by giving them my credit card they would charge me for work they never did. The new company I sent it too said the drive was never looked at or inspected it. This company Jerked me around from the start. They are rude. unprofessional and they lie. They have misrepresented themselves and I have reported them to the BBB. read more

Louis and team did a great job recovering my encrypted drive. I got everything I needed quickily, and they were very responsive to my emails and calls. I would definitely go back to them! Many many thanks! read more

I was so happy to find a company that actually recovered files from an ancient iOmega disk. I was especially pleased with the personal service, quick response and especially the results. I would highly recommend Ai Networks for file recovery even if the disk is damaged, the folks at Ai can probably recover some if not all the files. The files were uploaded to a large capacity flash drive. The turnaround time was speedy. read more

Our hard drive crashed and called several places including the manufacturer for prices. Initially sent my hard drive to another company but they wanted to charge the price of a new computer. Mailed the hard drive back and researched other companies for pricing. We found AI networks online. I talked to Lou and Lewis and they walked me through the process and gave me a great price. We got our baby pictures back and recovered most of the pictures and files that were lost. The turn around time was sooner than expected. Recommend their service if you need data recovered. read more

I had a Symantec external hard drive that I had backed up all my pictures from at least 15 years ago. I had taken them off my HP when I got rid of it for a Mac, and never put them on the new computer. I was looking for some pictures one day, plugged in my hard drive, and when it didn't power up, I was sick to my stomach. I googled data recovery and read some reviews about the company Drive Crash. I submitted a query and got an immediate response from Louis K. I packaged up the drive, sent it to him, paying the $95 evaluation cost as stated in their promotion. About a week later he called me to tell me that he needed money to get a part so that he could fix the drive and do some lab work to determine if the data was recoverable. I didn't hear back from him for quite a while and he was not responding to my emails. I just wanted a status update, not really familiar with what is entailed in this line of work. Turns out he had been off sick and his partner couldn't tell me what was happening. When I finally got ahold of Louis he was able to tell me that he could recover almost all of the data but it would take a long time and cost me another $2000ish. By this time I was already so far into it, and I really wanted those pictures, that I approved the charge. Two weeks later I got two drives with ALL of my pictures on them. I had asked him to make two copies, so I had to pay for another drive. Don't get me wrong, I am so happy to get my pictures back. I wish I would have known ahead of time how much this was going to cost me all together, but I also understand now that data recovery is not a cookie cutter task, and they can't tell you that much in the beginning. I probably would have done it anyway. In conclusion, if you want your data recovered, and understand that it may cost $2500, I highly recommend Louis. My advice for Drive Crash would be to try and be in communication with your customers more regularly and return calls and emails promptly. When you don't respond to customers queries in a timely fashion, they are more likely to get nervous and wonder if they have placed their trust in the wrong place. My final rating. Data recovery five stars, customer service three stars for an average of four stars. read more

One of our servers crashed on Friday, July 15. It contained years worth of data from our users. The server had a RAID 5 configuration with 3 drives. At first, the raid controller was reporting only 1 failed drive which would have been still ok but the server didn't want to boot up anymore. I would find out later that there were actually 2 failed drives. Most people would tell you if you suffered 2 failed drives on a RAID 5, you're done. Now comes DriveCrash. I was referred to them and worked with Mike Washburn, very nice guy. Straight-forward and wouldn't give you the run-around. That same Friday afternoon, I met with him and gave him the drives. I then prayed really hard over the weekend for them to recover our data. :) Long story short, we got our data back by Tuesday! It was actually fast since I gave them the drives over the weekend which means they didn't work on it 'til Monday. Had a great experience with them. I would definitely recommend them to anyone and would be our go-to data recovery service from now on. read more

Awesome service, friendly staff. My hard drive crashed over the holiday and I was pretty stressed. These guys were understanding and great to work with. They kept me informed of the progress and were able to recover my data. The price was a bit steep but had I had to redo all of the documents on that drive the cost would have been much worse. Lesson learned, I now have a back up system in place. I would recommend this company but I'm hoping I never have the need for them again. read more

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! I can not thank Lou enough. They were able to save my vacation pictures that were probably the last chance we will ever have to see my uncle again. They were honest up front about how long it would take and how much it would cost. I am more grateful than words can express. read more

My HP hard drive crashed and I took it to AI Networks to try and retrieve as much data as I could. They did retrieve data and charged me over $800. After all was said and done I went to Staples to buy a new HP PC and found out they would have done the same thing and charged me about half of what I paid AI. Also I asked AI if they could provide a listing of what they retreived and they said NO. Staples said that is automatically provided when they do a data retrieve. So AI is not exactly high on my list for recommendations, but Staples is very much high on my list. read more

When my local computer repair service was unable to help me when my external drive crashed I was devastated. Nearly every digital photo and video I'd ever taken of my kids growing up was on that thing. They referred me to DriveCrash. Mike was very understanding when I explained my situation. I never thought that annoying clicking noise I'd been hearing might be a sign of a coming crash, but he assured me he would do everything he could to get those precious archives back, which was a fraction of all the data on the drive. I knew I could always download the movies and music again that I'd collected over the years, but those family moments were potentially lost forever. I was surprised when he eventually called saying he was able to recover everything! Now, I am happy to pass on a referral for an extremely helpful and professional data recovery service. read more

I own a contract IT company that has used Ai Networks twice for pretty major recoveries and once for a quote on a recovery. In 2012 I had a new customer with an old 250gb IDE drive that was clicking and beeping. I contacted Louis at Ai Networks and within a couple hours the drive was on its way to him for recovery. As soon as the drive made its way down there I got a call that it was being worked on and given an estimated price and made aware of additional costs if a clean room was needed. Once it was determined that a clean room was needed I was called an updated on the price. Approximately 5 days and $1700 later the drive was back in my hand and my customer was happy. A few months later I sent another drive back down there and the next day given a quote to recover 800gb of music/books from a 1tb Seagate drive. In this case the customer changed their mind and the guys at Ai Networks totally understood and securely disposed of the drive for me at no cost. So after having two really good experiences I decided to send a 1tb Western Digital Green drive down to be recovered. This drive was not accessible via windows but on Linux could be read and browsed but once under a load it crashed and nothing could be copied off with copy and paste or byte by byte. This drive absolutely had to be recovered as it had five years of artwork for a printing company that could not be without it. This drive hit the top of their estimated price at right around $3000 but was back in my hand in a week and left me with a customer that was beyond happy. Ai Networks is professional, fast and totally worth the money. I will, without a doubt, be using them again. read more

We have been using AI for our customers for 10 years and they have had an excellent success rate on all of our recovery needs. There fees are reasonable and support is very good read more

DON'T USE THESE GUYS!!! Unfortunately I didn't yelp this business before having them recover data from a water damaged hard drive. They are wolves in sheep's clothing! At the end of the day (and $2500 later) they did get all of my data back, but it boils down to the fact that once they have your equipment, they have you by the balls. How is one to know that the work they tell you they need to do, is actually the work they are doing? There needs to be more transparency in this field as a whole. For all anyone knows, they spent a few hours, told you they need to do all of this work and then charge you out the ass for it. Louis tries to make you feel all warm & fuzzy inside but when you get the bill, the wool comes off, revealing the fangs and giant smile. My only comfort is knowing that once Asia sees the demand for this service and seizes the opportunity to do this work quicker, better, and faster, for less money, companies like this will be a thing of the past... read more

the bad reviews are all true. this company is not honest. will hold your hd hostage and make up charges. lou is the owner not a sales person like he wants you to think..... very bad experience!!!!!! read more