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Yes.

Recently, I find I have to log in on first visit every day, maybe each visit, I am not sure. That's not so on other forums and I don't recall it always being so here. I use LastPass, so if I'm not logged into it, I need to do that first. After that, LastPass logs me in automatically, so no...

Being a novice, I liked the Atola Bandura's imaging strategy, where it let me choose the number of passes to make (indicative of the condition of the drive) and it used what it thought would be the most effective time-outs and number of sectors to skip for each pass. I've asked for a similar...

I have the DDL Level 2 combs and they are okay, but only get one for each drive type. Some of them are not a particularly good fit so you can end up with the heads not separated enough and touching once removed from the ramp, a difficult job re-installing the heads because they are not...

Good stuff.

Welcome, Protech.

Thanks, guys. At the moment, I file DR-related files and URLs into a number of major categories and sub-categories, and use a continuously updated file indexer to find what I'm after. It's a dog's breakfast and the problem is knowing what to search for. I'd feel better if things were better...

Wow, terrific stuff, HDDGuy! Thanks! One challenge I find with learning data recovery, is trying to organize the staggering amount of information, let alone absourb or relate to it all. I keep plugging away hoping it will all become intuitive or obvious one day. :)

Although I don't have a PC3K or even an MRT Pro, I do appreciate the tutorials and sharing, HDDGuy! Thanks!

Such precise (and beautiful) ramp tools seem a luxury to me, when "conventional" combs seem more than adequate and substantially cheaper. HSA removal tools for dealing with non-ramp drives and stiction I can understand (but still can't afford yet).

I recently had a drive whose filter contents looked darker in the bottom half but inspecting one from a known-good drive showed that it was perfectly normal. I'd be concerned about the platters being replaced off-centre if I removed platters just to check for contamination/damage. I don''t...

It's tough getting users to make backups at all, let alone adopt a strategy that's robust. Personally, I create/update drive images every 10 days or so and keep them offline (but that's primarily the OS partition, not vital documents and files, which I image/update monthly), run continuous...

$50? Not unless I wanted to do it for my own sake, just to learn. I like Luke's minimum charge policy, i.e., if they are unwilling to commit to his minimum charge, assuming he is able to recover the data, then don't even bother assessing it. If the data is unrecoverable, no charge; if it is...

If I had a donor on-hand, I would consider changing heads just out of stubbornness, then recover the data and send the customer a file listing to show what he would get if he approved the recovery. Lots of donors for that model available reasonably cheaply, so might even just order one and keep...

I've only had one prospect call to ask if I could recover the data. He was shopping around and never called back. I told him, honestly, the odds of recovery are *very* slim.

I find BING totally useless at finding what I'm looking for. Google rules.

As Jared pointed out, the patient doesn't have a separate ROM chip; it's embeded on the MCU.

Ah, okay. So I guess he has to update its ROM (masked on MCU) with the clone's ROM, mount the USB PCB on the clone and extract the data. I don't have a PC3K so am not of any help with doing that. On the DFL-WD it would be easy enough (although I confess to never having done it myself).

I believe you put U12 from the clone (SATA) PCB onto the patient (USB) PCB and then recover the decrypted data from the USB patient.

One thing I like about MailWasher Pro, is it's ability to preview mail in plain text before fully downloading it from the server. Too many end users don't take the time and care to do that, so they end up infected/victimized. Same about backups; had a call from someone this morning who was hit...

A number of OEMs are still shipping Seagate DM drives in their systems, which will bite them in the a$$ soon, I expect.

Congrats! Will make a nice trophy case study for your Google+/site.

Wow! Good luck with recovering anything from that.

Since this forum is visible to Google and my customers, I'll not go into my easiest case. :)

I've just read the article section that deals with power cycle count (S.M.A.R.T. 12), and they are indeed using the raw value, not nomalized value (which was 100 for all the drives in their sample, in spite of varied raw values). No mention of reversing raw values for the graph. They do mention...

I use TinyPic for that purpose. It's free and lets you organize your pics into albums, provides URL, IMG and other links for pasting into forum posts, web sites, etc. I think Imagur does the same.

I've always interpreted Raw values as absolute value for the attribute, and Current or Normalized Value as what they are calling the Raw value in the graph. Guess I should read the article. Also, the further Current/Normalized Value is below the reference value (often 100 or 200), the worse...

The chart only goes to 91 power cycles, so is meaningless, as far as I can see.What am I missing here?

Okay, thanks Jared. I had a vague recollection that that's what you had written once before, but I couldn't find the post.

