Search results

It's white. Just a little LED flashlight held at the right angle to see the topography.

Yeah it wouldn't affect everyone. All depends on when you had last logged in and if the old cookies already expired or not. Nice to see you back by the way.

It's not a tool limitation. The drive just responds to ABA read commands as if every sector in the SA is bad. But, can read everything fine if read by ID. The case is fully recovered, so in my opinion it's just a strange anomaly. Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Yeah, and I wouldn't classify this as a "tutorial" either. Moving it to the Logical recovery section.

Yeah, I know this drive needed a slow responding fix to speed it up, but even after that still can't read tracks. I've got about 85% recovered now and just finishing up the rest, so I'm not overly concerned about it. I've just never seen that before.

So this is something I've never seen before. I've got a WD My Passport Shrek LT family. I can backup SA modules just fine from both copies and they all pass checks. However, I can't read tracks from the drive. It acts like it's hitting bad sectors in every track. Even gives the "DISK DAM...

And this one added by Wayne on Ace forum for the 800041 & 800022 boards:

Dang! I was really hoping with WD's acquisition of HGST they would be selling HGST drives branded as WD, not the other way around. Though, I suppose this is better for the data recovery industry.

Thanks, added it to the list.

ST3000DM001 1CH166-571 S1F CC43 13083 SU B4 03

Just to let you all know, I've been doing some updates under the hood and I discovered that the cookies on this forum weren't being transferred SSL. I've now enabled it to resolve a different issue (solved that one) but it may cause a conflict with any old cookies stored in your browser...

I'm not sure I understand the question. If you're asking how to get into terminal you'll need to use a TTL adapter such as this: http://www.bonanza.com/listings/Pc-3000 ... oC8-Tw_wcB Along with something like HyperTerminal or Putty to interface with the drive. Or one of the professional data...

The first thing I would check is if your computer has the right codec to playback the video type. I'd assume you're using a computer you've previously played these files on, so it should already be there. If you're sure you have the necessary codecs, then I'd suspect the issue is actually...

I my experience CRC errors usually relate to bad sectors, but can also indicate more severe issues. If the data is important, I'd agree with Luke that you should just go to a professional data recovery shop. If it's worth risking to save a few bucks, then you might try using ddrescue to image...

There are several possible options. I'd start by scanning the HDD which originally contained the 2.2Gb file using R-Studio to see if it finds the file referenced in the file system. If it doesn't find it, then I'd probably analyze the EXT file tables to see if there is a 2.2Gb gap in there...

Actually, Samsung drives don't store much of any adaptives in ROM. So if you find one that' the same FW version it'll likely just work. However, if it's a different FW version you'll need to transfer the ROM chip as Bankole brought out.

No, I just bought the Seagate set for the ones without parking ramps.

I like them personally. They are pretty much identical to the Ace Tool copies, so not much difference other than the material used. I personally feel more comfortable with the plastic as it seems less likely to possibly scratch a platter surface. I also like that they are lightweight which...

Crap! I just realized their backup is missing module 04. That's useless to me now.

Found it on HDDSurgery's website. I always forget to look there for some reason.

Yeah, I'm actually using that set right now to get SA access. But, I'm not sure how compatible level B modules will be from that version. Especially given that I need module 04 as one that I can't get a good read on.

I'm looking for full SA resource backup for Jamacia family ROM F/W Version: 00160027 I've got a lot of non-critical modules I need to replace, some of which I can't read by composite. I've already extracted the LDR from the drive, but need the other resources. Thanks!

Here's your loader:

I usually just go with model, p/n:, and MLC then just grab the closest date within the ones available. Hitachi are pretty forgiving. Even if you can't find the exact MLC or part one with a close date and same model will usually work.

Congrats Bankole! Cases that go like that really make you feel like a champion don't they.

Seems that would be an awful lot of work to go through to just decorate the background. Perhaps they are heads they've kept just based on WD families and they just compare the topography and try them if they look correct.

So here is something I've never seen before, perhaps some of you have. I've got a 500Gb Seagate SSHD here which was clicking. When I open it I find traces of dust on the platters & top cover. I decided to try cleaning the read/write heads as they all seemed to be attached and looked OK to the...

I thought those photos were actually really blurry (I was holding the heads by hand when I snapped it). I generally hold a led flashlight at an angle to shine across the slider surface and bring out the contours.

It's really hard to give ideas when you don't have professional equipment to even give a proper diagnosis. For example, without knowing what the drives status registers are reading when you're attempting to read/write modules you really can't know if the modules/SA are damaged, or if the drive...

If you're looking for pro recovery, I'm right over in RI not too far from you. Can't say I know of any places in NY I'd personally recommend. While a google search may reveal a couple dozen places in NY, they are pretty much all just mailing stations where they send your drive out (usually to...

Both 30 pieces too... could be just re-selling them.

I'm having an odd issue with a couple of WD NAS drives that seem to be running WD encryption. PC-3000 only detects the "Self Encryption HDD" key, not any other key. However, if I use that key the data, though changed, still appears encrypted. I'm wondering if this is one that isn't supported...

First off, are you trying to refurbish this drive or recover the data? If you want to recover the data, then you shouldn't be indiscriminately writing donor system files to it. Some are drive specific and can't be replaced.

Tahoe 2D and Vulcan RE are confirmed as cross compatible for heads!

Yes, that is the basic procedure. Just be sure your hot air soldering technique is fine-tuned before you attempt it on the drive that counts. Too much heat or a broken pin will destroy any hope of recovery. Even professionals can't recover a Toshiba drive if that chip is ruined.

Perhaps the long term goal of it is to come out with more of a RapidSpar type of system that automates a lot of the easy one click solutions. If that's the case I suspect we'll just end up with more and more amateurs buying PC-3000 and assuming it's a push button fix all solution. Perhaps...

+1,000,000 to this. Cook that chip and it's permanent game over for data recovery.

I just finally did a major update to this list. Added a few families and quite a number of new after-the-dash codes to the sheet. If you see any missing or learn of new ones, please do post them below and I'll continue to update it.

You'd need to also transfer the ROM chip which contains the configuration pages necessary for drive operation. But, yes that's the basic concept. Generally all USB native drives have SATA counterparts of the same drive family.

Has anyone ever tested if Tahoe 2D and Vulcan RE are cross-compatible for heads? They look exactly the same, built during the same time frame, and have the same aerial density as each other.

Here's a case I'm evaluating right now. I thought the filter looked a bit discolored. Now looking at the sliders I can see just how contaminated they are. Probably not a good candidate for donor heads. I suspect they'll just die in a few seconds.

You're not seeing them because you're not using the default theme (which is the one Google spiders will crawl). Here's what the default theme shows:

Yes, if you notice on the right side under your profile picture there are the contact icons. As you can see under mine I have my Facebook profile and it is linked to by the icon in each post. You just have to add it to your profile.

I'd just go off the label as normal. I doubt that the factory refurbish was a total internal rebuild. More likely was just trimming out some bad tracks, maybe clipping a head and decrease capacity at the most. I think half the time the factory refurbs were just store returns that were later...

I'm guessing he's got a MQ03UBB300 so the SATA equivalent should be MQ03ABB300 which uses the G3918A PCB.

I was on vacation in Thailand and Cambodia for three weeks. Just got back.

Just stop needlessly criticizing everyone and you won't have any problem.

Constantly berating other people's posts isn't what I would consider the right kind of being "active" on the forum. Request denied. I have no intent to change this policy. Even the moderators of this forum only get one signature link. The only reason there are more links in my signature is...

