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For 2.5" drives, I prefer to use rubber bands :D

OK, I just confirmed with Michael that these files are in fact fragmented by the camera like the GoPro, and that CnWRecovery will work with it. Here's the message he sent back to me: So I'd strongly recommend you buy his software and give it a run.

My experience with HDRC tools wasn't very pleasant. Even though I did buy their tools once, I didn't find them to be very effective. For 2.5" drives I actually use my own home made tools which are far more effective, and only cost me a few cents to make. PM me if you're interested in what I...

Has anyone ever experimented with a way to rebuild a damaged or lost T-List using the P-List from a WD drive? It's a possibility I've often wondered about. If you look at the reports from both, you can see that all the tracks from the T-List are contained in the P-List as well. There's just...

I suspect it wasn't able to recover due to the fact that the files are fragmented. I've seen a few cases now where CNWRecovery is the only one that can do it. I actually analyzes the video stream format and removes the foreign metadata that fragments the files. Seriously, I'd give it a shot...

You can keep it forever, but after the first 5 years you have to file a form saying you're still using it and pay a small fee. Then after ten years you have to do it again and every ten years after that.

I would guess that the camera which took the video is one of the models that fragments the files along with metadata it creates simultaneously. Most data recovery software can't help because they expect complete files, not fragments. There is one program which specifically addresses this...

Definitely none that I know of. And doing it over USB is quite a feat, very impressive. I've really got to put some time into playing with this tool.

Lawyers try charging a few thousand, but I did the entire process myself and it only cost around $300 in filing fees.

It's official, I now own the name Data Medics in the USA: https://www.data-medics.com/data-recove ... trademark/ Now I can franchise it out to other people and start a bunch of satellite offices. Soon my plan to take over the data recovery world will be complete :D Anyone interested in a...

I highly doubt that the PCB has anything to do with the problem. It's almost certainly failed heads, especially given that it's clicking and experienced physical trauma. Maybe, just maybe, it's g-list or SMART damaged in which case you'd need pro data recovery regardless. Toshiba are actually...

Here's the Atlantis ones:

I'm not sure posting your email address in a forum is a good idea, but it's up to you. Technique is also key in replacing read/write heads. If the heads are at all twisted, bent, bumped, or even touch anything during the process they are usually ruined. It's why guys will spend thousands of...

I couldn't agree more. Even after having some experience with other data recovery tools before buying PC-3000 I couldn't understand half the manuals. But now after a few more years of working with the tool and reading everything I can find online most makes perfect sense. It really is like...

I know for a while the Tapatalk Plugin wasn't working for this forum, but it seems to be resolved now after some updates. For any of you who like the mobile app version of the site.

I just want to warn anyone using the new feature of PC-3000 to check for heads donors, the preamp vendor / rev isn't actually read if you're only able to read from the PCB. Here's a picture of two reads from the same good drive (one attached to HDA and one just PCB alone): So just beware that...

I wonder if it only checks for the existance of XFS file systems to warn the user they need to use their NAS software which does support XFS. :?:

I noticed this while running a test scan with GetDataBack Simple: But, I don't see XFS listed here: Anyone know if it actually supports XFS, or is it just saying that for fun?

I've added a new subsection of the FW & LDR requests forum where I'll be posting all available WD Marvell LDRs including those I extract from Donor Drives database files. It'll take some some time to complete so I'll probably only add a few families each week. After I post a family please feel...

OK, so after doing some digging I've discovered that the LDR module is only specific to the consolidated ROM version. Going to a different model or even a different capacity drive makes no difference. If the ROM version is the same, module 11 is always the same. I think I'm going to start...

I don't know that it is. I haven't found the search to be extremely helpful yet, but it's a good way to check a drive you buy on ebay or somewhere else before you open it and destroy it.

I've been asked about this a few times, so I'm just posting this so I can point people here instead of trying to explain it each time. Here's how to verify if a drive is a compatible donor after you've already matched as closely as possible: Micro Jogs need to be within 300 of each other...

I know I've mentioned this in the past, but is thereanyone out there who's interested in doing some guest blogging on this site? Either for pay, links, fun, etc.? Only requirement is you'd have to have good English skills and know a little something about data recovery or digital storage...

One just had a lot of bad sectors near the beginning but was still a 99.99% recovery. The other was just a logical recovery. So both were really easy cases.

Exactly what he said. From the beginning we've always said it's free and open for data recovery software firms to advertise their products here in the appropriate forums and without using deception. Just open a thread in the logical recovery section and tell us all about your software and why...

Was running on RAID, or currently IS running in a RAID? Shouldn't matter if it was part of a RAID in the past, the data isn't accessible if it's in need of translator regeneration. Oh, and don't forget to do it as superuser or sudo it.

It's alright, I think it makes my profile look cooler. A banned user who's still posting in the forum, makes me look like some sort of super hacker.

OK, try this: Connect the drive to the Linux machine and find it's path E.G. /dev/sda Install the sg3_utils (from here: http://sg.danny.cz/sg/sg3_utils.html) then run these commands: sg_raw /dev/sda DF 00 33 49 00 00 sg_raw /dev/sda C8 01 00 00 00 00 You may have to throw a -v and/or -n...

Yeah, I'm unbanned now, but it's still showing me as banned. Not a big deal, at least I can post now.

I don't know, I've never done a temporary ban. When I ban, it once and for all time. But, I only do it to the blatant SPAMMERS not other users.

I think it's exactly 2 weeks from the moment of getting banned.

Looks like I'm not getting any mercy from Dmitry either. Still banned till tomorrow morning. :(

You have a Linux machine you can connect it to and then run a tool to see if it'll regenerate the translator?

Yes, or if they do the secure reset option which also changes the key.

Hi PCLab, I just noticed this response for the first time.... still have the guinea pig for me?

Here you go, I put a PCR file in the folder with the modules and threw it all into a zip file: Obviously they use some sort of compression to keep the files way smaller (makes sense as the SA is full of empty space). Also keep in mind that the PCR database files from DD is entire hdd brands...

I totally agree. I guess I though I was just making conversation with Spildit, and didn't think to report the post (assumed that Spildit already did that). I always felt that HDDGuru moderators were on top of the SPAM pretty well and probably didn't need more and more people flagging the same...

The Toshibas are a breeze to work on. I don't think I've ever had a head swap fail on them. Seagate is always a pain, so no real shock there. Just be sure that whatever spacer you're putting in between the heads isn't too thick and is possibly bending or twisting the heads. You need a piece...

Seems that they've done a nice update to this already very useful guide: http://www.donordrives.com/blog/matching-guide I definitely describes the DCM matching more accurately than before. Now they are on par with what I've been doing here.

The drive has a HPA from the factory which is where the magic key sector is stored. If you notice the capacity is larger over SATA than it is in USB mode. So you don't really lose any capacity doing the reset, it's still the same amount of hidden sectors at the end of the drive, it just...

Hey, close only counts in horse shoes, hand grenades, and.... old Seagates.

Since when does the enclosure make any difference? First thing I ever do is toss the plastic case back in the bin and go to work. The model number of the internal drive is all I need to know. As to the drive being "partly encrypted" that is possible if someone entered the password wrong too...

The firmware will still work for MRT or DDL. RPM is the standard format for most pro systems now. You'll just need someone with a PC-3000 to extract the necessary RPM files from the data base files for you. I'd been bugging them about getting a copy of their firmware database, and they said...

I don't know that the 3.3 is necessary, not used that I'm aware of on most drives. Switching ground is definitely a bad idea, especially given that the entire aluminum housing is one big ground and some guys (myself included) work on an esd protected bench which is essentially one big ground...

That's where I first noticed the feature and immediately became envious of it. When I saw it on R-TT forum (also phpBB) I knew it was possible and became determined to make it work.

