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Recommend data recovery company?



 
 
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  #11  
Old April 21st 18, 04:40 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10
Larc[_3_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 383
Default Recommend data recovery company?

On Sat, 21 Apr 2018 09:26:45 -0500, VanguardLH wrote:

| https://www.geek.com/chips/drivesave...-drive-574764/
| "Pricing is determined by the drive capacity, complexity and
| completeness of the data recovery. The cost for recovering data from a
| drive with severe media damage, like mine, is about $1900. An average
| single drive data recovery costs about $1500."

And those prices aren't necessarily reflective of the amount of work that has to be
done as much as their being among the few who can do it and that, as such, they have
you held by super sensitive body parts.

Larc
  #12  
Old April 21st 18, 06:16 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10
nospam
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Posts: 160
Default Recommend data recovery company?

In article , VanguardLH
wrote:


Also, it is highly unlikely that they can recover 100% of
the data from the platters.


it's very likely they can recover 100% unless there's a head crash that
gouged the platter, in which case, they can recover everything except
what was in the damaged area. the rest of the platter is fine. in other
words, almost 100%.

With luck being against you, likely the
majority of the files you want to recover will be unrecoverable.


wrong.

nospam mentioned DriveSavers. They seem to be about what was estimated
to rescue data from my aunt's HDD and the company name sounds familiar.

https://www.geek.com/chips/drivesave...-drive-574764/
"Pricing is determined by the drive capacity, complexity and
completeness of the data recovery. The cost for recovering data from a
drive with severe media damage, like mine, is about $1900. An average
single drive data recovery costs about $1500."


except that's from 2008.

prices will be higher now, however, one mitigating factor is that the
drive in question is 15 years old and easier to recover and much
smaller capacity than modern drives.



Can you find a seller of the same type (IDE) of drive at the same
capacity (or a minimum size that would encompass the data files you
think are on the failed drive)? The rescue service provider might get
some of the data files off the failed drive but they may not be able to
put them back on the same type and size of drive you had.


they don't need to put the data on the same type/size as the original.

any drive whose capacity is as big or bigger than the failed drive will
suffice. even a usb stick will work.
  #13  
Old April 22nd 18, 02:07 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10
VanguardLH[_2_]
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Posts: 1,453
Default Recommend data recovery company?

nospam wrote:

Can you find a seller of the same type (IDE) of drive at the same
capacity (or a minimum size that would encompass the data files you
think are on the failed drive)? The rescue service provider might get
some of the data files off the failed drive but they may not be able to
put them back on the same type and size of drive you had.


they don't need to put the data on the same type/size as the original.


They don't but how is the OP going to use the new drive unless it mates
with his old PC from which the failed drive came? What good would
getting recovered files put on a SATA drive when the OP said an IDE
drive failed? With a ~15-year old computer, we don't know that it will
have USB ports in which to use a flash drive. If the OP goes the lab
recovery path, he'll need to discuss with the lab on what type of media
the files can be saved that would usable to him.
  #14  
Old April 22nd 18, 02:42 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 160
Default Recommend data recovery company?

In article , VanguardLH
wrote:


Can you find a seller of the same type (IDE) of drive at the same
capacity (or a minimum size that would encompass the data files you
think are on the failed drive)? The rescue service provider might get
some of the data files off the failed drive but they may not be able to
put them back on the same type and size of drive you had.


they don't need to put the data on the same type/size as the original.


They don't but how is the OP going to use the new drive unless it mates
with his old PC from which the failed drive came? What good would
getting recovered files put on a SATA drive when the OP said an IDE
drive failed?


sata first appeared nearly 20 years ago, so he almost certainly can use
a sata drive. if not, a sata card or adapter is cheap. he could also
put the drive in a usb enclosure and connect via usb.

With a ~15-year old computer, we don't know that it will
have USB ports in which to use a flash drive.


yes we do. a 15 year old computer has usb, which first appeared about
20 years ago.

he also didn't say he had a 15 year old computer. he said he had a 15
year old drive. his computer could be (and likely is) more recent, but
if he really does have a 15 year old computer, it's long overdue to
upgrade.