I'd probably start by trying a G3918A

In my experience with SAS drives, it's most likely either bad heads or just complete platter destruction. I'd always start by opening the drive up in a clean room to see what the platters look like. You won't get the same clicking with SAS drives that you are used to with SATA drives. The...

Amarbir, are you on any forum for a meaningful purpose other than to just criticize others? You want to criticize the fact that I haven't kept up with some of the useful information I post, yet you have yet to post one meaningful comment I've seen yet. All you do is criticize!!! I'm giving...

Why would you clear the P-list? Are we to assume you're just trying to refurbish it? Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Interesting. I never even knew about that markup. Perhaps we should hide some of our juicier answers that share useful info in such boxes. That way people can't just troll all the time and never interact on the forum. Regardless, welcome to the forum.

I'll be out of the country for the next three weeks and I don't suspect I'll have internet most of the time. So I'm trusting in you moderators to keep out any garbage that's posted. I'm not so concerned about the SPAM as much as I am about anything obscene or inappropriate getting posted by...

I don't think Ace laboratory would be charging someone $3600 for a recovery and then sending a 10% commission check out. Usually, if it's a case they want to research they'll just do it for free so they can add the feature into upcoming updates/support.

Yeah, this thread is about a company in Texas who is not at all connected with Ace Laboratory.

Don't call him "sir" he's just a filthy spammer who's going to soon respond with a different account trying to peddle some absolute junk software that doesn't work. We just forgot to ban him after his first spam post.

In such cases I usually just explain to the customer that we've done work to the drive to make it operable for now. However, I warn that it'll likely just fail again soon enough so they shouldn't trust it. Usually once people get the point that you had to fix the drive to extract the data they...

Wow, you're waking up threads from 2 years ago. :lol:

I wish that were the case here. Recovering 4Tb to 8Tb drives takes forever to finish. I had to start charging extra for cases over 2Tb because they just tie up my system too long. Nothing worse than having to wait two days to do any work because all your channels are tied up with big drives.

I've only ever crossed families if they were the same aerial density.

Actually, I'm starting to charge more money for Mac formatted destination drives starting in 2017. If they are OK with a NTFS formatted destination, then it's the same price. I've found that Mac recoveries just take up more of my time. Especially when they want their full TimeBackup set moved...

I'm not sure it would work in every case, but it worked in this one. Not sure I'm ready to share this information yet... Got 100% recovery with no bad sectors though. Now I'm just hoping that it gets approved... doh! Should have gotten that first, but I was afraid to stop it once I got it...

I don't think that Mariner is likely to work. The aerial density of Europa is 881. Mariner is 1095. I don't see any that are 881, certainly not any black drives which I know use different heads than the blue ones do. You'll probably need to find one from that family.

Doesn't seem that it is one that can be unlocked yet. Fortunately I pulled an ace out of my sleeve and now have it imaging at 114Mb/s with over 30% completed. :D

I'm not saying their tools aren't any good or don't work. I personally don't use them because I have my own solutions that work just fine and didn't cost anywhere near that much. As to this latest tool, I just can't see the need to spend hundreds of dollars on something that's little more than...

I don't think that's just a problem in India. These tools are too expensive even for guys in the USA :lol: . I can't see spending any significant amount of money for a tool like this. Not when you can do the same thing with a set of these: https://www.amazon.com/Hobby-Creek-Help ... hand&psc=1

Does anyone know if the latest version of PC-3000 software is able to unlock this model: ST4000LM016 from the "diagnostic port locked" terminal? I'm running a bit outdated version, but I suspect this model might still not be supported even if I upgrade.

OK, I think I figured out how to manually edit the partition table and fix the checksum so that MacOS will mount it. I've posted information about fixing the GPT checksums in the secrets section of this forum.

I'm trying to manually rebuild a lost core storage GPT partition table (computer tech accidentally deleted it). I've already determined the starting and ending sectors of the partition, but it seems no matter what I do I can't get MacOS to recognize this stupid thing as a core storage volume...

To be honest I didn't actually look at the sliders of this set. I never expected it'd work, I just figured I'd give it a shot before ruining the heads on another case that's almost certainly a lost cause. I'll probably take a look at them under the microscope after I'm done imaging this case...

Actually the "Base Replace" system that Luke referenced above is designed for platter swapping drives with the spacers. I've never used it, I came up with my own technique to replace the spindle bearing, but I hear it does work.

OK, mystery solved. It was the heads in the end that turned out to be the issue. I guess that silly dot is a pretty big deal. :D What's really mysterious is just how far off the donor I finally used was that worked. Patient: WD20EARS-00MVWB0 HHRNNTJCH Jun 2012 Malaysia Preamp Vendor: 0001...

I don't know if anyone has ever kept track of this (I know I haven't until now) but I think I'm going to do a running list of the maximum baud rate that different Seagate families can use to read/write ROM via boot ROM code. Grenada: 921000 (some will read at 921600) Kahuna: 921000 Bogart...

ST1000DL002 W1V 9TT153-570 CC89 12457 WU Preamp: unknown Head map: 3 5

Just like we're doing for the Grenada drives I'm going to use this thread to keep track of Bogart family preamps. Maybe by studying a few of these we can get to the bottom of how exactly to match these. Feel free to add yours below too. ST1000DL002 W1V 9TT153-570 CC98 12404 WU Preamp: A8 35...

Nevermind. I let it finish it's process (whatever that was), power cycled the drive again, and now it's reading like a brand new drive.

Anyone ever seen this series of errors before: (DOS) Marginal Read: 0009A6A508 (DOS) Marginal Read: 0009A6A509 (DOS) Marginal Read: 0009A6A50A (DOS) Marginal Read: 0009A6A50B (DOS) Marginal Read: 0009A6A510 (DOS) Marginal Read: 0009A6A516 (DOS) Marginal Read: 0009A6A519 (DOS) Marginal Read...

ST2000DM001 1CH164-020 Z24 HP33 13474 TK B4 33 (now this should be compatible with the one above, which has totally different first three of serial)

Just added another set to the list: 800038 - 800025

Here try this: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=edb+to+pst Or this: http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=edb+to+pst or if you're really desperate try this: http://lmgtfy.com/?s=b&q=edb+to+pst I give it three days before some idiot returns to recommend Stellar Phoenix junk software on here.

Bump, I'm still looking for this. Seems it's impossible to find one of these and the Thai drive I tried isn't compatible. :(

OK, I think I may have figured out what's going on here. I finally took an opportunity to look at the sliders under a microscope and this is what I find: I guess the difference is small enough that it can access the SA just fine, but not the user area.

I'm posting this here just in case my customer follows the forum. I've got a case here which has me truly baffled. I've handled a lot of similar cases, but this one I just can't figure out. Drive came in it was head stuck. I freed the heads up carefully. On power up the drive fully ID's shows...

ST3000DM001 1CH166-571 S1F CC43 13084 SU B4 43

ST3000DM001 1CH166-571 W1F CC43 13076 SU CC 56

ST2000DM001 9YN164-300 S24 CC46 12205 SU B4 03

ST3000DM001 1CH166-302 Z1F CC26 13355 TK B4 23

Most data recovery software will prompt you what you want to do when there is a filename conflict. You can try selecting "skip" and it'll just keep the first one it recovers, or "overwrite" which will end up keeping only the last one it recovers. Or you can use "rename" which will append the...

Well, if someone who already has access decides to nominate you, and everyone else who has access votes "yes" I'll let you know. But, until that happens I don't unlock access to anyone.

Well, I do know that Synology uses file versioning if you're using any of the CloudStation apps that it includes. So it'd have multiple versions of just about anything that's ever been modified since it was first saved there, which might include mp3 metadata being edited by some player you're...