Great! I love jobs like that, but feel guilty charging much for them. :) I may have asked this before, but how do you go about freeing stuck heads? Do you use a comb that lifts the heads from the platter, and then check for missing/damaged heads? I don't have such combs so just rotate the...

U14 is firmware for the encryption and VCD, I believe. There being no U12 on the patient means it's masked on the MCU and you will have to transfer it using your firmware tools (Pc3k). If the only problem is FW, once you fix that, you should be able to re-install the USB board as-is and...

My wife makes a fantastic ham and barley soup. I'll think of @scotchbroth next time we have it. :)

He has been making relevant posts on hddguru for some time; I see no hint of a spammer. Search "scotchbroth utah".

Not according to copyscape.com, a free plagiarism checker.

Um, I don't know. If I were a real DR pro, I'd be offended that LarrySabo is classified as one, just because of his many inane posts. :)

I was about to, but it wanted me to create a public Google+ profile, which I declined to do because it was a PITA before I cancelled it. I was getting 2-3 spam calls a day when my G+ account was active, so I cancelled it. Sorry, Jared.

I got it too, thanks.

My comment was more about the re-usability of the HSA. If you do a head swap, recover the data, return the HSA to the donor and they check out okay, do you consider the HSA to be a waste product? I wasn't talking about re-using the donor for storage, just the HSA for another head swap.

@jol, it was a feeble attempt at humour. As a novice, I haven't done many HSA swaps but would have no hesitation in re-using donor heads if they were not obviously destroyed by patient media damage--which I understand is a common occurrence with DM series drives. But I could be wrong.

Welcome, ScotchBroth!

Just to put you a little at ease, we only kill the donors if the patient is a DM series drive.

I hope my play on words ("I dono, maybe it's just my old eyes.") didn't go unnoticed. (he says, chuckling to himself. Cleverest thing I've done all day.) :)

I got it from here or here, not sure which but the latter was by the author, I think.

Your title in this thread has a typo, Jared. I dono, maybe it's just my old eyes. :)

I wonder if it's any different from this one?

I bought the Pro version of DMDE but haven't had a chance to properly learn how to use it's many advanced features. One thing I like about it, is how it automatically enumerates and shows files of partitions it finds after scanning, so you can see which partition has the files you're looking...

Welcome, Jason.

Makes sense.

That is really bizarre. How do you imaging the ramp got broken: heads hit it during power-down and the loose piece made the scratchy noise as it tumbled between the platters? If it were broken before you powered it up, you'd think it wouldn't have been possible to read the SA. Real puzzle.

I can only assume it was by the guy mentioned, i.e., the friend, otherwise I suspect he would have mentioned any others who had tried and given up, which he didn't. He mentioned the guy does forensic investigations/recoveries, but I have no idea why such a person would open a drive. It...

Ow, ow, ow. Hurts my eyes! Here's one that was worked on by "a friend who works in the government and does data recovery."

Do the donor heads still work in the donor? Weird that it worked for a while but never again after having failed on bad sectors, almost as if damaged by bad media. This is a great topic, BTW, if we get input on what works and what doesn't.

Lots of examples available through Google. Surely one of them will do, after editing to reflect your business identity and perhaps locale.

michael chiklis arvika

pclab w.simon I don't know. I'm certainly not in a position to contribute anything the other nominees don't already know, but am flattered by the nomination. (Thanks, HaQue!) Looking at the members list, sorted by descending number of posts, it appears to me there is not yet a critical mass...

Welcome, Martin. Good to see another DFL user here! I completely understand and share your delight at recovering precious user data.

Do you really have to baby-sit it, once the re-build starts? $133/hr to baby-sit isn't too shabby. :)

This "How to repair a corrupted Firebird database" write-up may be a start.

Congratulations, Nuno. Well done!

The manufacturers already have forums accessible only to their users. Frankly, I don't think there's much chance of a generic "secrets" forum being very fruitful. Those keen for one are probably those most in need of the "secrets" and those with the secrets have no incentive to share with such...

I get it fairly often. Customer comes in having gotten quotes from one of the big box stores or a local DR shop, with quotes of $1,200 CAD. They said they were told it needed "clean room" work, hence the high cost. In every such case, it needed no such thing and the data was recovered for...

I would assume that excludes those of us who don't do DR as our primary or only source of income? Is there a set of skill testing questions? :o

I' d love to have access to that kind of information. However, as a DR novice, I have little to contribute, I suspect. Nevertheless, it's a great idea--if members feel comfortable contributing. In the DFL forum, we are admonished to only share information provided there with other DFL users...

Thanks, Jared. One "close" donor is available for $50 CAD delivered, the perfect match for $270 CAD, so this info has been very helpful.

Yes, welcome, Taha.