It wouldn't need to be two relays for a drive, just a double pole relay. And I don't think it'd really matter which way you did it, though I'm guessing the cost would be less switching low voltage rather than switching high voltage and you'd get a longer life out of the contacts. Just based on...

I've had a fair amount of success jumping a few board numbers when I didn't have the specific one handy, so I'm not surprised. As jol said, compare MCU and MC, if they match it's worth a try.

Well when you get one and decide to destroy it, now you'll be able to post the video. The new post editor allows embedding videos from a lot of other sites so will make it easier.

There we go, issue resolved. Just had to disable one feature of the quick reply system.

Is anyone else getting an error now when you post a quick reply? The messages are still posting, but it's giving an error.

My ddrescue tutorial looks much cooler now. :D

I've also added the feature where now you can simply highlight the text you want to quote, and a popup button will appear. This should make it much easier to multi-quote should the need arise. Sorry it took so long to add this, had to figure out how to make it work with the theme.

I've added a totally new posting system that has far more advanced formatting features to the forum. Now you can easily add more rich content, format your text however you'd like, embed and format graphics/videos/sound clips, etc. Please let me know if there's any issues If not then Enjoy...

I embedded the video for you. If you want to embed videos from Belgum youtube you can now use the video code BB Code markup. If anyone else wants their country's youtube domain added just let me know and I'll create the bbcode in the forum too.

Just in Sadle G6 Family deleting the track files freed up 8.65GB on my server. I'd guess it's well over 100Gb of wasted space in total that I'm wiping out here.

OK, it's decided then. No one has provided a compelling reason to keep all these useless trk files around, so I'm wiping them off of my firmware server. While a single resource backup might not seem like much, having hundreds and hundreds of them adds up fast. Just one WD family is taking up...

Does anyone know if the model really matters for using an LDR so long as it's the same family and consolidated ROM version? Only reason I ask, is that I'm considering putting together a consolidated pack of ldr's for each family and not sure if I just need to do one of each version or one for...

I actually just realized I had a bunch more of them.... I guess I hadn't synced that folder to this station lately.

Closest I have is 00270054, I've got a lot of that one but not 0020074.

Interesting, very interesting. I'd been considering getting a few sets of these to do just that: http://www.amazon.com/Pomona-72902-2-Mi ... o+grabbers But, with the addition of WD boot ROM code to PC-3000 the need has been greatly diminished.

Yes, they had to install a solenoid relay on there just to get the Seagate signature clicking down.

I'm hoping it means that the bulk of the drives with defective heads already died off, and now we're seeing the more graceful failures. I haven't seen a hard ST2000DM001 in a while, and about five out of the last six ST3000DM001s were easy too. Hoping it's a trend that continues. Eventually...

Has anyone else been finding that the more recent Seagate DM cases that are coming in are becoming easier? I'm seeing a lot less catastrophic head failures and more and more that are just media cache or firmware issues. I'm actually starting to like these drives coming in now. What are you...

Post your video here, we want to see. Just use the youtube bb code to embed it in the post.

Exactly! Talk about a pair made in hell. Now they'll be hopelessly encrypted and have a 40% annual failure rate, haha.

I just confirmed that you can also replace board 771962 with 771959-000 REV P2 for sure. Adding it to the list above.

Yeah, I'm on a spending freeze at the moment. Until I get a few more projects closed out. Bank accounts are looking a bit lean after the end of year write off spending, haha.

Found it, this is what I was looking for: https://www.drtools.eu/en/product/23/5/ ... nd-wd.html

I remember seeing a post about a tool to easily short Seagate read channel, but now I can't seem to find it. Anyone know who it was that's selling those?

I have to admit this is a cool looking external: But, what I can't understand is that it still requires a separate wall wart power cable. Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't USB 3.1 be more than capable of powering up two SSDs? They only draw a couple watts.

I just noticed this controller: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/seagat ... 29289.html Not sure if it's new, but with Seagate and Sandforce working together we are all doomed. They will be impossible to recover. :o :shock: :( :cry:

Yeah, but when a person is specifically asking about how to recover data they accidentally deleted, what advice are you supposed to give??? Tell them how to write their own data recovery software from scratch??? Idiotic if you ask me.

Hard reset is faster and less straining on the service area, so is preferable to a power cycle in most cases. Most drives will really only survive so many power cycles before dying completely. Just my two cents.

I just got banned from another forum: www(dot)techsupportforum(dot)com due to giving the apparently incriminating advice of cloning with ddrescue and scanning with R-Studio. Didn't even post a link to my site and they banned me for "Advertising". Bunch of morons. I really am sick of these...

Welcome. Care to share more about who you are, where you're located, your company, etc?

No, that one was permanently banned. LoL. It's alright, only 11 more days to go until the ban is lifted. I can ask him then what it was regarding, probably I didn't even notice the SPAM post and was responding to someone else's post.

Yeah, sounds like heads to me too.

I would message Dmitry if I could, but it won't even let me log in so I can't. What I'm still trying to figure out is who or what I didn't report, I didn't even notice any spam like that on there.

Oh well, hopefully this isn't a sign of things to come. If they start crazy over-moderating the forum it'll kill it fast.

OK, someone needs to explain to me what's going on here. Since when are they banning people for what others do on their forum? I don't even know what sheetal30shrama did or who he is.... can someone else explain? Why did I get banned?

Given the popularity of this thread, I'm going to create a separate section for this tool on the forum. That way you can start sub topic discussions about the tool and it's features if you want instead of having one thread that's 30 pages long.

Yeah, it was down for an hour or so. I started the update process, then was distracted by customers for a bit, so I didn't get to finish it right away.

Just updated the forum software. Please let me know if you experience any issues.

Exactly my thinking. I don't think I'll ever have the need to write a donor track to a patient drive, so why keep them.

Yes, I realize the use for active data recovery projects. I'm just talking about the resources that have been collected from years past. I really can't see a reason to keep all that extra data around since it's never used for recovering other drives. I just want to be sure that no one else...

No, it's not scratches in the metal, just residue left behind from the rubber strip.

I'm thinking of clearing out all the track files in my collected resources, excluding current projects where I might still need them. Anyone know of a useful purpose to keep these tracks around? I know I've never used a track from another drive to do anything, just the modules. Hey! This is...

Awesome! That's exactly what I was looking for relating to this one, and pretty much what I had assumed (just had never tried it). I should spend more time playing around in hyper terminal, just haven't needed to in so long.

What I think happened in this case, after a thorough investigation, is the following: There was a corner cover screw that was snapped off (likely at the factory) leaving that corner somewhat unsecured. This likely allowed air to more freely travel in & out of the drive further drying and...

Another command I'd like to add, but I'm trying to understand it's use fully is the: T>rXX command (replace XX with system file number such as "r93" or "r17a") On a good drive it will respond with: F3 T>r93 File Volume 3 File ID 093 File Copy Number 0 File Descriptor FD37D093 File Size...

I don't know if anyone else was having issue attaching images, etc. I didn't realize that phpBB defaults to limit the total amount of uploaded files. I've raised the limit greatly, so shouldn't have any more issues with that for a while.

Here's some pictures of what had happened internally on the drive. Perhaps this explains why it backed out. Also I noticed that one of the corner cover screws was broken off, possibly at the factory. I'd guess this all caused vibration that made it fail, but ultimately it was the rubber that...

Here's an interesting case. Had an older Seagate IDE 7200.10 drive arrive today and the customer seemed quite certain the issue was PCB related. When I first plug it in I notice that the power connector is a bit twitchy, but with a little wiggling it does spin up fine (probably why they...

You asked about price range before. If you could create a software tool with imaging functionality comparable to DDI (obviously without all the advanced stuff like imaging by head map) it'd easily be worth a solid $500. Even just to add more imaging stations in a lab that already has these...