Aren't they all expensive when they know you're using it to make money? Sadly I'd guess 99% of people who buy it are using it on client's drives and just never buy the tech license. Gets very expensive when you try to do things the up and up way.

I'm actually anxiously awaiting the release from LoboX of his software. I know he's been gathering input from other data recovery guys for a while as he works on his system. Having a system designed specifically with our businesses in mind would be really nice. Every other system I've tried...

I actually leave that up to the other members of the section to decide. Since I want everyone who's got that access to feel comfortable posting secrets there it only takes one "nay" vote to keep someone out. There honestly isn't a ton of content there. Just a few tips and some other banter...

For HFS with a lot of bad sectors in the catalog file it often gets the best results. I've seen cases where UFS and R-Studio were both returning complete nonsense folder structure and Data Rescue 4 was able to get a pretty good result.

No, after I changed the board all the sectors line up with their boundaries as they should be. Got a 100% recovery on this case in just one day. I just found it really odd that with the bad PCB all the sectors were shifted like that. You'd think the ECC functions would prevent it from...

Is it just my imagination, or did both of these companies let go of all their intelligent technical staff when they split? It's like they split up their tech department in half, then put monkeys in to fill in the gaps on both fronts. My RANT: Hey PayPal, guess what! every business on this...

Yeah, I still use Excel to do my job tracking too. With Onedrive it's nice because it can be accessed by multiple people at the same time and from anywhere. I've played around with different ticketing systems, but never found one that fully suited my needs. I had an Access DB I'd made at one...

ST2000DM001 9YN164-302 S1E CC4C 12416 SU B3 33

ST2000DM001 9YN164-302 W1E CC4C 12414 SU B3 03

So here's some strange behavior I've never quite seen before. It ultimately came down to a bad PCB, but it was still pretty crazy. Drive is an Aries family 2.5" WD. First time powering on - nothing, no spinning, clicking, hum, nada Second time (with my ear on it) - spins right up, ID's First...

I'm also removing it from my store I think. I don't want to be getting phone calls about this because someone downloads the program from my site and then it stops working on them.

So it seems that whenever Prosoft's activation servers go down it deactivates all copies of their software. I'm trying to run Data Rescue 4, and it's now giving a "Validation Failed" message when I try to launch the program. I checked and their homepage is down too, so I can't run the program...

I think just distilled water. As long as the water is really pure, and it's allowed to dry in a clean hood when removed I suppose the residue will be minimal.

This is a warning for anyone who uses MacDrive (and possibly other HFS software) along with DE to copy to Mac formatted destinations. I've observed something dangerous that seems to have only started occurring since the latest Windows update. Occasionally MacDrive will randomly disconnect and...

I was talking to a guy on Skype today who claims here's been using ultrasonic to clean heads for about 4 years with fair results. He doesn't use the beaker inside the tank, but he said you can only leave it in for around 30 seconds or you'll risk sliders popping loose.

Yeah, this has become my new go-to tool to see where I'm actually ranking for keywords: https://serps.com/tools/rank-checker/ I've had people in other states and even other countries verify that the results it shows are accurate to where I'm ranking.

Pagerank is an old Google metric that's not published anymore. Since the site was switched to SSL after they stopped publishing it, those tools can't check it, and even if they could it'd just be the last rank before they stopped publishing it.

You're probably searching in Google.ca (silly Can-Nuk!) Accd to SERPS.com it's definitely at #1 on Google.com

Hey guys, just want to say thanks to all of you for helping to make this forum a success. Especially you hard working moderators who've helped to keep the spammers out. I just noticed today that when you google: "data recovery forum" this is now the #1 result. :D Hopefully, it doesn't...

I've heard a mixed bag of results from ultrasonic cleaning efforts. Some swear they've had good success, while most have said they saw no benefit to it. It's a technique I've been wanting to experiment with more myself to really see, but I haven't had the time to do the research into it.

This is just awesome: http://shop.hddwatches.com/Black_PVD_HD ... 90738.aspx

Cool, I'm subscribed.

Yeah, or if you deal with several cases a day like I do, you can't live without a tool as powerful as PC-3000. @OP It's also good to remember that in many similar cases you might not have been able to do it at all without such a tool. For example if a user password was set, you'd have been...

ST1500DM003 9YN16G-021 W24 HP16 13083 SU PreampType: CC 36

OK, so today I got to try out a set of these new ones and I'm quite impressed. I actually used the WS one on a Dolphin & Mercury drive (same heads in both) so you can add those families to the supported list. They fit right in with very little force, held in place nicely, and the heads...

Isn't that a tax form for a student loan? Are you saying Jenny needs to go back to school? :lol:

In my opinion family doctors are sort of the PC repair techs of the medical world. The know a little about a lot of things, and a lot about very little. I'd get the opinion of a cardiologist before I'd settle in and be content with a certain medicine treatment. I know my wife has been...

No, I just found that there were better materials to use that stayed put better than the pill foil does. I stopped messing around with trying it when I discovered better ways. I guess some guys would rather master the art of finger painting, rather than learn to use a brush.

I'm not sure I understand what you're asking for. The ROM is stored on the original PCB, it's the chip labeled U12.

I've never heard of an adapter that could support 128Gb but not 256Gb... I'd suspect there may be more going on with this... Perhaps one of the NANDs isn't communicating with the controller chip so it's now stepping down the size to a smaller capacity which that controller is also used for.

If blocking the preamp lets the drive spin up, then it eliminates the ROM as the culprit. It's probably a shorted out or open circuit head failing the pre-spin check. Time to look for a heads donor.

Thanks! I figure since they aren't stopping their efforts to spam we may as well just have some fun with them.

Yeah, I tried that early on when I was first experimenting with head swapping drives. Never worked for me. Projector slides and rubber bands works much better. :lol: I'm still trying to figure out how I might use dental floss in the process somehow. That way I'll have finally become...

Hey, hey... there's no "gurus" here, that a different forum. :lol: We're the data recovery surgeons here.

It could be a short-circuited read/write head. I know some models do a head resistance check before spin up. If the donor ROM has less heads, it might not be testing the bad head. See if it'll spin up the PCB with the preamp blocked. Also try reading the ROM via Boot ROM code and post it...

Now, my tool is actually better than the one on HDDGuru because I actually built in a logic function to determine the correct century. Just in case anyone has a 1999 drive using this date code system. :lol:

Thanks for that. The formula actually had to be typed as: Where E7 was a cell which concatenated "7/1/" with the year from the date code. I always figured it was possible to do, I was just too lazy to figure out the math. Didn't think to use the Mod function for a date.

So here's something really annoying about Microsoft I just discovered. I've long used a personal Microsoft account with Onedrive where I could take part of an excel sheet and embed it into a website. Recently I upgraded my personal to a business Office 365 account, which is a nightmare because...

Yes, it should be available. When the key is created on first login the bitlocker key is stored with Microsoft and linked with their account.

Also you can identify the drive's /dev number by just using the command:

Just for anyone else who's tasked with wiping EMC drives that are 520byte sector size and can't have the sector size adjusted via the normal means you can still erase the drive completely and zero fill it just using the following command in the SG3_Utils linux package: If the drive will allow...

Just for anyone out there who doesn't feel like fighting with the manual way of installing this package into Debian Linux or its variants such as Sparky Linux which I use. Here's the easy way to do it: sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get upgrade sudo apt-get install software-properties-common...

I've created a sub-Reddit on reddit.com to just have a place where we can all push out new blog posts on our site and get the link back. I find it's helpful to just get them indexed faster in Google. Anyway, feel free to post your blog links here: http://www.reddit.com/r/datarecoveryblog Luke...

