TECHNOLOGY - Oct. 6, 1992

Disk Insurance: A damaged hard disk drive is a terrible thing to waste.

Especially if the data on the drive can be recovered, says Lisa Stein, president of Evergreen Computer Sales in Santa Ana.

Stein hopes to set her family-run business apart from other computer stores by offering a warranty program that protects companies from the loss of data on injured hard-disk drives.

Under the Data Rescue Assurance Program, Evergreen will guarantee that it will restore recoverable data from a damaged hard drive over the course of one year for a fee of $75. If a customer’s hard-disk drive fails within 12 months, the customer can expect to have data on the drive restored three days after the damaged drive is delivered to Evergreen.

Stein said its charge, which does not include the cost of replacing the damaged drive itself, compares to an average $2,000 fee for recovering data once a drive has failed.