Thanks a million guys! Please feel free to ask for similar favors if you need a rating somewhere.

Thanks Guys! Still isn't green, but I figure a few good reviews on there will serve as a protection. One of the guys who's a re-seller of mine had his hit by a Viagra spammer who marked his company website as "untrustworthy" and then stuffed his SPAM link in the comment. So anyone with the...

Can any of you guys do me a favor and rate this site on WOT: https://www.mywot.com/en/scorecard/data-medics.com I'm trying to get it where it shows green for those who use this plugin. Apparently it takes a few reviews before you go green. Not that I really care, but I've seen a few sites...

Just as a though, if you did want to hardware "link" the software, Banana Pi (http://www.banana-pi.org/) is making some pretty powerful little boards and should be no issue to get a quantity of them. Only thing it's lacking is a second SATA port or USB 3.0, but I'd guess the next revision will...

Actually I really love my Craftsman ones from Sears: http://www.sears.com/craftsman-5-pc-min ... ockType=G2 I have three sets of them, and haven't had one go bad on me yet.

Luke from Recovery Force said he's also now running it with no issues so far. Perhaps I will do the update, but not before I image my OS SSD just in case.

Yes, I just meant to not need to try and find a compatible SATA equivalent board. Some bit of soldering would still be required no doubt, especially given that the chips are all on the underside of the PCB.

If you have DDI 4 they are usually quite easy. I've still yet to need to SATA swap one of them, and thinking I might never. I'm working on getting some nice micro grabbers that can just grab the four pins necessary to make a SATA connection so I'll never need to convert.

You can buy a roll of that stuff right at any Walmart or Home Depot. It's usually in the kitchen / cabinet section.

I've actually used Samsung and Seagate drives with My Book adapters and they worked perfectly as long as the encryption key is in the sector near the end and the LBA is the same. Actually once I didn't feel like adjusting the LBA of a drive that was only a few lba numbers off, so I just...

I use these bins from Uline: http://www.uline.com/Product/ProductDet ... er=S-12415 Along with these racks: http://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/H-1 ... er-36-x-66 Not cheap ones I realize, but I've been adding and collecting bins for a while now. I'm up to about 100+ bins.

In my office, we do put down drive info right away, and make the customer sight a chain of custody with model/serial on it. It's our "proof" of what drive was actually dropped off in case of a mix-up ever.

When are you getting the error? Is it when you open a task, or when you try to create a new task?

You may have noticed the little blue icon at the top of each post. It's for social sharing of threads. If you like something, please take a half second to click it. Will help others to find this forum. :D

OMG, can you say: "Worst role model ever!" I pulled this right from the UN homepage. Seems there will be an entire generation of kids around the world now with the word "Pink" written on the butt of their sweatpants. :shock:

Looks like Dolphin is trying to catch up to PC-3000 here: http://www.dolphindatalab.com/product/d ... equipment/ I'd be very interested to hear anyone's take on how well this system works, or how much it costs.

I'm thinking the issue might be because he's imaging to an image file rather than to an actual drive.

Does anyone know how to skip ahead and start imaging higher LBA's in MRT? It seems to always be grayed out as you can see here: I'm not used to MRT and helping out someone online here.

I think SSD and flash media is something that I'll continue to outsource for now. Maybe next year I'll get the PC-3000 SSD addon for those busy locked SSDs, but I doubt I'll have the time to be messing around with anything chip off anytime soon. Better to outsource and let someone handle it...

Does it look like there's a lot of wobble in the platters? What I do to check is look at a fixed object reflected in the platter and spin it by hand and see if the object appears to move. I've heard of other guys using lazers to check for wobble in the platters. If it makes a dot relfecting...

Anyone else sick to death of extremely over-moderated tech forums? You try to spend hours actually helping random people with data recovery issues, dealing with idiots who are giving aweful advice like "put it in the freezer", then you end up getting banned because you post a link to an article...

I've got about 5 or 6 Apple SSD adapters here and I know it's not all of them. Outside of apple most are pretty standard either mSATA or M.2 format. Though now you've got to pay attention as some are actually PCIe and not actually SATA at all, so you'll need to have an actual motherboard that...

It does and doesn't. I don't think there's a specific utility for it, at least the week I did it (before I upgraded to 6.0) there wasn't. But, I still could work in terminal and could image the drive in DE. ATA is ATA, same commands regardless of the size. In this case it was just one with...

+1 to what Luke said. Just keep spinning the platters by hand until it feels pretty free. Even if it takes an hour. If you can get it free enough to start spinning on it's own, it'll eventually get up to speed and work. If that doesn't work, or you see a lot of vertical wobble in the...

https://www.hgst.com/company/media-room ... th-in-data I think it's finally time that I'll have to start charging extra based on drive size. I just did two 8Tb Seagates, and now this. Unless the speed of imaging greatly increases, will have to start adding cost based on equipment time imaging...

You are the man jol and you continue to impress me. Some random guy in Turkey is going to get all his pictures back thanks to your big brain. :D

Yeah, they threw it away after the USB port broke off. I was thinking Initio too, but hoping to get a better idea.

I'm trying to figure out which bridge board was used to make this encryption sector: http://puu.sh/lHjl5/74a0ff2ef6.png Does anyone recognize which encryption chip this is? I don't have the drive locally, trying to help someone remote. It was found at sector: 2930272264

Here's the one you need: http://www.ebay.com/itm/MAXTOR-6V080E0- ... SwGvhUGz5d

To match the PCB, you'll need a PCB with the following matched: 1. Full Model Number (6v080e0) 2. Code (va111630) 3. Main IC control chip number (040128000) I assume you knew this given that these are the specs you listed on posting. If you have any issue finding one just let me know, I'm...

If the drive is clicking then it isn't initializing and won't appear in BIOS with correct capacity and cannot be accessed by the computer at all. First thing you should do is remove the PCB board from the hard drive and check the contacts to be sure they are clean an not corroded. If they are...

Honestly, I'm thinking it's not a CHS drive at all. I read it in PIO mode, and it seemed pretty normal (though there's no utility for it). I just finished imaging the patient one and no bad sectors so I'm honestly not sure. Perhaps it's just a software corruption case complicated by the PCB...

Just as a test I'm cloning the donor one in PIO on my express card and it's working fine. Will take a whopping 3 minutes to image it. haha.

OMG, I'm such a TART!!! :lol: I'm going crazy here trying to figure out why I can't get this thing to ID anywhere. Turns out the customer had switched out the PCB's between the original and the parts drive they sent.

I have a theory about this, but not one I'll likely ever be able to prove. Here's my theory: We all know that the heads/sliders glide on a cushion of air generated by the spinning motion of the platters. Given the extremely smooth surface of the platters and now even extra structures to keep...

I'd say here its about 10-15% of the cases that come in.

I finally got an email about version 6.0 being added to my update box, but no response to my tickets or email. Assuming they had put it through I ran the activation again and it went through. Not really a big deal I wasn't at work anyway, but still is unnerving not having a working system in...

What kind of digital microscope are you using? The resolution and contrast are great.

It's now been 27+ hours since I uploaded my video of destroying my UDMA card and still no activation or response to my ticket or email. So just beware that if you're doing this process too, it can take a while and you might be shut down for a few days. I thought when they said it'll be...

It's a good thing I waited until a four day holiday weekend to destroy it. Been almost 24 hours and still no response from Ace about activating my new card.

I think the two key factors are privacy and workflow. Here I have the work area blocked from view with cubicle walls, and I tell customers that for privacy reasons no one but employees are allowed in the back. Also it's good to have things arranged so that it's easy to know where your at with...

Sometimes these USB ones are temperamental about allowing access to anything via COM connection. Sometimes it just works, sometimes you have to block the preamp, and sometimes all you can do is read ROM through boot ROM code (usually always works).