And, case is solved. Just needed a good old fashioned block SA access in ROM, upload ldr, upload dir, backup resources, slow responding fix, unblock SA access in ROM, and power cycle. :D All done with no supported family in my outdated PC-3000 software. I wonder if this is going to be a...

Nevermind, found the one I needed on HDDGuru's files section. Looks like it's family PebbleB

I'm looking for a LDR for this drive, I'm actually not 100% sure what the family is. Model: WD30NPRZ-82YRMT0 Consolidated ROM: 0002000U I'll take anything close that you have. Even if it's a different ROM version, as long as it's the same family. I'd just need both ROM and LDR if the ROM...

Given that this is the only place online now talking about this *.B61C extension, let's just hope someone else who's got it finds this forum and can point you in the right direction of what .onion site to contact if your client wants to make a payment.

Yeah, this looks like an encrypted file to me. No discernable ASCII characters in HEX, and what looks like some virus metadata at the end which likely contains the information they need to know which encryption key to sell you, and what to rename the file back to afterward.

I've got to agree with Luke here. Doesn't sound like the introduction of someone who does data recovery work. I'm suspecting we'll see two more random posts, then out comes a hot steaming pile of SPAM. But, in case I'm wrong..... Welcome to the forum! :D

That's a new one to me. I can't even find anything online about it. What does the data inside the files look like?

Right. My mission was to be able to put that search magic into a clickable link for them. Hardest part was figuring out how to exclude searching the C:/

Here's a couple more examples:

So I've spent the last several hours learning how to script Windows Explorer shortcuts to prompt searches and actually met with some success. For example here's a shortcut which when run will search all drives (except C:) for quickbooks *.qbw and *.qbb files. I'm probably going to create a...

It's a manual filter I made to just filter out the worst swear words that are likely to get my website categorized as "not family friendly". I'm not trying to limit free speech, just keeping out the worst bad words.

I love how my family filters changed the extension to ".poop" :lol:

So I'm starting this sticky to keep track of families which can be used as cross-compatible heads donors if matched correctly. Here's what I've confirmed so far: Dolphin & Mercury Mariner & Marn5 4K Tahoe 2D & Vulcan RE Sabre 53 and Sabre 58 Jamaica & Jamaica 4K Tornado 2D and Tornado 2PMR...

Here's another one Patient: WD5000BMVU-11A08S0 DCM: HHCVJHBB Date: 10 Apr 2009 Head Map: 0 1 2 3 Family: Dolphin (USB 2.0) Donor: WD5000BEVT-75ZAT0 DCM: HBCVJHBB Date: 25 Jun 2009 Head Map: 0 1 2 3 Family: Mercury (SATA) Imaged out most data at over 70Mb/s

OK, I just reconfirmed the cross compatibility of these two families for heads. Swapped Mercury heads into a Dolphin drive and it's imaging at 70Mb/s from all heads now. Perhaps I'll add a new sticky to track cross compatible families.

Here's the terminal connection for Dolphin family drives:

ROM modules are contained within the ROM code, so if you transfer the whole code you don't need to worry about the modules as they've already been transferred over. In some cases you might want to keep certain adaptives, such as after a head swap, so you might want the donor module plugged into...

FAIL Servo OP= generally always is related to bad read/write heads and/or media damage.

The encryption on these is no headache at all if you have the right equipment like PC-3000. However, without it you're in for some real fun.

Try using a 771692-005 REV A board. I think that's the one I generally use and it seems to always work as a replacement for the 771737's. Does it go ready even with the preamp still blocked?

ST2000DM001 9YN164-302 W1E CC4C 12414 SU PreampType: B3 13 (So these heads should be compatible with the above drive which has S1E serial and the Z1E drive with TK site code on previous page) I'm starting to think the site may not even matter if the second and third digit of serial match.

ST2000DM001 9YN164-302 S1E CC4C 12416 SU PreampType: B3 03

I use all HGST SAS drives for my RAID. I've yet to even need to change a single drive, though I do keep an extra one on standby just in case. SAS drives are built to an entirely different standard than their junk SATA counterparts. You can actually feel the difference just picking one up...

I've been looking for two weeks and can't seem to find a good donor for this one: Model: WD20EARS-00MVWB0 Date: 11 Jun 2012 DCM: HHRNNTJCH Country: Malaysia I can find ones that are from Thailand, or ones that are about a year off on the date, but no good matches. Anybody have one they are...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but those actually look like gold wires in the first picture. No wonder 6Gb was so expensive back then.

I've had a ZFS RAID get totally botched after a simple power outage, so I'm not sure I'd trust that either. Fortunately I had everything important backed up. Right now I actually use a RAID 6 of 8 4TB SAS drives connected to an Areca 1880i controller and it's been great. I don't generally use...

Yeah, I think they've been around as a computer repair business for a while. I just recently noticed them because they are now advertising "professional" data recovery service in my city.

Also pay attention to the Rev. Sometimes a USB with REV P1 won't work if you replace with a SATA REV A or the likes. You may have to try a few different ones before you find the right one.

OK, so I'm going nuts trying to find a donor for under $300 which has S24 as the first three of serial. The drive is a ST1500DM003 P/N: 9YN16G-021, but I'm even looking at ST2000DM001's which I know also use the S24 heads. The only affordable one I can find is over a year off on the date (need...

Was the ROM size the same? You should be able to unbrick it using boot rom code utility.

You notice they said the drive was contaminated, but not that there was scratches on the platters. I'd suspect that it was just opened by a customer outside a clean room, and that are just referring to that contamination. Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Is that a distillery in the background? Maybe they are brewing their own alcohol to scrub the platters down with :lol:

Here's the full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdNQZ2480i4

OK, so I'm having a good laugh looking at a youtube video of a company who popped up across town advertising their "professional" data recovery services. I'm watching their video and I see this: I don't even know what that machine is, but I'm pretty sure it's something medical and has...

Welcome, nice to have you here. Care to share any info about where you live, what you do for work, etc.?

Interesting. I always thought that was just a repair utility. Now how would you run that against a whole hard drive containing weeks of video fragments in a proprietary format?

So I've been trying to pay attention to Seagate serial numbers to see if I can make any additional sense of it. So far this is what I think I've figured out about the first few digits. First Digit - Some sort of site location code. This one tends to often follow the site code SU = S, WU = W...

So my next project is to start keeping track of Seagate part numbers and how they relate to head compatibility. Obviously the first three of serial is most important to matching, but sometimes you might want to look for a drive with more heads from a higher capacity drive. So I figure it'll be...

I've got a DVR unit here that malfunctioned slightly and isn't showing the last recorded clip of video which the customer needs. He was smart and shut it down right after the incident, he had even viewed the video once before shutting it down. However, on power up the last segment of video was...

I replied to your other thread you started about this. I can take a look at it remotely for you if you'd like.

Hit me up on Skype: palmer_jared I can probably take a quick remote look at it and see if I can figure out the settings from the metadata on the drives.

I'm thinking that Google Translate doesn't work well from Vietnamese to English. I can't make sense of any of this either.

I assume you're trying to just refurbish this drive right?

+1. I used to buy donors myself, and I ended up losing money on way too many cases. Having them pay for the donor shows a level of commitment on their part, as they have now invested into the project. This way you find out who's going to end up backing out on you before you've invested a...

Sweet! You saved me the trouble of opening up the WD5000BEVT-75ZAT0 that I've got sitting on my desk. Now to see if the customer approves the quote.

