Technical advice for data recovery, tips for data preservation, and general wisdom from someone who has been recovering data and working on computers and other electronic hardware for decades.
Can a USB flash drive be repaired or recovered? In most cases, YES! How do we repair a broken USB thumb drive? Take note, the data recovery method can be quite different if the flash media has just stopped working. In some cases, the metal USB connector might come loose or break off. Assuming no […]
This week I was reminded how nice it is to work with the Toshiba DT01ACA100 1TB Desktop SATA hard drives. Most data recovery pros hold Toshiba drives in high regard for reliability, but we do get quite a few desktop models that 1 of the heads has failed. The simple, consistent, design makes working with […]
This week we had a Seagate ST1000LM035 with numerous media defects. We suspected that the HDD had been dropped like many mobile drives from this Seagate family. We opened the device in one of our clean bench workstations and immediately noticed something different, three heads! In the past these 1TB drives were typically a single […]
Proper Hard Drive Packing This week I would like to talk about proper handling and shipping for hard drives. The unknown often works against people because they really need/want their data recovered but they compound the problem because they just don’t understand how delicate a conventional hard disk drive is. Once you realize the close […]
This week we had a common case that was a typical result of a DIY recovery. The case was a Seagate 1TB external hard drive that stopped working. When disk drive media starts deteriorating bad sectors start accumulating until they reach a level that causes failure. At a certain point the drive’s firmware design can’t […]
This week we had a non-typical 128GB USB flash drive. At first glance the case looks like a standard broken connector repair. Typically you remove the bent or broken connector and replace it with a new USB 3.0 connector. WAIT! Not so fast. Look closer, this Phison based 128GB USB device has a non-standard USB […]
This week we had two cases that could have ended in no recovery but the customers were lucky. If you ship a flash drive it is very important that you do not send it in a regular envelope. A box is preferred but at least use a padded envelope and always use a service that […]
This week’s special cases were very close to the customer not getting any data. Data recovery should not be your backup plan! Case #1 Western Digital WD10JMVW 1TB laptop hard drive that had already been to another data recovery lab. The diagnoses was “too much media damage”. While there was considerable media damage as if […]
This week we had a 250GB Western Digital model WD2500AAKX that was dropped. As you can see in the photo the heads were mangled and still on the platter. What you can’t see is that it fell so hard the orange head ramp is actually broken and that’s why the heads could not return to […]