A lot of Passport models (not sure of this one) store a copy of the encryption key in a sector near the very end of the drive. So it might be able to find the key on the image if you cloned the whole drive. I'm not sure but you may have to set the LBA of the destination to be the same as the...

I would if I could. It is sad to see such a powerful tool just be destroyed after only two and a half years and about 1000 projects. But, I understand Ace's take on it that they don't want old discontinued equipment out there getting re-sold and competing with their latest & greatest tool sales..

Here's my destruction video for the upgrade program: rv29_Rir988 It's a bittersweet feeling. This card and I have spent some time together, but I think the excitement of my new Express card wins out. Now I want to see your video! :D

I think what I would do is connect the patient drive, than select the decryption option in DE. Let it find the key and then save it to a file. Then just switch out the drive for the one you already imaged the data to and use the saved key to decrypt it.

Yeah, upgraded three machines in the office. Two seem OK, one was a BSOD nightmare but seems fine after a fresh install.

I checked the DVD, not version 6 still version 5 point something. I did just receive it this week, so though maybe they threw the latest on there.. :D

Yeah, I'm thinking of getting it all set up in Window 7 like I have it. Image the SSD as a backup, try the update to see how it goes, then if I don't like it I can just restore to the image of Windows 7.

OK, thanks to Yarek I got my answer. From within the task selection window in DE there's a menu option to select default working folder. This will greatly simplify things now.

I just got my Express card so it comes with 30 days support and update. Is it already on the update server? I haven't checked and I'm not exactly sure what version is on the DVD they sent with it.

I'm installing PC-3000 software and DE on my new express card system. I notice that you have an option to select where the "bin" folder goes which contains the program files. I definitely want the program itself to run on my SSD for faster performance and loading, but I know that the bin...

Yes, I saw that. But, I'm more curious if anyone has firsthand experience using it in Windows 10 day to day operation. You know how even though a program might work in a certain OS, it can sometimes be buggier than in other OS. DRE seems to be a good example of that, technically works in 10...

Interesting. I'm setting up my new express card today so will have to try that out to see. Thanks!

It could very well be that the ramp is a bit deformed, shouldn't be a surprise with large scale Chinese manufacturing. That or the little prong at the tip is now bent down and isn't up like it should be. Sometimes you can straighten it a bit, at least enough to get one good power on and image...

I've met that guy there. That's why I now make them sign a chain of custody form which has the drive serial number on it and the date right next to their signature. So if they ever try to blame me for it being the wrong drive, their name is literally written all over it.

I've seen this a few times where it seems to have just missed the ramp. Usually if you're careful enough you can just gently move it over the platter and back onto the ramp and they survive the process. I've often imaged 100% of sectors in these cases. Just be careful about power cycling it...

Silly question perhaps, but you do have the terminal adapter connected right?

Has anyone tried yet upgrading their system to Windows 10 running one of the new PC-3000 boards? I'm just curious to hear if there's any major issues before I even consider the upgrade.

I don't know of any way outside of PC-3000's CP reading from the ROM. You trying to set up a custom family or something?

Looking through the families in the utility I'd guess it's an ARM drive. 5410....A9... and 5450...A7... are both ARM and yours seems to fall between them. Have you tried loading the ARM utility with the "tech key detection" check box enabled?

I'm pretty sure it supports CHS as I can set it to that and even manually define the CHS values. Just that it doesn't seem to see anything connected regardless of which drive I connect. I'll be playing around with it more tomorrow.

I've tried that using both original, and a supposedly good donor, but neither show capacity or even ID in BIOS. I've tried using auto mode, and tried manually entering in the C/H/S specs as listed on the label but same results. I'm starting to think that these drives are both bad, or they did...

It's there, just in the custom families drop down box. These never auto identify family, you always have to manually select it. Just look for the HTS5410...A7... one.

Sadly I think some of the computer shops who regularly send me work also employ Mr. Wrecker. It's odd how some shops I'm able to recover nearly 100% of the cases they send, and others are almost always platter scratch specials. I even wrote a blog post about this phenomenon recently...

Are my eyes playing tricks on me: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1 ... uhs_i.html It looks like they are now selling 512Gb SD cards.... :o I'm seriously going to have to revisit my pricing for logical recoveries from flash media with these sizes. Just thinking about how many of...

I honestly haven't noticed that issue. But, I also generally just image the full disk or a single partition rather than jump ahead. These days, with all the tools at my disposal I really only use ddrescue for SAS drives or other odd media like ZIP drives. Maybe someone else knows more about...

I just downloaded the manual from Ace update server, and it actually does have more pages. Haha, I got jipped with my original manual. Good thing I almost never get in Maxtor drives and the ones I do have all been easy cases.

WHAAAATT!!!! My Maxtor manual only goes up to page 47!!!! That explains why I have no idea what I'm doing with them. :lol:

No, I still need a new car. But unlike a car, this is a tax write-off and it's almost the end of the year... so time to rack up the write-offs. Will be getting the car once I get done paying this monster off.

@PCLab - got the black card coming, 4 channels baby yeah! @jol - Just to run the card, absolutely not. Most of the cost was in the high end SAS RAID array. I'm trying to get away from always having to image to individual drives which will become a mess fast with 4 channels. Having a huge...

This took me a few minutes to figure out a simple method to connect terminal to Maxtor desktop drives (haven't needed to in a while). So I figure I'll just post a picture for reference. I used the 3.5" Seagate Terminal Adapter and connected as seen below: Worked like a charm. Easier than...

I just ordered my PC-3000 Express card update yesterday. Built my new rig for it today: Specs: GIGABYTE G1 Gaming GA-Z97X Motherboard i5 4590 CPU RAIDMAX Vampire 1000W PSU IN WIN Full Tower Case Areca ARC-1880i RAID Controller 8x 4Tb HGST SAS Hard Drives in RAID 6 250Gb Samsung 850 EVO M.2...

You mentioned in an earlier post that you are able to image the phone memory, so you obviously have access to the memory then I assume? It may be slow to image, but scanning for lost data will take just as long if not longer if you do it directly from the phone. 4Mb/s might sound slow, but...

A lot of phones you can't recover data until you first root the phone. If the phone is new, there might not be a known root method yet. I know I've had a few where I simply had to tell them to put their phone aside until the technology catches up if they want the data back.

Exactly! Most of these large companies actually employ more marketing and support staff than actual data recovery technical staff. So you're just paying their overhead.

Well, at the end of the day it turns out the drive wasn't the issue after all. Imaged 100% of the sectors onto a brand new Toshiba 3Tb drive, put it in and fired it up. Initially it started to boot, then the new drive started clicking away too. Seems it's either a bad power supply or possibly...

I might be able to help you out with getting some slow responding drives...I make it a practice to backup the SA modules that cause the glitch before I run the fix. So when I'm done recovering, if the customer doesn't want the old drive back (I always offer to recycle) I can wipe the sectors...

I think I might have a really old image of this machine. But, still you know how you get used to things being a certain way. I don't store anything critical on any local machine, so I don't bother with regular backups of them. Anything of value is already synced with my NAS and on an offsite...

This morning I come in to find my PC-3000 computer shut down, and I know I had left it on last night. Go to boot it up, just a few scary hard drive beeps and nothing but a black screen. Now I'm imaging it's drive on DDI hoping on a fresh drive it'll boot so I don't have to reinstall everything...

Hey PCLab, any chance you still have this drive? I'm toying with a new method to regenerate translator of SAS drives and could use another guinea pig. :D

Now I need some advice from a data recovery old timer. Same day as I get in my first 8Tb for recovery I also get in a 420Mb drive for recovery (yes Mb not Gb). They actually brought in a supposedly good same model drive in case I need parts for it, but I can't seem to interface with it. I...