That's what I expected based on the fact that the PCB is compatible from Mercury family (also SPT 1178), and that they are built all around the same time. So it's probably a safe bet that they will be head swap compatible too. I'll have to try one to see.

Actually, it looks like they do now offer that as a service: http://www.cellebrite.com/Pages/cellebr ... s7-devices It's funny because they deny being the party that unlocked that phone for the FBI, yet they had a mysterious $218,000 contract signed with the FBI on the same day the FBI...

I'm pretty sure the data is encrypted, so if you do a reset it's going to generate a new random key and the data will be permanently lost. Is it possible? Yes, it's possible. The FBI working along with the people who made CellBrite were able to hack that one phone belonging to that terrorist...

Sure, here's some pictures: Top Side Bottom Side Main IC Motor Controller USB Bridge Chip

That's why I do a strict policy of no price negotiation. Was it your fault that their HDD platter had a scratch? No. So even if only half the data is recoverable, you still did your job successfully. My policy is simply that if it's less than 70% they can 'reject' the recovery. They don't...

It displays just fine for me in Firefox, but I don't regularly use it. It's probably just an old cookie in your browser preventing it from displaying. No worries though, it's mostly just there to be web spider food.

Yes, Hawiki is the default theme. I tend to doubt that a crawler would bother to change its theme from the default one. So I'm pretty sure it'll see the reel and its links.

I've added a reel where my recent blog posts get posted automatically in a feed at the bottom of each of the forum pages. It's really just there for the sake of SEO and channeling my internal link structure to keep the blog relevant in the eyes of Google. The forum is growing so fast it's...

Does anyone know if there is a SATA family which is heads compatible with the USB only Dolphin family drives? I'm thinking Mercury might be, as they use a compatible SATA PCB for the family. Anyone tried this? There just isn't much available for this odd family. Or can anyone at least verify...

ST2000DM001 1CH164-300 Z1E CC43 13115 TK PreampType: CB 16

It's not making any headlines yet, but I'm pretty certain that Skype has been hacked. I've been getting SPAM messages from several contacts today with links to some baidu.com redirect link to sell some brain boost formula junk. At first I just figured it was probably the result of a spammy app...

ST3000DM001 1CH166-572 W1F CC44 13234 WU PreampType: CC 16

Haha, the fun with spammers continues.

How did you ever make out with this case? Did you confirm the SATA PCB that worked for it? I'm just trying to keep the list updated.

You're right, I've corrected all the above posts to correctly reflect that it's Larry's Haemorrhoid microscope. :D

Watching the advertising videos from a lot of other data recovery companies, I'm always seeing an oscilloscope with a sine wave on it. I'm well aware of what an oscilloscope is and what it does, I just can't see any reason to need one for most types of data recovery. Do any of you actually use...

I do like the dental mirror attachment though. If it's small enough might be handy for inspecting between platters for lost sliders and scratches.

I find this ebay listing to be a bit disturbing. Look at what some of the accessories say: This seems like a bad idea. :shock: Hey Larry, why's this microscope smell funny? :lol:

It's basically this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Digital-76X-Ste ... HJgo0Tya6Q Though the one listed there is a slightly newer version with basically the same specs. I had to just hold the heads at an angle to see between them, but the nice open work area makes that easy enough to do. I bought it...

Here's another which I think came from a Seagate. Hard to say, it's just from a bin of old bad heads:

So I just got a new microscope, which is much better than what I've had previously. Just look at the detail you can see of a slider at really good magnification: It looks like a Klingon Bird of War...must be some Trekkies at WD.

I've got a lot I need to add. I just haven't been getting around to updating it.

Yeah, I've been trying to think of a good way to compile such information. The only way I can think of is to just take a years worth of data from each company and break down how many of each brand came in. Then compare that with the percent of market share that each manufacturer sells.

Threads like this is why Tom's Hardware should be shut down: http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id- ... l#18806016 You disagree with one idiot moderator, who is flat out lying to someone then you get banned. Perhaps we can all chime in and tell the mod what an idiot he is before I get banned...

Yep. I'm surprised this one got approved.

I actually tend to disagree. I think that module 17A is damaged. Notice that Sim Error 1009. That's not to say you don't have a bad head, it's certainly possible. But, you definitely have an issue with that module. Try following this guide: http://ts.acelaboratory.com/index.php?/ ...

It may throw off the number nominally just due to the fact that it's basing the calculated number on the number of particles within a certain volume of air passing through. So if it were reading 150 ppm and the laminar is pushing extra air through it, it might read 175 (technically inaccurate)...

Ditto. Only I've trained my wife to explain most of that stuff based on my quick notes I make for each case. She often gets comments from computer techs who are surprised that she can answer all their questions and even knows more about the data recovery process than they do.

Yeah, that one is already long since recovered.

I figured as much given that the 959 and 931 are cross compatible for other ones too.

The meter has its own internal fan blowing air through the lazer to count particles passing through the beam. So I don't think airflow within the chamber is likely to make a significant difference. Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

PayPal is the easiest way. The amount I leave completely up to the person I'm helping as I realize that rates vary widely depending on what part of the world you're in. All I would expect is a fair proportion of the amount that is being billed to the client based on the help received. If I...

Oh, I see they've added better way to move module 01 for WD Marvell series. I've got two here right now that need that. One's already on it's second set of heads since it can't seem to survive long enough for me to move that module. And I see they've enabled a way to disable the NAND...

Suit yourself. Perhaps though you & your boss should consider this. Which is actually the cheaper option?: Option A: Pay an employee to waste two weeks trying to figure something out only to end up screwing it up permanently and never get paid. Or to just find out that it was a lost cause...

I think our constantly changing their spam messages is finally starting to get noticed. I've actually been contacted by one such company who's known to occasionally spam like that asking about having an actual Software Rep account on here. As long as they make clear that they are...

$260.99 plus shipping. Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Yeah baby! That's what I'm talking about. Now to get my upgrades going....nope not enough money in the bank this week.

Yeah, let me know if there's anything good that you notice. My update period is up, so I'm curious to know if there's anything new and exciting in it.

If you need more direct Skype / Teamview type assistance, don't be afraid to ask. There's a few of us here who offer that type of support on a donation basis. Getting your bearings at first using PC-3000 can seem daunting, we've all been there. Anyway, welcome to the world of professional...

I use one of these exact ones: http://www.dylosproducts.com/ornodcproair.html Works really good, and counts both 2.5 micron and 0.5 micron sizes at the same time. I leave it on all the time and I always make sure it's reading 0 on both particle sizes before I open a drive up. I know it works...

I'm pretty sure this drive has bad heads, but just looking for some confirmation. It spins up, I hear repeated SA accessing in a rhythmic repeating pattern (almost like clicking but softer). Then it comes ready and allows terminal. Here's what I get in terminal though: Then it locks and...

So, has anyone found a reader for these new memory cards Samsung is rolling out yet? I'm intrigued by Micron's description that it uses a serial interface: Compared to eMMC: Looks almost like it's using SATA channels internally. Perhaps a UFS to SATA adapter board will be in order.

Unfortunately, I also got one in recently where the last data recovery company wiped the ROM. There really isn't much you can do within reasonable means. Supposedly is one or two guys in Eastern Europe who can do it, but it'll cost a small fortune. Best bet is to have your customer call out...

You know it! :lol: I just do that to get the stars to appear in the search results. Anything to catch the eye is a good thing. I don't do any pay per click at all. Mostly just do a lot of work to try and get backlinks from anywhere and everywhere I can. So, it's more related to how much...

I think my suspicion is more about the 314AS vs 315AS than it is about the capacity. I'm quite certain they'll have the same head map, but might be different preamp or sliders.