I'd be interested to know the answer to Jared's question, i.e., how much of the P/N code is critical for head matching. My patient is a Toshiba MK6465GSXN "HDD2J11 B UL01 B" Thailand, Date code J1050. Donor replacements are available for a variety of prices, so if a partial match is feasible...

+1.

You can use any address, doesn't have to be your own.

Hahaha. Fun!

I didn't connect the drive to a LIF cable. I connected the drive's SATA data lines from the PCB to the corresponding contacts on a SATA connector, and the 3.3v line and grounds through a 5-3.3v adapter to the SATA power connector, then plugged those SATA connectors into my DFL-DDP for imaging...

The customer didn't consider the data worth more than $300CAD + tax, so that wouldn't work. Plus, I don't think the connections themselves were the problem--they all looked okay under the microscope, no shorts or cold solder joints. I just wish I knew why it wouldn't spin up. There were just 7...

Hope you you don't have to solder leads to the drive circuit board. Last night, I finally gave up on a Toshiba 220GB 1.8" drive that uses a 24-pin LIF connector. The connector had been ripped off the board by the customer. I attached leads under microscope okay but couldn't get the drive to...

Strange, because I deleted my G+ accounts, figuring that face probably scares off potential customers. It's still my profile picture for my Facebook account, which I share with just immediate family, so maybe that's it. (Also, it's the same picture I use for my avitar in several forums.)

Welcome. The arrangement of the boxes in that picture is as precise as your tools (which I would dearly love to have but cannot yet afford). Keep up the excellent work!

Enjoy! :)

Thanks, Jared.

Really? Citation, please? Technibble allows signatures that I always thought helped with SEO, although I have never verified that. I know Luke posts there and is well received (so long as the promos are not too blatant or frequent, LOL).

I deleted my Google+ accounts today (one personal, the other business) because they were crap and probably did me more harm than good. I'm just not into this social media thing and it's probably better to have no G+ account than a crappy one--especially one with a scraggly old man looking back...

I think all Elements are unencrypted, as are Passports sold to countries that prohibit encryption, e.g., some European countries, although I don't know which.

No problem here, using Firefox 36.0.1.

I built my own using OpenOffice Base. Not pretty but it serves its purpose. A barcode scanner helped a lot with data entry but it was still time-consuming. Writing macros to sort/select records was too much of a challenge, so I usually just end up filtering the table to find what I'm after...

Okay, great! :) I'm certainly not a DR professional, just trying to augment the income from my small PC repair business and cope with declining PC prices. Because my customers are residential and SOHO PC users, I come across many who need data recovery but can't afford or are not willing to...

Does this exclude those of us who do DR to augment the other things we do as our primary source of income, meaning we're not DR professionals?

Now that you've taken the cover off, if it starts clicking that should finish you off!

Thanks for that, William. Looks pretty good!

Yes, IC602 is the ROM, as you can see from the USB and SATA PCBs side-by-side: http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php? ... 20#p197331

Especially when it gets as deep as Jared is experiencing now, or we did back in 2007-8.

hahaha. I'll try to replace that icon with a much larger one, and we'll see how it shows up amongst the others. Edit: Done. Also checked the license and it's in the public domain. Edit 2: Hahaha. Now it shows up in 1st spot: http://prntscr.com/66c4tc Unfortunately, so does my mug show up on...

Those temps are pretty much what we've been going through here, if you include the effect of the wind, i.e., wind-chill temps. Except ours are all negative values. Plus, lots of snow (although nothing like Boston and maritime areas).

"If you repair someones computer( you replace drive with new one) and then customer return beck with faulty drive, you are on very thiny ice. It's unfortunate, but it happens (especially with Seagate drives or WD Blue drives). I try to always use WD Blacks as replacement drives; they are very...

Thanks, Luke and Jared. Good input.

I guess the question of whether one can only be credible if they do DR exclusively is moot, since those of us that do DR to augment other income are not about to pitch that source of income and pour everything into DR only. So the question becomes, how best for PC repair shops to expand into...

In another sub-forum, Jared said: "No one will take you seriously in data recovery unless it's all that you do." (my emphasis) Any objective evidence to support that? :) If you had said, "some," "many" or "most" people with advanced DR needs will probably not take you seriously, I'd have no...

Hmmm, doesn't work for me, but did before.

@HaQue: thanks for the info. I don't know why they don't ship WF5X + WF20X eyepieces (which would give 10X, 20X, 40X and 80X magnification) instead of WF10X + WF20X (which give 20X, 40X and 80X). @jared: Thanks for that info. I guess my $125 CAD is a reasonable minimum price. Funny how...

