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Hi, I'm trying to recover data from a client's 2TB Western Digital Passport (MDL: WD20NPVT-00Z2TT0). The drive is in perfect condition physically, and I'm able to image it completely with PC-3000 software. But the data is encrypted, beyond just native WD encryption, which PC-3000 can decrypt...

So because of the way Time Machine creates hard-linked filesystems, extracting the entire backups.backupdb folder will take many more times the amount of space than it actually should since data extractor treats each backup as it's own seperate file tree and you end up with many, many...

I am migrating from local storage to a NAS, and I have the drive mounted in windows. Whenever I save images to the NAS, I get this error in PC3K, I tried googling it but couldn't find a solution. Is there any way to make Data Extractor play nicely with NAS storage? This is Windows 10 with a NFS...

We are looking to get better versions of some of our cleanroom tools. In particular, we have been pretty underwhelmed with our sets of tweezers. Does anybody have any they use that they particularly like? What about needle-nose pliers?

I have a peculiar problem with a WD drive, I will gladly pay somebody a $50 USD bounty via paypal (or equivalent crypto if available on coinbase) if they have the correct solution. Drive model: WD5000AAKS-75V0A0 Symptoms: Clicking on startup, no ID, stuck in BSY Heads: 2 (0 and 1) What I have...

I have a WD40EZRX-00SPEB0 drive which is presenting with puzzling symptoms. It IDs correctly and all UA sectors give ABR error. Attempting to start utility results in PC3K thinking that the drive is ATA locked and SED locked. After disabling SA access in ROM, I was able to check modules (all...

Hey y'all, I've got a Seagate 3.5" drive that's stuck in busy. Using PC-3000 software, I was able to apply a Tech Mode Unlock, but I get an error message in the terminal: LED:00000047 FAddr:FFFFFFFE. Tried disabling File 93 via terminal and shorting the read channel. This allows momentary...

On the PC-3000 in the WD utility there is a "heads test" function under the service area menu and/or one can read/write the log modules. Is there a safe module to do this on in the HITACHI-IBM-ARM utility? What is the best way to verify heads can read and write successfully before making SA...

What kind of screws are these? I use an iFixIt toolkit for nearly all my work, and none of the heads seem to work well with these screws. They seem like PH0s but they are shallower and strip so easily. What do y'all use for this?

As I assume many of us do, I re-sell donor drives and parts (once being wiped completely!) on eBay as a secondary revenue stream. I also often buy donors this way. For those of you who buy donors there as well, how does a listing donating part of their profits to charity affect your buying...

How do you deal with this request? It seems almost all recovery tools are for Windows or Linux, this is how our shop is run at least. Do you use paragon hfs+? Do you have a seperate Mac just for this purpose? Curious as to how y'all handle it. My perspective is that it is our job to recover the...

It seems data extractor has a number of ways to export an image to a single-file raw image like ones created by dd, but I don't find any of them particularly reliable. Sometimes this is needed when another data recovery tool is needed for the logical portion of the recovery. Whenever the system...

I've got a puzzling case. It's a 1TB WD Passport drive, I swapped SATA board & ROM and am able to read with all heads except one (H0) in data extractor/sector edit. All reading modes fail with this head. But when I am in utility and do Service Area -> Head test, H0 appears to be working just...

I have a WD10EZEX-60WN4A0 on the bench with some annoying imaging issues. In PC-3000 Marvell utility I can read all sectors flawlessly using "sector edit" but in Data Extractor there are many red sectors even after upping timeout. Even sectors which timeout in data extractor work fine in sector...

Problem: MyCloud devices don't use a simple, flat filesystem like other external drives, they store files with random-seeming names and directory structures. If your MyCloud is not functioning, you will need to read the SQLite database on the device to determine the original file structure...

I have been thinking about getting a drill press for the shop to drill holes into drives before sending them to the recycling facility. Have any of you done this? Should any tabletop drill press be able to do this or do I need to get a particularly high HP or special type of drill bit? Any help...

I've got an interesting Seagate drive (ST2000LM007-1R81754 Mobile HDD 2TB) in the shop right now, wondering if anybody else has seen the behaviour. The drive has 4 heads, 3 of which are working flawlessly, but head 3 is intermittently either giving loss of readiness or returning the same sector...

I have a case in the shop of a damaged drive which has Apples HFS+ encryption built-in. Unfortunately, the encryptedboot.plist.wipekey is missing from the recovery partition, but we do have the password. From what I understand, this wipekey is needed as it contains information needed to assemble...

I generally charge clients for donors at cost if they need to be ordered, how do you all charge for donors that you have in stock? I'm just now building up enough stock that I think this might happen soon, curious as to how other places handle it.

I'm curious how you all are organizing your inventory of drives. I currently am using some shelving that fits 3.5" form factor decently, with each HDD slot having a horizontal and vertical number. So for example, a HDD would be located in AZ3-4 which means "Shelving box A, column Z, row 3, drive...

I received a WD My Passport USB 3.0 into the shop today which as you know only has a USB port on the board. I know I can swap the PCB for a SATA board and swap the ROM chips, but I would like to avoid this if possible. I can't figure out how to get COM/Terminal access on this drive. I am a...

Model: ST31000524AS Detected Family: 3F Pharaoh Things that work: Terminal (get output) Boot code and ROM extract via terminal, no need to short pins, auto mode works just fine HDD ID and capacity correct When drive starts it outputs this to terminal Rst 0x20M RW: Disc Ctlr Initialization...

Is there a way to have the Data Extractor store data in raw/dd format by default? Exporting images every time is getting to be a bit dull.

I have a Seagate ST1000LM035 with is outputting this on the terminal (using a PC-3000): Low Current Spin@4@4@4@4@4@4@4@4@4@4@4@4 FAIL Servo Op=0100 Resp=0003 I am assuming this means a head or motor failure? With just the PCB attached, I'm able to extract the ROM via terminal, so I'm guessing...

For those of you who offer previews to clients where they can decide whether it's worth paying for the recovery or not, what software do you use, why do you like it or not? We're looking into a bunch of options and I would love to hear some feedback from people who have experience with various...

Just wanted to introduce myself. I have been doing data recovery for 10 years (logical and ddrescue mainly) but just recently got a PC-3000 and am really diving into the more complex stuff. I'm hoping to meet some of y'all and share and learn with you. Looks like there's a lot of great knowledge...

I have a Samsung Spinpoint ST1000M024 which is stuck at BSY. Soft and hard resets seem to do nothing. It fails to identify at all. The full specs are below. Using the utility Spinpoint USB and Spinpoint M8E 2.5 HN-M101BB I'm unable to even get terminal access (using UART bridge) or detect the...