I'm wondering if in your case the Sandforce controller itself wasn't the actual problem. Perhaps they just have a collection of Sandforce controller SSDs in stock and they just move the controller and NAND's over for each case. I'm sure there's a good percentage of cases where the underlying...

I'm finally starting to see some results of my SEO work. Loving seeing this: Take THAT DriveSavers! This is nice to see too:

I'd say it's around a 40-50% chance that it'll be compatible. Hard to say though. I rarely cross Seagate drives of different capacities personally.

Not necessarily. Unless you're able to preview them to see if data actually is correct it could still be off. Sometimes it might just be reading the file name entries from the MFT based on a close configuration. Try opening one of the image files using a demo of R-Studio and see if it can...

Yep, definitely seems like bad heads.

Recovered image file size will be exactly the same no matter what RAID settings you use. It'll always be the same total number of sectors no matter how you de-stripe it. In my experience automated RAID recovery works about 20% of the time. The other 80% of the time requires good old manual...

Same thing happens on PC-3000 if the drive is taking too long to respond. Try loading again and see if it says "LDR already loaded" (or something like that). Or just re-check ID and see if it now shows the kernel ID. It should be compatible, I know I've used a lot of MRT LDRs with PC-3000 so...

Trying to be able to cross reference which part numbers during which time periods use specific preamps. Once enough of these are collected it may be possible to see the correlation of where you can get away with a different part number which may be half the price of a donor with the same part...

If that's so, one could argue that it's a predatory collaboration. Creating a loophole in an encryption, which otherwise makes recovery impossible, then benefiting by allowing only one company to use it and extorting high prices for a cut would be unethical to say the least. I'd bet a quick...

ST3000DM001 1CH166-302 Z1F CC26 13355 TK PreampType: B4 53

ST3000DM001 1CH166-501 W1F CC24 13263 WU PreampType: CC 26 (Seems safe to assume the second to last digit is irrelevant as these three drives are a perfect match. Perhaps it's a production line number???)

ST3000DM001 CH166-501 W1F CC24 13264 WU PreampType: CC 06 (amazing it's different than the one above)

ST3000DM001 1CH166-501 W1F CC24 13256 WU PreampType: CC 46

OK, I'm creating this sticky to just keep track of which preamp type is in which of these drives. Given how many head swaps we are doing on these, I think it'd be nice to get it down to a little better science, so perhaps we can more loosely match these when the exact part number isn't...

:lol: :D

Here you go.

It didn't turn out to be a case where it really needed to be forensically sound. It was evidence for a criminal case, but since we were just looking for video to try to prove the defense (not offense) it didn't have to be handled following any particular procedures. So I ended up just dd'ing...

Perhaps a stupid question, but are you sure you've found the correct RAID parameters? Are you able to open large files from the filesystem?

Unfortunately, unless there's a patent involved it's unlikely you can do much of anything about this. I figure it's only a matter of time before some good copies of other tools like HDDSurgery begin circulating.

I don't know. You know Mac users if they have to use a different program than they are used to they start to panic and get confused. These are the type of people who prefer a phone with only one physical button. It's no problem to browse into the library and just copy the raw files out, but...

Wow, that's not cool at all. I'm happy I didn't pay him the full $300, now that I know he stole the design. Granted, any head combs inherently will have a measure of similarity due to the fact that they need to fit in a certain range of space. But, to actually buy your tools then make nearly...

Virtual disk files can be mounted using some third party software, but they are normally used for VMs. Normally the only reason you'd want to export a RAID to a disk image would be to scan it using other data recovery software which doesn't support RAID.

I know it's not normally an SSHD issue, but have you tried editing ID to disable everything? Perhaps it's something simple like a messed up media cache??? I've been surprised lately at some of the drives where that was the solution, even some older drives that I never thought were prone to...

Yes, it just says it can't repair the library. However, if I browse into the actual folder the pictures are all still there in the Masters folder. I've had this problem show up twice now and both times it was 100% recovered, so no reason to be corrupt in the first place.

Here's a PDF the company who makes these sent me which itemizes all the drive models it supports:

Anyone else here having customers with issues opening their old iPhotos library in the new MacOS? I've had a few recent ones where 100% of sectors were recovered, yet the new Photo's app says the database is corrupted. Apple's solution is to "update to the latest version" which doesn't help...

Well, I finally got a chance to use one of these tools today on a rampless 7200.12 drive that I wanted to inspect the heads on. It slid in and out very nicely, left no damage to platters, and held in place very nicely while I worked. All in all, I'd say it's every as bit as high quality as the...

I really haven't had much time to play around with it. My intent was mostly to just get dumps, ECC them, and then send out to someone who does this all the time for recovery. I've learned how to do that much, so pretty much mission accomplished for now. When I get more time later, I'll have...

Boy would I love to build a RAID 5 in my PC-3000 machine using a half dozen of these babies: https://www.cdw.com/shop/products/Samsu ... 79174.aspx Could store a whole lot of HDD images at really high speed that way. If I only hade $60,000 to throw at it.

Somehow though the hardware is able to do this full speed, probably because it's a simple solid state relay just flipping a switch every 512 bytes. It's software which takes forever to do this due to the fact that it's likely making a separate ATA request for each individual sector now instead...

Yes, I received my set yesterday and haven't had the chance to work with them yet. The look to be very good quality and well machined. I'm impressed so far by what I see. But, the proof will be in the pudding.

Figure this is as good a place as any to keep track of the less than perfect donor matches that end up working out even though they probably shouldn't. Here's mine from today: Patient Model: HTS725032A9A364 P/N: 0A73293 MLC: DA3247 Date: 05 Sep 10 Headmap: 1 2 3 Donor Model: HTS725050A9A364...

The guy called me to claim that. Though I think he's just hoping I'll end up sending in cases I can't figure out (pretty rare). I can understand this business tactic, as I've recovered the last three drives I received that other labs gave up on. But, I still think it's a ridiculous claim.

I'd say there's very little chance you'll recover much of anything from it. Is it worth trying, I suppose that depends on how important the data is. I'd definitely make the customer pay for parts and probably add an attempt fee just due to the low odds of success. That or you can send it to...

I don't know what else you're looking for Amarbir... from that terminal log I can tell you exactly what's happening to that drive. The ROM code is either corrupted (unlikely) or it's the wrong PCB / ROM on there (very likely).

One sector stripe size is always slow. I'm actually surprised it copied 460Gb in 24 hours. I've seen some single sector stripe arrays take three to four days to copy out the files.

Hard to say without actually being in front of that one. Let me know if you'd like me to take a quick remote look at it. Could be something easy/obvious that you're missing.

Here's one I just made for a case which is for an Avid Video Project file (*.avp file type). Enjoy!

No, it's definitely a problem with head 5. Trying to find a donor now to get a complete quote, but I don't think the customer is going to approve this anyway.

Yeah, there doesn't seem to be any way to avoid that. Just read what catches your eye when that happens. Not like I make these changes all the time. Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

For now I'll start with just the one section. If it gets crowded, I can always divide it up later on. Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

OK, after some more investigation seems that the problem is with Head 5. This drive is just too stupid to actually disable heads when you disable them in RAM and they keep getting re-enabled. Didn't find the issue until I did some more extensive read/write testing in an unused part of the SA.

He's just responding to the Seagate screaming that gibberish to him in caps through the terminal :lol: @OP, Looks like non-original PCB to me too.

The demo rarely if ever can generate the previews as it should. In fact I mentioned this when I recommended the program to you. Buy yourself just a 30 day license for $20 and try it. Or create a binary image of the card, post it somewhere and shoot me the link so I can run it for you.

