Computer Crashes Need Not Prove Fatal

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Computer "crashes," which can occur when overworked or neglected machines become contaminated with dirt or smoke particles, have led to a lucrative career for 27-year-old David A. Brown, a computer consultant based in Anaheim, Calif.

The recording head in a disk drive writes data onto or reads data from a rapidly spinning disk. When contaminants become lodged between head and disk, trouble occurs. Brown claims to have discovered a way to dislodge these obstructions and preserve the data.

Brown usually charges 10% of what a company's lost records are worth. The average disk pack, he explains, costs anywhere from $100 to $900, but the information on it is worth at least 50 times the actual cost. Sometimes, however, that method of calculation can't be used. When the computer from the MGM Grand Hotel plunged through two floors during last November's fire in Las Vegas, the system's disk packs were damaged so badly that no one knew how much the records were worth. Brown charged $1,200 for the data recovery attempt; he later found that he had saved MGM almost $15 million.

Brown performed 221 data recovery attempts in the first seven months of 1981 and succeeded in all but 7. His corporate clients include Xerox and the Houston Chronicle, but Brown says he prefers a client base of smaller firms. "The small business is the kind of company that can't afford the backup necessary to run these systems," he says. Owners are not careful about upkeep, and computer salesmen, who court bigger customers, don't pay much attention to their problems. "The small companies need me a lot worse," says Brown, who claims he can save the typical small company at least $5,000 when he performs his data recovery.