I just got in my first two 8Tb Seagate Archive drives for recovery. :o Two at once! I don't know whether to be excited, or freaked out. If anyone wants to pray for me, or offer any advice would be much appreciated. HAHA!

I've got an ARM Hitachi drive here that was a DIY special and is now missing the label. Customer doesn't know where it is and thinks it was thrown away. From the PCB I am able to pull the FW, Model Number, and Serial (also on bottom). But, I'm hoping to get a more specific Part No. and MLC as...

OK, I adjusted the text color to be true black so should be easier to read now. For those who really miss the old theme you just have to go into: User Control Panel > Board Settings And change it back to prosilver. I've had to disable it a few times while making changes.

Works fine for me, just takes a little force to get it in there.

For SATA boards you can also use the little Calypso board as shown in this sticky post: wd-pcb-terminal-connections-t962.html

Alright, what do you think of the color scheme now? A bit easier on the eyes with less white?

Sometimes with enough spinning by hand you can eventually free it up enough to get it functioning. Doesn't always work but it's preferable to a platter transplant if there's multiple platters. I've even gone as far as to rig up a battery drill to keep spinning the platters until it was free...

Not really. Although the big companies may have some extra equipment for certain cases with some rare hardware issues, little of that would make any difference when it comes to logical recoveries. They don't have any software there that we don't have. I've seen cases where a smaller company...

I'm making changes right now to the colors of the new theme, so that might be why it's looking different. Though if you had set your preferred theme before, it's likely still set.

What's funny is that on my monitors at work, this theme looks really nice. But now, looking at it on my laptop, I agree that it looks really washed out with way too much "white" space. On the other screens it doesn't look that white.

You have the option now to change it back in your user control panel. ProSilver was the original one. Though I think I'll be adjusting some of the colors of the new one to make it less washed out and easier on the eyes. So please do check back in a few weeks.

DriveSavers minimum price even for logical recovery is $700 last time I checked. So by that standard my price is a bargain.

Just buying a program doesn't always get your data back. Nor does it come with someone experienced enough to handle the tougher cases of logical corruption. Think about this: last time you went to the mechanic which cost more, the actual part that was changed or the labor of the mechanic who...

Yes, welcome. Hopefully we can help you to hone your skills.

OK, so just to follow up post the final drive order turned out to be: 142536 Compared with what mdadm seemed to report of: 1 or 42534 or 64 or 6 At least it had drives 2 5 3 in the right rotation in relation to each other. Just shifted in the overall location. I think having taken two...

First off, don't trust what the article quotes me as saying. I didn't say any of that. I think that was their own IT person trying to paraphrase what I said. Only certain folders (ones containing work stuff they wanted back) were wiped, and those couldn't be recovered. They were moved to the...

Just so you guys know, if I end up dead or missing this news article is the reason why: http://www.eastbayri.com/news/porn-reco ... -computer/ I knew it was bad when an IT person dropped the drive off, and a Police Sargent picked it back up after recovery.

Been working this out for a few days. Trying to make the forum blend better into the rest of my site. Also expect some other layout changes. I'm not removing any forums, but possibly re-arranging to make it easier to navigate. Let me know what you think of the new forum theme. :D Also, if...

Here's a little calculator I made in Excel that takes the first three of a modern Toshiba drive serial number and converts it to the date code: Enjoy! :D

No, it's not with the motor and I've tried blocking the preamp, still no terminal access. It's spinning up fine, I've tried a different PCB, and I've even tried getting terminal access using the original PCB and another HDA with preamp blocked but nothing.

I've ruled out PCB by replacing it too.. same result. Anyone know a trick I can use to just get terminal access and attempt to do anything here?

I'm working on this drive that's acting very strangely. It's a Pharoah family Model: ST1500LM003 P/N: 9YH148-550 FW: CC9F S/N: Z11.... When it came in it spins up, sounds like a normal spin up, then just keeps spinning. In utility it ID's as: Model : ST_M13FQBL Serial : QNR_BFW Firmware ...

I too have noticed a surge in email SPAM lately. Even my wife's email address which has never been given out to anyone but customers is now getting flooded. I think it might be some new viruses or something that are harvesting email addresses from people's computers and adding them to their lists.

There I added the question "what does the acronym SSD stand for?" to the registration process. Hopefully spambots won't be able to answer it :)

Yes seems to be a recent explosion of SPAM which is funny because for the last six months has been very quite from them. Might have to add that registration question after all.

It's faster than the green board PC-3000 for sure. And better at handling small block sizes with lower latency than PC-3000. But, overall Ace has closed that gap quite a bit on the new red cards, even running faster for relatively healthy drives. I think one advantage I see (in addition to...

Yes, but if they only have Windows basic or home, not pro you can't roll back to previous versions.

It's still $2,000 so I doubt it will be in every tech's toolbox. Will be more of a tool geared for the places that already tinker in data recovery. On the bright side the lack of any end user operating means that it's owners won't be learning anything more about data recovery to give them a...

It's from DeepSpar, so I hope it will be good enough to shut down and not push it when the drive is too far gone. I would guess it's just using a modified algorithm of what DDI already has, minus some of the more advanced features implemented.

Looks like DeepSpar has a new more automated and less expensive tool coming out soon. www.rapidspar.com 4Iy9NQqC9Dg I hope this won't cut too much into the easy jobs when IT guys start getting a hold of them.

I don't even bother with the antivirus, too many interruptions to the work. I just have a few stations dedicated to logical recoveries that have no meaningful data on them. Only takes an hour or so to restore them and re-install my necessary programs when they get messed up. Though oddly...

Yeah, RAW recoveries rarely ever find a useful amount of data. Even though these viruses create a new encrypted file first then delete the original, they overwrite most as they move on to the next file, and the next... I was doing these for a while at my regular software recovery rate but I...

Hello and welcome to the forum. Hopefully we can assist you as you learn to use some pro data recovery tools now ;) .

Perhaps, but have you tested their cross compatibility? I've seen a number of times where those matched and still didn't' work. I prefer not to update anything on the list until it's been tested.

I figured it all out. Seems you can't trust the results of mdadm too much on Dell Perc 6/i controller. At least it had the right stripe size and got me the right starting point of the second virtual disk. Drive order on the other hand was way off, so I guess you can't use it.

Yes, and the XOR results point me to a single RAID 5 set of all drives. I'm starting to think that the user created a new array and or volume over the existing one. Which is why the partition doesn't make sense to what I'm finding.... gonna be a lot of scanning and waiting to get this one done...

Is there anyone here who's a pro at understanding the mdadm --examine reports? Here's what I'm getting from the members of the array (each page is a different drive) Some things seem obvious: RAID 5 64Kb Stripe Size It looks to me like /dev/sdh went offline first. But, what's confusing to...

S.M.A.R.T. data is contained internally on the hard drive, and is constantly updated. Every time it hits any sort of error, it adds it to the SMART logs. Programs to read SMART only send a request to the drive for it's RAW values which can indicate if it's starting to develop any indicators...

To give you a ballpark of price. A case like you're describing will cost $300-$450 here (Providence, RI USA), depending on how extensive the bad sectors are. It really shouldn't cost any more than that anywhere unless you have something really crazy going on like a single failed read/write...

The "rescued" amount of data is how much has been copied to the new drive or image file. If it's a 500Gb drive then the final number should be somewhere near that amount. Ddrescue is a cloning tool which works around the bad sectors to image what data is still readable. However if you've...

It means that media is degrading and the sectors are going bad and having to be reallocated. The fact that it's going offline when you try to explore the file system means there are bad sectors in the lower LBA areas where the MFT is stored. Usually this is around the 6-7 million sector mark...

-d means "direct" connection. It attempts to override the kernel IO controller to the drive and gain better control. It often makes no difference and sometimes even gives errors. I've basically stopped using it. -v means verbose. I'm honestly not sure what difference it actually makes...

