Role Description

Technical > Data Recovery Specialist

Salary National Average

Low Medium High
36690.0000 42540.0000 52720.0000

Change from Previous Year:

+7%

Supply and Demand

Candidate Supply: 4,689 Job Openings: 20,819

0 50 100

More Difficult Less Difficult

Salary Variance

Enter City, State to view local salaries and candidate demand.

Short Description:

A data recovery specialist is responsible for managing a company's data backups and for recovering lost or damaged data from storage devices. Although some perform their services exclusively for businesses, data recovery specialists also may work for the public and specialize in recovering lost data from their customers' hard drives, floppy disks, tape drives, flash drives, compact discs (CDs), digital video discs (DVDs) and memory cards. Those working for businesses may perform other system administration duties, including maintaining hardware and software and managing the company's network

Duties / Responsibilities:

  • Identify the computer data that are either hidden or damaged and resolve the issue.
  • Maintain computer hardware as well as fix mechanical issues, including reverse scanning 
  • Perform low level forensics on multiple computer hardware storages and create data recovery plans for disaster recovery. 
  • Take charge of the hard disk replacements and compare the pre-recorded sound samples with that of live or performing drives.
  • Maintain the hard drive logic board replacements, repairs and component swaps. 
  • Address the firmware issues and capture the SID protected folders. 
  • Resolve the resolve driver or problems arising in Linux bootable disk. Must be able to recover the Linux Data and Mac OS X Data. 
  • Responsible for analyzing and diagnosing the clicking noised in hard drives and taking care of the head stack replacement in hard disks. 
  • Responsible for clearing passwords on a password protected the hard drive.
  • Diagnose the physical recovery of drives and have a proper understanding of how to unlock the actuator of a drive. 
  • Troubleshoot computer hardware issues and take care of the maintenance on desktops and servers.
  • Work in collaboration with other team members to identify security issues related to company data.
  • Diagnose the Service Area (SA) of a drive and review data structures with a Hex Editor. 

Skills / Requirements / Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s degree in computer science, information technology, telecommunications, information security or any related field. Additionally, data recovery engineers should have experience with:
  • Various Operating Systems and File Systems
  • Extracting, Inspecting and Repairing Raw Data
  • Flash Drives, Solid-State Drives and Other Media
  • UNIX/ZENIX, Novell, Windows, Linux and Mac OS X

Job Zones

  • Title: Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed
  • Education: Most of these occupations require a four-year bachelor's degree, but some do not. 
  • Related Experience: A considerable amount of work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is needed for these occupations. For example, an accountant must complete four years of college and work for several years in accounting to be considered qualified.
  • Job Training: Employees in these occupations usually need several years of work-related experience, on-the-job training, and/or vocational training.
  • Job Zone Examples: Many of these occupations involve coordinating, supervising, managing, or training others. Examples include real estate brokers, sales managers, database administrators, graphic designers, chemists, art directors, and cost estimators.
  • Specific Vocational Preparation in years: (7.0 to < 8.0)

Share Role Details

Return to job listings