This one doesn't act like bad or weak heads at all. It reads and writes modules at full speed, comes ready very quickly, etc. It really seems like nothing is wrong until you try to read a sector. It's almost like it's a bad translator module, but everything seems to check out. I'll be trying...

So I've got an odd case here. Model: WD20EARS-00MVWB0 PCB: 2060-771698-002 Rev A Drive was described as stopped working after moving the computer. They took it to the local computer tech, who said it wasn't spinning and referred them here. On my evaluation I find that the drive is in fact...

Did you try CNWRecovery as suggested?

So here's something I just gleaned from a T13 email series that I've been privy to. It's a list of all vendor specific S.M.A.R.T. attributes by vendor as well as the basic generic ones. Not sure why it'd be useful, but you never know. Here's the list:

She doesn't think so. However the HDD that contained that is here for recovery also. Kind of a twofer, which is why I took it in the first place. I'll probably try to see if I can get anything from itunes on the HDD after that recovery is done.

I asked them if they were just trying to do damage control from all the bad drives they sold, and this was the response: Though I suspect it's their hope to try and combat some of the bad press guys like us have been giving them on hardware forums.

So I'm on Tom's hardware a minute ago and I see this pop up on the side of the page: It's a Seagate branded chat widget on the storage section of Tom's Hardware forum!!! :lol: I wonder if they are hoping to do some damage control over all the bad press they are getting when people keep...

So I generally avoid phone recoveries because it's not very profitable and usually a huge time waster. But, I've got one of those insistent customers who wants me to look at their phone for them. The phone is an iPhone 4S stuck at the iTunes connect screen. I've already attempted doing the...

I never had any issue with the ER-tools that I got. Perhaps after the first batch they got better about cleaning them up before shipping. My experience with ER-tools was very good overall.

I am a bit nervous that these are metal freehand tools. The plastic felt safer when you do bump the platters with it. I'm curious to see if they did a good job smoothing out the sharp edges.

Not many corporate clients around here using FreeNAS. Perhaps in India they pinch pennies enough to build their own NAS, but around here anyone with important business data is usually buying a complete system with good security such as Synology, Drobo, EMC, etc. FreeNAS is more just home media...

Since I had contacted the seller through his website contact form asking about it, he send me a sell offer for a set at $200. Can't wait to give them a try and see how they compare to the er-tools ones I use. Hopefully they include some legacy sizes for the WD drives that park on platter. I...

I just explained how I solved this case and got back all the data, yet you respond with "wrong"??? Getting back all the data is not wrong, it's very right. If you're going to talk condescendingly at least have a clue.

Pretty much. If you use good swabs, knit ESD rated swabs, they are safe to rub on the platter (yes I know that sounds like a bad idea). The last few I've done that way recovered nearly every last sector. So I've definitely confirmed that the rubbing doesn't hurt, at least not with the swabs...

I'd rather not overload with a million sub categories of sub categories. Anything more than two levels deep is excessive I feel. I don't think there's enough content related to some of those to warrant their own category.

Yep, takes a lot of rubbing with a soft knit swab, but they do eventually pop free and go flying off.

So you're suggestion a section under Data Recovery tools for the physical tools like head combs, etc.? Not a bad idea. I'll look into doing that and perhaps move some appropriate threads. Keep the suggestions coming. The better we keep these discussions organized the easier it is for us all...

I'm starting to see why people hate data recovery companies. Many of them are just plain despicable criminals who lie, cheat and steal from their customers. Today I get in a Seagate ST2000MD001 (probably should have been a typical media cache fix). Unfortunately they went to another data...

I've never left it on for that long, so I can't say. Perhaps someone else has. I usually just douse it and then wipe down with swabs. But then I've never dealt with any which are quite so corroded as yours. Usually, I've just been trying to remove some dust or fingerprints from a previous...

Personally I'd be hesitant about anything that removes rust as that means it's capable of breaking up iron (and potentially other metals). I think pure acetone is good to use without cutting the mix, but it evaporates fast so you'll probably have to flood it quite a few times before it's clean...

I think that might be Sentosa family. That or Kahuna. Edit: Nevermind, I think it's a new family. Should still be able to get terminal just using the default F3 family though. Have you tried just connecting the PCB? That or short the read channel.

You're right about that. That's why I generally image by used sector bitmap instead of by file. Unless I know it's just one important folder I want to grab first.

Maybe. I do run a clean hood that's way beyond the Class 100 "standard". Perhaps the $400/ea filters are actually worthwhile after all.

The nice thing about creating a map is that you can image the sectors sequentially. If the drive is struggling or has replacement heads, it'll image much faster and with far less risk than jumping around like crazy just reading files based on their MFT entry. If there's nothing wrong with the...

Perhaps this just generated more interest faster than he expected. Maybe he only has a few sets actually made so far, and is waiting for more to get done.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. And I'm doubting I'll be able to track down a working exact model of this. Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

Yeah, definitely none of those. I did look for that (been reading/watching all the Rusolut documentation). I'm thinking it's just an XOR that RuSolut doesn't have yet. I see there's a method to "extract" the key, but the documentation doesn't seem to really spell out that process well. I...

If you look at their video they show using it to free up heads that were stuck to the platters and get them back to the ramps. I think my methods work just fine for that, but I grab up pretty much any tool I can that can help with the park on platter models. I'm just glad they really aren't...

This is the controller: SM3255EN Q AA I can PM you later with links to the dumps if you want to have a quick look. Not that I want you to waste any time on it, it's just a favor job anyway that I'm using as a test case to learn this program. There's no $$$ on this one. There's nothing in...

Looks like all the $200 sets are gone and now it's $300. I'll be curious to hear how well they work. Looks quite similar to ER-Tools, but now in metal.

I think this here is actually the solution for this chip: http://www.pc-3000flash.com/solbase/sol ... 1&lang=eng But I'm guessing that Ace has their own naming structure for these XOR patterns. I don't see anything resembling "ID_XOR 91" in Rusolut's XOR's. Anyone have an idea which one this...

Good catch! I must have typed it wrong into the calculator. So that confirms it is size 8640, and my math method was right at least. This isn't even a really case exactly, I'm just trying to learn and understand as much as I can. Oddly I'm not seeing any spare areas in the middle of the data...

OK, so I'm working on a 32Gb single NAND case here which I'm thinking is a bit non-standard (as most are I realize). The chip has no markings, but ID's as "8988244BA9" In the VNR DB I find two different page sizes listed with this NAND: 8640 (all but one show this), and 8592 (only one shows...

Turns out the issue was just that the FW of the reader was newer than the software version. Installed the latest Beta, and now it's working fine.

Looks like that may be starting already (though I don't think this issue is me). Been trying for three hours to just get any NAND to read using this used ruSolut reader, and I can't get any NAND to ID. It just goes yellow for about 20-30 seconds, then goes red. I've tried three different...

Yeah, the first six months or so PC-3000 will seem like it's speaking another language. I remember just first trying to read the manuals and couldn't understand half of what I was reading. Don't be afraid to ask for help, even remote assistance when you need it. Even if Ace is too slow to get...

Agreed. It just seems a really odd shape to be so similar.

I don't think my own wife has ever even said that. :lol:

My VNR system should be arriving today, so I guess I'll get to see what you mean soon enough. Been reading through all the VNR documentation, and it seems manageable. I doubt it can be much harder than trying to figure out a 16 drive RAID 50 with no distinguishable metadata.

Yeah, I've bought quite a few special adapters from them.