Well, all I know is I was told on the phone that no older versions would be made available despite this glitch. It was only after these posts and my threats to contact my attorney that the story changed. And my primary reason for posting this was to warn others from making the mistake of...

Here's a video showing what it's doing: tN824nLChM8 Don't mind the fact that it's in slow motion. The system didn't handle the capture software well, could barely move the mouse.

You can certainly start over if you want, though I can't see why it'd be beneficial. You can keep the old log, just move it to a more convenient location if needed and still use the newer version of ddrescue. I don't think anything changed with how it reads/writes the log file. The log file...

I guess this harassing post worked, they finally emailed me with an older build install package. :D

The latest R-Studio build for Debian Linux is completely broken!!!! Do not update to it to version 3.9.1878 under any circumstances. Whenever it refreshes the device list (such as when you try to build a virtual RAID) all the devices just disappear and you can't do anything. It's completely...

If you just re-issue the same exact command in ddrescue as before it'll resume based on the log file. You can adjust the flags too, as long as you're using the same log file it'll keep track of what ranges still need to be imaged.

That sounds odd, it should be updating that number of rescued bytes. What's the specific command you issued?

I looked at this one remotely for him already. Looks like it wasn't just a system restore, they also copied a large chunk of data including movies, etc. to the drive after the restore. So I think it was just all overwritten.

Can someone please confirm for me whether ..A6B. and ..A7B. are Atlantis or Mars? I don't seem to have one here, but I see PC-3000 pcr files which have it listed in both families... very odd. Also ..HXZT. is it Shasta 2D or Zephyr?

If you want one that is an exact date there's actually a program on hddguru files section that is completely accurate: http://files.hddguru.com/download/Datas ... alculator/

Have you tried: Tests > Solutions > Solution for the "HDD Lock (LED: 000000CC)" problem ? I think I would try that first.

If you're seeing the file/folder structures, it's likely that a good portion of data can be recovered still. Finding all corrupt files is often the result of a misaligned partition. If the original partition was at a different location than the new one, it could be recovering the data for each...

I see what you're saying now. I haven't really had time to play around with the entropy analysis tool yet, but that could certainly be helpful. Actually combining my method of definitely separating the sets, combined with your entropy to pair drives could really cut down on the number of...

Yeah but in RAID 50 there are no pairs, its just two (occasionally more) RAID 5 sets in a RAID 0. Maybe I'm just not following what you're saying...I don't know.

Yeah, I held off on that headswap. I'll save that disappointment for later. Did have one evaluation come in at the end of the day that's a definite lost cause. Not much surface even left on the platters, maybe they should have sent it in to one of those places who can recover 99% of all cases...

Today seems to be another great day for data recovery. I'm batting 1000 so far all day. Maybe it's finally time to headswap that ST3000DM001 that's already been to two other data recovery companies before it came here. ;) Or do I not want to break the streak and ruin an otherwise perfectly...

If anyone is interested in donating to support this work let me know. Getting into the bigger arrays, will take some time just to generate a list of every possible combination of drives. Up to 10 I was able to do manually, but by 16 drives I think it'll be excessive.

Here's sampling of the project I'm working on to be able to definitively determine the two drive sets for RAID 50 arrays. All you have to do is find a sector that every drive in the array has data, and pull a sample byte from the same location on each drive (probably good to pull several sets...

I'd say it's a very good chance that it'll match. Toshiba doesn't change the specs on their heads very often. I've had cases that were much further off and worked.

Don't forget to upgrade before the end of the year. After the upgrade program ends, you'll have to pay full price for the upgrade.

Here's a little excel tool I built to convert Seagate date codes into actual dates: Hope it helps someone who's having difficulty understanding how the code works. The basic formula is: First Two Digits = Year (E.G. 08 = 2008 However it's the fiscal year starting the first Saturday in July...

I've pushed the green board up to about 40Mb/s but rarely much more than that. The new red boards can image up in the 70-80Mb/s range.

Yes, just like some claim to be able to do it for Seagate F3 drives. But, I've yet to see results of either....

I'm just curious, this isn't a case I'm dealing with or anything like that. Has anyone ever made any progress toward being able to rebuild NVRAM for ARM series drives if the original PCB is lost? It's never come up here yet, but just in case I'd like to know if it's even possible.

Haha, yeah usually by now they've spam bombed the thread.

For a WD external I highly doubt you'll be able to image it. Usually when these suddenly show as RAW it's due to the fact that they aren't able to access the data. This is often due to issues with the built in encryption that the My Book and My Passport drives use. If it detects any issues...

I wasn't trying to imply that you only need to match the model, just saying that once you change the A to a U you can then match specs as if it were the same model. So by matching the other specs as if you were going to headswap, I'd assume the PCB would be close enough to work with CP...

:shock: Can't say I'm agreeing with all the DM nightmares we're seeing. Maybe I'm just too much of a noob with Seagate, I don't know. Tell me then, are you able to regenerate a lost ROM on any Seagate F3? I personally have only had a few cases where the original ROM really was lost. A pain...

I just noticed this article: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/08/18 ... o_seagate/ Hard to believe that any senior manager at WD would be jumping over to Seagate of all companies. Especially given the issues they are having and the great stock growth that WD is having. Maybe he knows...

It's just very high percentage alcohol. 99% or better so there is very little water content and it evaporates quickly leaving little residue behind. Something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Isopropyl-Alcoh ... 19e9acb03f Though I've also heard about using sterile water for injection to...

The Startech device is handy for when drives come in and seems like nothing is wrong. You can set how many bad sectors to hit before it stops and shuts down, that way I know pretty quickly if it's a logical issue or bad sector related. It's by far the fastest drive cloning method I've found...

I have one of these which can wipe two at a time pretty quickly and can handle a few bad sectors: http://www.startech.com/HDD/Duplicators ... n~SATDUP11 I also have a 24 bay server which I use when I need to wipe quite a few at once.

Most of the drives I get are older and come from computers that were replaced, or drives that were upgraded and/or have bad sectors. Some aren't even functional. Often they come from computer repair and service companies who have been collecting them intending to wipe them but never getting...

It looks like Ace had actually made a video of this (thanks jol for pointing it out). I hadn't noticed the video before, but it shows how to do the same thing. dssxnTZxlLk I guess this thread doesn't need to be in the secrets section. Moving it to WD instead.

Does anyone else ever seem to find Seagates (especiall DM's) that after a headswap will ID once, work very slowly, and then never will power on again until you replace heads again. I've had quite a number of cases like this, a few I even replaced the heads multiple times and it just kept...

I think if the platters need physical cleaning it's probably a lost cause, which is why you need the upfront money. ;) I know I've filled a drive with medical grade alcohol once to remove a bit of salt water film left behind on one platter. But, we never were able to read much from that...

I offer the service completely free just to keep the salvage of the old drive. I don't get a ton of customers using the service, but I've had a few who occasionally drop off an entire box of drives for wiping. It's already been very handy and saved me a bundle in parts costs for the older...

Yes, please do. A software alternative to the more expensive tools like DDI would be very welcome. Even if it's not as full featured, could be very useful as an imaging tool for drives that are in relatively good shape with just a handful of bad sectors.

I've gotten away with it being off a little, like just one version number off. But, it is best to try and match it. Perhaps if you post the full specs or a picture of the label here one of us could help you to locate a donor.

Yeah, I'm thinking it might be a matter of the data being shifted. This is a common issue on Mac recoveries, though I'm not too sure whether XFS has the same sort of issues. Might be just a matter of manually defining the partition range.

I know that heads are cross compatible between the SATA and USB drives by just changing one letter in the model. I've yet to actually use a SATA board to replace a USB one though, in this particular case I used a slightly different USB board to replace the USB board which had fried, then used...

