Mr. wrecker

[jol]

i had received from 2 different clients (not related) an HDD to recover some delete files, after spending a lot of time to recover them, i was approached them to understand the story behind this hard work recovery, both of them have told me the same story:

"i deleted some files by mistake, and have send it to my computer technician, he claimed the files were recovered, and put them in place where they belongs, the problem is, when I tried to open the files it's in gibberish, then i sent it to you"

when i asked the name of the computer technician, both of them told me the same name, lets call him Mr. wrecker.

a lot of time i had asked myself and thinking, how can it be that a simple deleted file(s) was turned out to be so hard to recover, what in the world is going on with Mr. wrecker.

i had visited a friend of mine who owns a computer repair shop today, to take a few HDDs, when i got there i found Mr. wrecker there (apparently he started working there lately) and what i saw next finally gave my the answer.

he took a 2.5 HDD and place it in a hard drive docking station connected to his computer, since i was standing near the docking station and heard the noise coming from the HDD, i told him you wasting your time, the drive is not gonna show up in your computer, his next move was astonish, he took out the drive from the docking station, and hit it against the wall, as he is saying, that i can learn a thing or 2 from him, and explaining me that some times, a hit against the wall will make the HDD recognized in the computer and working again.

and if it wasn't enough, i got lesson number 2, 5 min. later.

he took out that HDD from docking station (of course, because hitting the drive against the wall didn't help) and put in another drive, judging by the noise, i'm telling him that this drive is gonna show up, but i doubt you gonna get access to user data and i hope you're not gonna hit this one either...

he tried to get access to user data but i was right, without hesitation he right clicks on the drive issuing a format, instantly i asked him what are you doing, are you nuts, without thinking twice he said watch and learn.

i'm formating the drive he says, and then i have access to the drive with no problem, then i'm gonna launch a software to recover the data...

i think this long rap sheet is enough for one day.

 

[LarrySabo]

I used to joke that for tough-to-diagnose computer repair problems, if you throw it against the wall a few times the problem will become obvious and you will have something obvious to repair. It was just a joke, but holy cow! I've never heard of anyone being so stupid! I hope you discretely spoke to the shop owner!

 

[pclab]

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:

 

[jol]

I hope you discretely spoke to the shop owner!

of course i did, already said he is my friend

 

[LarrySabo]

Ah, yes. I forgot having read that.

 

[Jared]

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: https://www.data-medics.com/data-recove ... expensive/

 

[lcoughey]

I've talked to many technicians with the same methods over the years. Sadly, their logic is that the cases that they cannot recover, nobody can recover (and it has nothing to do with their barbaric methods) so there is nothing wrong with it.

 

[Bankole Oladoja]

In my Opinion, we have so many 'Backward Thinkers' like that every where, especially the so called 'Computer Engineers', here in Nigeria, they make the Job more complex and difficult to recover. Imagine someone ( an Engineer in Nigeria) swapping a PCB of Samsung with Seagate, and he says 'Sometimes it works'. I left his workshop immediately and pray for his client.

In summary, Courage is a special kind of knowledge; the knowledge of being able to accept what you don't know and willing to learn.

In this profession of ours, with all our investments in tools and knowledge, we still encounter very difficult Jobs and we let go, but some computer repair novice believed they can handle all cases with just one pirated software and DR tools and knowledge is a waste of time and it's not worth any investment.

May God help us!

 

[jol]

sad to hear that Mr. wrecker works everywhere, but unfortunately my heart literally skipped a beat seeing it happening in front of my eyes

 

[HaQue]

One computer shop I do work for often spends 5 mins shuffling through bunches of drives looking for the customer one they want me to look at. and a list of things I have seen at this shop:

- a pile of about 6 - 10 drives just fall over.
- owner break USB header off portable drive
- more than once he has totally LOST drives.
- gave me the wrong drive to recover, I recovered and customer says it is not his files. Shop owner blames me. 2 weeks later he has another drive for me to recover. I recover and look at the files and yes, it is the customers from 2 weeks ago. Furiously the shop owner tells me I must have had the drive at home!! I do so little HDD recoveries that it was the only WD Black drives. still makes me angry thinking about it!

- owner swap out a DVD rom drive from a customers laptop to fix another customers laptop. Says he would buy another one, but you DON'T DO THAT!

I cringe when his name comes up on my phone