Gillware Inc.

Every month Gillware gives away a small prize to the best customer-submitted recovered photo with description. This is our way of showing how much we value and enjoy helping our customers retrieve their precious data. We know that each and every crashed drive is a disaster and we take personal pride in helping you get it back.

Each month we pick a winner and give away a $25 gift certificate to an internet retailer.

If Gillware has recovered any photos that are particularly meaningful to you, send us an email with a one-paragraph explanation as to why the photo is important to you and attach the photo. Just send the email to with the subject "Photo Contest" if you'd like to enter! So get that favorite baby picture, pet picture, wedding photo out, it could be worth $25!

Everyone has a story, right?

At a small non-profit, the Executive Director is often also the bookkeeper, the IT person and whatever else comes our way. Yet, something like data recovery requires an expert, and Gillware definitely helped me out.

With our conversion to a new accounting program in the midst of our fiscal year, I had to spend a lot of time getting vendor and payment data entered into our new accounting software package. I had to work late on a Friday to get it done. When I went to burn a CD of the accounting back-up file to a disk, I keep getting an error message. After a few attempts, including shutting down my PC and trying again, it was getting late and I just wanted to go home. "I'll just let it sit for the weekend and burn the back up disk on Monday," I thought to myself.

On Monday, before I even had a chance to do anything of substance, I got a black screen on my PC with the error message, "Press Control-Alt-Delete to restart." Despite many attempts, nothing worked. A few hours later, my PC service provider informed me that my hard drive had died. All I could think of was, "Days and days of work, gone! And now I have to do it all over again."

In my hour of panic, I talked to a colleague who said, "Hey, I think there is a company on the west side, Gillware or something like that, and they can probably help you, but it's going to be really expensive." I called Gillware, expecting the worst and hoping for the best. They delivered.

To my significantly pleasant surprise, all the Gillware staff I spoke to was friendly, sympathetic, knowledgeable, and helpful. Within a half hour, I delivered my hard drive to their office on Excelsior and by 10 am the next morning I had a solution. In less than 24 hours, the Gillware staff had turned my devastation into a lesson well learned, with all my important files recovered. I was so pleased with their business practice of providing the diagnostic process free and then giving me the choice on whether or not to pursue the cost to receive the recovered files. Most notably, the ultimate cost for the files, once I did decide to recover them, was more than reasonable.

As a non-profit set-up to raise funds for and promote the Henry Vilas Zoo, I am trusted by thousands of donors to be a responsible steward of their generosity. Many times, this means spending money wisely and economically. I feel Gillware allowed me to do this while they provided me exceptionally professional service and results. From this experience, I am impressed with Gillware, and I will recommend them to others faced with the same kind of scary circumstances that potentially lost files can create.

Thank you to Joel and the entire staff.

Sincerely,

Mark S., Executive Director
Henry Vilas Park Zoological Society

First Image