:lol: BTW, what do you charge for these recoveries, where it's just ripped pads/connections? I asked my DR minimum of $125 CAD last week and got turned down.

Wait until you need trifocals! Not fun. I have one of those hoods with magnifying lenses you can wear over your regular glasses, and it's pretty good,actually. Has a fold-down auxiliary lens that makes it quite powerful.

I was going to ask, what is that, 12 gauge? :D (jk) BTW, what do you use for magnification to work on these? I just got my microscope last week and find that 20x is a bit too much; 10x would have been better. I might still order WF5X eyepieces to yield 10X when combined with the 2X...

I would think air turbulence in the channel that leads to the filter would mean the bits could have come from any platter, if that's what's in there. It would be interesting to cut it open and examine the interior of the filter under a microscope. Did you examine the heads under a microscope...

Oops. Must read before replying. I was thinking he meant quick format.

Really? I thought that just replaces the MBR/GPT, and MFTs. I thought a raw scan would enable recovery of the data after that. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I use an Atola Bandura to zero drives.

Probably just uses a WD USB drive with an asic front end that manages the PWs and access. If the drive pukes, it might be repairable and data recovered provided the front end hardware/firmware is not toast. Just like a MyPassport with a user PW entered using WD Smartware.

Nice job, Jared.

Looks good. Once there is enough volume, it might be good to break the General Hard Drive Data Recovery forum into sub-forums, like: General, WD, Seagate, etc by brand and rename it Hard Drive Data Recovery. That leaves out refurbishment; don't know if there is enough interest to justify a...

:)

I think it should have been... http://prntscr.com/66c3p9 Edit: I've redacted the link to the image, lest we get sued for defamation!

Yeah, I saw that but assumed the drive was a prototype and the "tab" played some part. Looking closer, I think I see the slider at the end of the HGA, without any support, which is probably what's bent out of place. How's that even possible? That's what happens when the PR people know nothing...

Can you do a search for track backups created within a minute of the time the modules backup was created?

I don't know. I don't see a ramp. Are you sure it's not some special landing zone? The article is from 2012, BTW.

The R-Studio Network Edition EULA says "- LICENSEE may not use the SOFTWARE for commercial gain of any kind," which means to me that one has to have a Technician license ($899 USD) to use R-Studio for commercial gain. Am I not understanding that correctly?

I'm a terminal command virgin, myself. :) There's this terminal commands tutorial at HDDGuru that might make an interesting primer, but I fall asleep before I get very far into it: http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=27119

What head unstuck tool are you using, Jared?

Nuno, that link is broken.

I get excellent page ranking for "computer repair" searches in my primary market areas (Kanata, Stittsville, Nepean), but I'm nowhere to be found in searches for "data recovery" in Ottawa--the surrounding metropolitan area, where most of the data recovery potential lies. Google seems to weigh...

Here's mine, but it's a work in progress and just a beginning: https://plus.google.com/116132433840266 ... bout?hl=en I'll have a look what you others have done, and that will be helpful at getting it built, I'm sure.

Nice to meet "The Wife!" That's how I refer to my wife, and when I did that at my previous job, my boss (female) asked "And does the wife have a name?!" The place was over-run with women. LOL. Anyway, welcome to hubby's forum. :)

The DFL-URE does much/most of those functions and isn't bogged down by the the OS. No idea how speed compares with the DDI add-on. I have one but get so little DR business, I haven't had an opportunity to put it to much use yet. It seems pretty fast on the 1TB My Passport I just tried...

Welcome, IVGH! I can relate to the need to make a business case for DR investments, as I'm in the same boat as your boss. For significant success in DR, I believe you need to go after medium-to-large businesses because they are able and willing to pay the big bucks needed to justify the...

Time to implement registration approval by e-mail, I think. However, he is likely to flood you with bogus e-mails.

Disgusting as they were, they were no worse than what I found on one drive I recovered. They were so bad, I had to zero the drive so I could get some work done! LOL. (It was a donated drive.)

They mention 10 USB PCB numbers, so I assume that's the number of SATA PCBs included: The matching SATA board numbers are probably those listed in the ACE list, which Jared already posted here I think, i.e., At $159USD, that's a fair price per board ($15.90) if you don't have a set already. I...

" I mean, why would you opt for data recovery if you had a backup?" Maybe they have read of the painful experiences some Carbonite users have endured when they tried to download their backups, or the backup is woefully out-of-date.

I decided to compliment my small home-based computer repair business with DR last year, focusing on the residential and SOHO market. Information and training helpful to those new to DR is hard to come by, so it's always good to see a new DR forum. My education includes diplomas/degrees in...