The issue with the images happened after the site switched to SSL and shouldn't affect newer threads. Unfortunately I can't seem to find a way to fix the old threads without having the original images to upload again.

Anyone have any suggestions about the layout of the forum, it's categories, etc.? I want it to be as user friendly as possible while still keeping things organized in a way that makes sense. Please tell me if anything is annoying you and would be better if changed around.

Yes, I've yet to see one here but these are very common on Ebay. I don't think China is the issue, it's just criminals on Ebay. They spoof the capacity of the thumb drive to make it appear as a larger drive. At first it seems to work as normal so the customer doesn't notice in time to put in...

Thanks, you're making me wish I had DE RAID edition. The diagram you show makes sense to what I'm finding, so I think that may be it (just bigger due to being 16 total drives). I managed to pull off the recovery using a less standard method, but was effective nonetheless.

Thanks! I'll keep it in mind. I'm toying with the idea of using a macro to speed up the process for me, just need to work out the specifics. Once I get past ten drives the number of combinations gets excessive to manually key in.

Yes, in Excel. It might sound goofy, but the latest version can XOR values. So its just a matter of creating an array of formulas using every possible combination of drives and seeing which ones pass. I know this might be easier to accomplish using bonified programming, but I haven't done any...

I'm currently in the process of building a rather complex Excel sheet that can brute force XOR groups of numbers using every possible combination of drives to separate lists of HEX values. The concept is that you can take a random sample of a HEX value from the same location of each drive in a...

I think the more developed nations where people spend more on speed and performance the SSD transition will happen faster. Developing nations will be using spinners for many years to come. Perhaps I'll just have to move my practice over to Nigeria with Bankole when SSDs fully take over here...

Right, but he already has that PCB. The issue is that he needed to convert to SATA to image around the bad sectors (I'm assuming) and now has encrypted data on the destination. So unless it's from the same family and you can program the USB PCB to work on the destination drive, that won't do...

Here's a funny classic old video about the earliest of hard drives. USJGui9yIuA

I'm hoping that this article comes true though: http://www.enterprisestorageforum.com/s ... r-now.html I still think HAMR and TDMR will still be easier to deal with than an encrypted nightmare of an impossible number of NAND pages to XOR and piece back together.

I'm sure it is cheaper, but hard to know if you'll get the My Book with the right board or a slightly different one. I kind of wish I'd kept track of what drives I pulled these bridge boards out of, but I didn't.

Samsung has slated the release of a 2.5" form factor 16Tb SSD. http://www.extremetech.com/computing/21 ... ew-3d-nand This looks like it's intended to the the new HDD killer. I'm sure the cost will be prohibitive at first as it's intended for enterprise usage, but as others follow it'll become...

Yeah, this one is a bit pricey. Usually you can find one for $30 or so, but seems that this one is harder to come by. I've probably got a couple of them lying around, but I like to keep them handy even though I've got DE. I don't know why.

A 4060-705089-001 Rev. P1 should do the trick. Here's an ebay listing for one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/WD-My-Book-Esse ... 2c9e022e0f Just be sure the drive you clone the data onto is set to the same max LBA size as the original showed through the SATA port.

Now I understand what you mean. I'm pretty sure I've identified the two sets, and even the drive order of one set. I can even browse the filesystem now. But, I'm having a strange issue which must have something to do with stripe size or the RAID 0 or something strange with the parity...

Ah, maybe that was my issue. Perhaps I should have installed the 64 bit version in the first place... live and learn.

Post a clear picture of the chip and I can probably tell you which My Book board you'll need to use to decrypt the data. I've got a ton of them here, so all I have to do is look through them.

I've already identified which 8 drives go with which half of the array, by XOR'ing all the values across them. I had a pretty good idea by looking at the controller cabling, but there were two that were switched from their physical locations it looks like. In any event I now have two sets of 8...

By, the way I've moved this topic out of the secrets section and into the Western Digital section. I can't see that there's anything about it which can't be shared publicly. Please correct me if I'm wrong anyone.

I must say I've yet to see that. Every case I've done had a key sector and usually a backup in the SA. Good to know.

Update 2: Confirmed with their tech support that it is right synchronous parity rotation, 64Kb stripe across the RAID 5's and 128 across the RAID 0, and that it doesn't employ any parity delay. I think I'm about halfway through figuring out the drive order now. Fun, fun, fun. :D

No, it's the full program and works on all the same file systems as the Windows version does. It's essentially the same program.

Update: OK, so I found a good long manual and looks like default stripe size is 64kb, and looks like right synchronous rotation judging by the graphics in the manual. Now I just have to figure out how it splits ups the drives into the two RAID 5 groups.... fun, fun, fun.

I'm currently working on a RAID 50 that used this controller which failed. I'm ordering one just so I can play with it's settings to see, but until it arrives I'm wondering if anyone can help point me in the right direction about its default stripe size, parity delay (if any), etc. It's a big...

Yes, that is definitely encrypted. Too bad you don't have DE, you could decrypt on the fly if you did. If you've already imaged the drive encrypted you should be able to decrypt using a My Book USB bridge. You just have to be sure that you set the LBA of the destination drive is set to be...

I just spend several hours trying to figure out how to install R-Studio in a build of Debian Linux and having a heck of a time getting it to work. I kept getting the error: error while loading shared libraries: libfontconfig.so.1: cannot open shared object file: no such file or directory I...

I don't think we'd ever be audited by the health department as we don't actually fall under HIPPAA regulations. But the law requires covered entities to sign a business associate agreement that basically says we will follow the standard as it applies and allow them to investigate/question our...

I'm just curious what other labs do when customers ask for HIPPA compliance when handling data recovery projects. We've always just handled it by keeping the station off network, cloning everything onto a single drive so nothing gets stored on the local machine at all, and not going back on...

Just look at sector 0, if it looks like a MBR and you can read some of the text then it isn't encrypted. If it's funny looking then it's probably encrypted.

We've actually had very little issue with spammers lately, except for the spammy data recovery software companies like Wondershare. And, I assume they'd know the answer to that.

Yes, I'm not sure what happened exactly. Something got messed up on the forum and during the repair process some older threads lost all pictures. I'll have to see if the files still exist somewhere on the server.

Congrats! This job can be very frustrating when you meet with constant failure (Like most of us with Seagate DM models). But, when it's good it's good. Just keep practicing until you feel confident to try it out on an actual customer drive.

OK, that makes more sense. Sounds like the vast majority of the data was recovered. What you should do now is connect the clone drive to another computer and run data recovery software (such as R-Studio) against it and see what it finds. Possibly the partition table or beginning of the...

Update: Ok, so after 4 tries I finally went searching and found another PCB of this exact same revision and it worked fine. Seems that this one is just quirky and won't accept ROM programming. Very strange for an otherwise fully functional PCB.

I've tried twice now to write a ROM code to this PCB 100687658 REV C and it's just not taking. It goes through the whole process which takes about 10 minutes, but at the end it's still the donor ROM code on there, not the patient ROM I'm trying to write to it. I've tried it at two different...

I took a look at it, and it was encrypted. :D

I find it odd you mention the number of files ddrescue failed to recover. If you were in fact following my tutorial and using ddrescue it reads at a block level, not a file level. So where are you getting this number from?

Welcome.

ISO buster would be the first thing I'd try. Might also try CnWrecovery.

Have you gone it to the "Edit Drive ID" menu and disable everything such as auto reallocation? Also you can try clearing defects list and SMART to see if that's the issue. Also it could be an issue with the PCB, never hurts to rule that out.

Type-O fixed. I'm honestly thinking I should go and find every reference to these viruses on my site/form and delete it. I'm getting about two a week. Grrrr!

I don't know about anyone else, but I'm getting really sick of these crypt-o-wall and similar viruses showing up. They are just a huge waste of time, you commit a system to scanning a drive for hours, just to get back a few useless old files. The customer is never happy with the result, so you...

