PC World warns that a decade of family memories are under threat
In response to research commissioned by PC World that shows that half of PC owners have lost data at least once, the company has launced a specialist data recovery service for customers to safeguard their precious memories
Millions of British families are trading in their traditional archives of slides, photos, cine film, videos, CDs and records for new, convenient digital storage media, but few have taken steps to back up their data, putting potentially priceless records at risk, according to national. 2.5 billion photographs, 2 billion songs and more than 20 million home movies now stored on home PC hard drives in the UK.
More than half (51%) of home computer users have lost PC-based data, and a quarter (25%) have done so in the last 18 months. At the same time Britons are storing increasingly large amounts of precious content on their home computers. PC World currently sells hard drives with a total storage capacity of one million gigabytes in just one day alone, enough to store an incredible 1.6 billion digital photographs, reflecting people’s reliance on digital storage.
The survey also found that 85% of home computer users have digital photos stored on their PC, with some storing thousands of images, from weddings to holidays. When it comes to music collections, nearly two thirds (62%) of home computer users have digital music tracks stored on their PC and the percentage rises to four in five (79%) for 18-29 year olds.
Now PC World is taking action to ensure that the start of the 21st Century does not become the data loss decade. The new nation-wide Data Recovery Service, launched in association with Ibas, a data recovery specialist, is a first in the UK and aims to reunite home computer users with data they thought had vanished, with a ‘no fix, no fee’ pledge.
“It’s easy to forget the priceless memories we have hidden on our PCs, and with this new emergency service for the digital age consumers can come to PC World for expert help to recover precious memories, valuable music collections or irreplaceable records. Previously such services were only available to the business market and cost many hundreds of pounds. Now PC World is offering an expert service conducted by fully trained technicians that’s within the reach of all customers,” said Jon Naylor, customer service director at PC World.
PC World, in association with Ibas, has installed a Data Recovery Lab at the Advice and Service centre in all 152 PC World stores and has trained specialist technicians to provide the service. The Data Recovery Lab will offer a ‘no fix, no fee’ service for computer hard disk drives and also memory cards from digital cameras, USB memory sticks and CDs/DVDs.