I agree with your thoughts about contaminants coming from the top cover. It's why I always open my drives upside down inside my down flow cabinet. That way the dust is forced down and hopefully doesn't get too much on the platters. However even if it does, it's nothing some good clean room...

As long as it's Laminar it shouldn't matter if it's vertical or horizontal. I use a vertical airflow one just like the one shown on this page: http://www.sentryair.com/specs/40in%20P ... 20Hood.htm And it works great. I use active monitoring of the air quality and it's able to consistently...

Never heard of them. More and more I'm thinking that I'll eventually need to venture into flash, if for no other reason than just the convenience of being able to handle the cases that show up here. Having done a number of complex RAID cases, I don't suppose it'd be that difficult to learn...

As it tuns out, after removing all the rubber cement they had buried this PCB in, the NAND has a hairline crack running straight across it. I told the customer it's a lost cause, but they are intent on sending it to another company who claims to have some success with cracked NAND chips...

OK, I know this is a topic that I've discussed before but I'm visiting it again because it actually needs to get done this time. I've got a case here using a typical TSOP-48 8Gb NAND that can't leave my office for legal reasons. It's got to be done here, but I'm really not looking to invest...

From the terminal output, I'd say it's pretty certain to be bad heads. FAIL Servo Op= Can' read servo tracking on the platters.

I don't know why R-TT doesn't document this anywhere (AND I MEAN ANYWHERE!!!) but if you're trying to launch R-Studio in Linux the terminal command is: sudo rstudio-tech Took me a half hour to figure that out. I think companies like R-TT often forget that Linux doesn't always create a nice...

I see that the cells containing just text are all visible starting down around offset 0x3460. The number values I'd guess are stored completely differently as they are used for math calculations. Probably is more of a binary floating point value rather than an ACII character you could hope to...

Google Translate isn't half bad these days for larger mainstream languages, as it's got a ton of users providing feedback on specific terminology translation. The less common languages are not so good on Google Translate and usually, return hilarious results. However you'll need a native...

Yeah, I'm not losing any sleep over the why or how. Got the data, so that's all that matters. I'll see if the customer will let me keep the drive afterward. Would make a nice research case study to play around with.

So here's the interesting way this case worked out. I left it imaging on DDI hitting very consistent blocks of unreadable sectors. At around the 10% mark it started only hitting some slow patches but not any bad ones. By 16% it was imaging full speed and hitting no bad blocks (before in DE it...

I know, back then we could barely afford to import maple syrup from Canada so we had to hire a million Mexicans to start making it in Vermont.

Wow, even at $50CAD it's still a lot to ask for a dead drive. That's like twenty bucks :lol: .

Update: DDI seems to have the same issue, it's like the head map generated doesn't actually line up with the real head map. Does anyone know what system files DE and DDI use to generate the head map?

OK, it gets even stranger but I think I've figured it out. I notice that it seems too consistent the amount of sectors it reads and then can't read. So I decide to do a little quick math, and here's what I notice. The drive reads exactly 81,778 sectors then fails to read 27,415 sectors and...

So I've got this Seagate ST9750423AS that came it. it's been to two other data recovery places already who gave up on it. On arrival the heads are stuck to the platters (I'm assuming they put it back this way). After freeing it up the drive IDs but shows zero capacity. System file 28 seems...

@OP, unless your friend needs data off this drive, I'd recommend that you just toss it now. A drive of that density which has been opened outside a clean room environment is just a ticking time bomb even if you do manage to "fix" it.

I didn't realize there was a Cerber 3 out yet. I just handled a Cerber 2 case for a client, and the final solution ended up being to pay the criminals. Unfortunately these viruses are getting increasingly good at preventing data recovery if you don't have a backup.

Does RapidSpar have a forensics mode where it'll calculate checksums? Edit: I see it does seem to have a Data Acquisition Add-On: http://rapidspar.com/forensics.html Anyone know how much this addon costs? I know the RapidSpar itself is around $2000 Double Edit: Found their prices page...

I was actually leaning toward this one. I like that it'll generate an Encase image file and calculate checksums. Do you happen to know if it can then convert the E01 file to a RAW image for me to work with in finding the lost data?

Call me crazy, but these two labels look oddly similar coming from HGST and Seagate. I hope they are just buying labels from the same company and not starting to intermeddle their manufacturing too.

Anyone care to recommend a good tool used for field acquisition of a HDD in the field that is forensically sound? I have a customer who wants to pay me to drive two hours away to image a drive and attempt recovery. I already know lawyers are involved, and I keep telling them I'm not a...

Always happy to help :D

I think these are pretty new, can't seem to find much of anything about this drive posted anywhere.

Can you post module C5? From there should be able to tell the family. Also, I'd take a backup of all the SA tracks before writing any modules to the drive. That way you can put it back if something does get tweaked from working on it with the wrong family utility.

Welcome to the major leagues :D

I just had one earlier this week that would ID and go ready, could even read sectors. But then randomly, whether imaging or not it would click/beep once and get stuck busy. Slow responding fix made the drive stable and imaged 100% with no bad sectors. First time I've seen that too.

Thanks! Updated the list with these. Please keep em coming.

Go for it! You're an actual contributing member and more than welcome to "SPAM" your services. I've never said you can't self-promote here. As long as you're posting something with a bit of substance, it's welcome here. Only thing that isn't welcome is responding to a thread about a...

If you're not in a rush, Ebay one from China: http://www.ebay.com/itm/256GB-SSD-for-2 ... Swd0BV4OuV I think it's actually an M.2 adapter like this: http://www.microsatacables.com/ngff-m2- ... 2-1022-mac which allows you to put any old M.2 into a macbook, that they are using along with...

I'm posting this thread in the hopes of having a list of compatible SATA replacement PCBs for USB native drives. Here's what I've got so far (based on PCB numbers): USB -------------> SATA 100725482 ---> 100720903 100740633 ---> 100739392 100760718 --->100720903 100765396 ---> 100767980...

OK, I'll post a new sticky thread about it where we can all add ones as they come up. Thanks!

That was my plan B.

Do you happen to have a list you've compiled of compatible SATA replacements for these USB ones? I'd love to start a sticky regarding this and keep it updated like we have for the WD ones.

I've had a few of these come in for recovery, but none yet actually needed heads. Can you snap a couple pictures inside so I can see what it looks like?

Only makes a difference in knowing which company's junk software I should be warning people against buying. My tactic is simple, every time they spam their software, I turn it into a warning not to buy their software. I hope that eventually, they'll see what's going on and blacklist my site...

Here's a quick trick I just learned to quickly check if T.R.I.M. is enabled on any SSD or eMMC computer / tablet running Windows. Just open up a CMD prompt as admin and type in: fsutil behavior query disabledeletenotify If it returns: DisableDeleteNotify = 0 Then TRIM is enabled and your...

Are you talking about two chips on the actual HDD PCB, or are you talking about the USB bridge? I'm confused. :?:

Let me guess, Stellar SPAM or was it Tenorshare this time?

Another interesting thing I discovered is that I can't do a drive to drive image of the internal memory. I can only image to a file, and only by partition. Seems that if I try to image starting at the MBR it returns an error about the eMMC memory not being a block device. Yet I can read to an...

With Hitachi drives you'd need to transfer the NVRAM code from the original PCB to the new one for it to work. Also, the first two lines of the white sticker on the PCB needs to match. If you don't have any professional tools to read/write the NVRAM, then you can alternately transfer the whole...

Yeah, I figure that with posts like this, even if it is SPAM it's still adding another thread to the forum with appropriate data recovery keywords which may lead someone to the site one day. :D