Got you. I was using the first option. That explains it.

Please excuse what might be a noob question here, I'm still new to DDI 4. It seems to work fine if I start imaging from the beginning, pause it, resume it, etc. But, if I attempt to image by Bitmap and it turns out there isn't one available to image from, when I go to resume the card just...

I don't think the vendors have any interest in recoverability. IMHO the encryption is exactly for the purpose of blocking data recovery by the shady people. And, if a few innocent people end up losing their data permanently they'll have to buy a second device to back up in the future. Data...

Wow!!! Congrats, very happy to hear it.

Since there is no way to rebuild the ROM on that family, you're just hoping to get lucky. You may never find one that's close enough in the adaptive data to work. Or, you might. The only time I've seen a non-native ROM work that way, was when it was a matching drive manufactured the same...

Looks like Seagate's budget cuts have struck again. This time it's a security bug that allows root access to the storage via WiFi and can even allow the attackers to download files. If you've got one of these, make sure you upgrade the firmware. http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/903500 To quote...

Wow, I just saw this article: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/asu ... in-brazil/ Seems that Asus has a phone coming out with 256Gb of memory. That will be quite the data recovery project someday.

So this is an interesting one. Hitachi HDS721010DLE630 drive has SMART errors which caused the system to shut down. Drive seems to be reading sectors fine, but in universal utility it shows this: That's quite a negative number of re-allocated sectors, it's almost the entire capacity of the...

HDDGuy, some countries have laws prohibiting data encryption. And, in those countries the My Passport drives have the encryption disabled (despite having the symwave or initio chip). It surprised me the first time too. But I've seen one or two since then, and Luke has too. It's uncommon but...

Yes, Larry is absolutely right. I've run into two or three like this. All from people who frequently travel internationally and likely picked them up abroad. Seems its a feature that can be disabled at the factory.

Hey, you know what they say, "black don't crack". You'll probably be 70 before you see a gray hair.

OMG! I'm dead too: http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/man-s ... identified I knew something was off about that Las Vegas trip a few years ago.

OMG! Larry, you're dead: http://yourlifemoments.ca/sitepages/obi ... oid=839248 How did you start using the forum 2 months after dying? Amazing.

Oh no! That means I've only got 3 years left :o Fortunately my father didn't gray until about 60 despite being a stressed out work-a-holic, so I should be good for a bit.

No, I think the revision is more of a language update to be more efficient with data transfers. Was reading up about it a while back, in fact I think a couple docks I have from Startech already support it. I think it's just a more efficient way to send ATA commands VIA the USB protocol. From...

Hey, speak for yourself. I've yet to find a gray hair, but then I'm only 33 years old. ;)

Grrr!!!! This drive is driving me crazy. I know the heads are good, already changed them once. I've managed to get 70% of the data already, but the stupid SA just keeps degrading. I've moved around as many modules as I can into areas it can read to keep it running, but now module 04 (which is...

have you tried just navigating to the direct link: www.file-medics.com ?

Looks like there's finally some USB 3.1 Cards available from Startech.com. http://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapters/ ... L-NPL-0815 At double the speed of 3.0 should be good for those destination drives. Might actually be able to keep up with SATA speeds.

I just want to give a shout of praise out to Michael Cotgrove at http://www.cnwrecovery.com/ Had a flash card come in that clearly had Mp4 video files on it but they were fragmented by the way the camera writes the data to the card. His software was able to put back together the fragments and...

I've done it just using an arbor press: http://www.harborfreight.com/1-ton-arbo ... -3552.html along with a drive pin sort of like: http://www.grainger.com/product/STARRET ... 133155%3As The trick is to use a ton of foil tape: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Nashua-Tape- ... /100048600 over the top...

Sounds to me like they tried one of the $40 eBay repair services to replace the PCB. Would explain the sticker.

I think recovery from these will be cost prohibitive. And, I doubt we'll ever see consumer line helium drives. It'll likely always be an enterprise drive, which should have redundancy and backup. If recovery is ever necessary, will be one expensive job.

Luke just shared this video with me. What a pain to open, yikes! ANMtvYnI1gQ

Thanks Abed! Happy I was able to help out. :)

I'm not trying to bash their tools, I realize their tools seem to be shaping up quite nicely. But, videos like this one just don't inspire confidence in me. Reminds me too much of the old Salvation Data YouTube channel and training materials. :o Frighteningly similar.

If you have PC-3000 try accessing it as a Hitachi family drive. It might not auto detect, but you may well find a family that works for it. I'm not sure if this is one of the truly native 3.5" Toshiba drives or not. I know the DT01ACA300 is a true Toshiba, not HGST. You'll be able to tell by...

Has anyone else here ever tried watching the videos from DFL? Such as this one: 1IpGw1ghsno I know their tools show some promise, but I can't help but get that Salvation Data feeling when I watch this. :lol:

Here too. What browser are you using? It could be your security settings. I know some browsers don't like the SSL cert that the server uses.

I'm not exactly sure where I eventually found this download link (took a while to navigate the endless loop of their forum). But since I've been asked about where to get this plugin, here it is. Just extract the folder and put it in the "ext" folder within your forum root. Then you can...

No, this one was part of a RAID array which actually worked for a few years, but failed after the green drives couldn't handle 60,000+ startup cycles. I have the other drives too. They are worn but still work fine. This one just went haywire.

I wipe the drives for free just to keep the salvage parts. Still is a good PCB and heads of a 3 TB drive I might need some day.

Here's an interesting case. The drive came in to be wiped, so data doesn't matter. It ID's as the following: Model : WDC WD20EARS-02MVWB0 " " " " " Serial : " "WD-WMAZC0182178 Firmware : 50.0AB70 Capacity : 1 050 439.02 GB (2 202 930 285 232) My, that's a big drive. :lol...

I had initially tried adding it to the end of the same copy, but it wasn't working well there either. So I went ahead and just moved it over. I always had assumed it was possible to do this, just never was forced to figure it out until now.

This is something I just recently was forced to figure out. It's how to move a module to a totally new location in the SA when the area it's stored in has bad sectors and won't take a module being re-written back to the same location. The first thing to do is check for available SA locations...

Nevermind, I figured it out myself.... if anyone needs to know this I'll post it in the secrets section.

Does anyone know how to move the location of a module within the SA to a new location? I've got this drive which I can force ready, but it's module 31 (translator) seems to be in a bad area and rarely ever reads fully causing the drive to keep crashing out when I try to read sectors. Even...

I actually managed to fix this one last night. Hard to explain exactly how I did it. I didn't have the resources from this exact FW revision as no one seems to have it (0004005M). So what I did was actually change the FW revision number inside the ROM to 00040050 which I did have resources...

Further Update: After some more checking, I found a second dir module in the SA search. One dir module doesn't have modules 11 or 02 and only has a total of 428 modules listed, the second one has 444 which includes modules 11 & 02 however they don't appear to be where they are supposed to be...

I've got a really strange case here. It's a WD Diablo3d drive which has some firmware issues. Using a donor ROM & LDR I'm able to get SA access, read tracks / modules. Even after loading the utility using the profile folder containing the patient module 01 (dir) it doesn't see a module 11...

I know this isn't new, but I just wanted to have a sticky with these pictures for easy access. Passport Solution Using Samsung Adapter: Sata Connection Using Calypso Board:

That's exactly where I'm at. Got a pretty good handle on the HDD's but to take on doing flash in-house, I'd have to train another guy to at least take over the easier HDD cases so I could really focus on it.

It's mine! :D Post number 2000! Haha.

I'd say it was next to impossible to most guys who don't know how to identify the pin-outs. We can't all be genius' like you. I'm seriously considering going, and I don't even do the flash recoveries in-house yet. I still outsource them. But, it's worthwhile to take advantage of any free...