If the OP goes the lab
recovery path, he'll need to discuss with the lab on what type of media
the files can be saved that would usable to him.


of course, and the choices are a new drive or supply one.

it's *extremely* unlikely they'll recover to another 15 year old drive
because of the risk for *it* to *also* fail is *very* high.
  #15  
Old April 22nd 18, 07:52 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10
David Samuel Barr
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Posts: 11
Default Recommend data recovery company?

I can recommend https://sherlockdatarecovery.com/
which last year recovered data for me from an
11-year-old WD drive which, right after producing
a clean SMART report, suddenly became completely
unreadable.

On 4/21/2018 12:09 AM, B00ze wrote:
Good day.

Got a 15 years old WD IDE hard drive, that was showing ZERO problems in
SMART data, suddenly can no longer calibrate (i.e. it can't read
anymore.) NOW the SMART data is showing something's wrong. Hard drive
"clicks" (heads go back and forth full disk) then quits trying. Have
another of the same model, but hesitant moving the platters myself;
apparently platters are not really "stuck" together and I could
mis-align them (rotate them in relation to each other) rendering the
whole thing un-readable. Was planning to move the data off but kept
delaying since it showed no sign of problems...

Now need a data recovery company; anyone have good experience with one
and can recommend?

I'm also curious about how they recover drives if not by using another
of the same model (where they hell how they going to find one as old as
mine, and can they really keep one of each model of ALL drives?) If you
can enlighten me on that too, would be great.

Thank you.
Best Regards,

  #16  
Old April 22nd 18, 10:39 AM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10
J. P. Gilliver (John)[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 31
Default Recommend data recovery company?

In message , David
Samuel Barr writes:
I can recommend https://sherlockdatarecovery.com/
which last year recovered data for me from an
11-year-old WD drive which, right after producing
a clean SMART report, suddenly became completely
unreadable.

On 4/21/2018 12:09 AM, B00ze wrote:
Good day.
Got a 15 years old WD IDE hard drive, that was showing ZERO problems
in SMART data, suddenly can no longer calibrate (i.e. it can't read
anymore.) NOW the SMART data is showing something's wrong. Hard drive
"clicks" (heads go back and forth full disk) then quits trying. Have
another of the same model, but hesitant moving the platters myself;
apparently platters are not really "stuck" together and I could
mis-align them (rotate them in relation to each other) rendering the
whole thing un-readable. Was planning to move the data off but kept


Rather than move the platters, why not move the controller (from the
good drive to the dud), if you think that's what's faulty? Doing that
might also be possible without breaking the seal on the housings.

You can hear head movement, but can you hear platter rotation? They
might perhaps just be stuck. (I had that, but in my case one at least of
the heads had stuck to the platter - I think; after all the recommended
things [freezing, shaking in various ways, ...] I finally bit the bullet
and opened up the drive in a clean cabinet at work: I could see the
heads weren't in the park position. When I attempted to turn the pack
[the spindle took the same Torx driver as the screws holding the case
shut - don't know if that's always the case], I felt something unstick,
and the heads then were free. Fortunately, after putting it all back
together, I was able to recover 95% or more of the data, so it must have
only been a tiny spot-weld somewhere. [I considered the drive junk after
that.] Obviously not stuck heads in your case if you can hear them
moving, but the platters might be stuck rotation-wise? Just a guess.)

delaying since it showed no sign of problems...
Now need a data recovery company; anyone have good experience with
one and can recommend?
I'm also curious about how they recover drives if not by using
another of the same model (where they hell how they going to find one
as old as mine, and can they really keep one of each model of ALL
drives?) If you can enlighten me on that too, would be great.
Thank you.
Best Regards,


I would imagine there are "families" of drives, so they can use common
controllers - possibly using a master, versatile, controller. (I also
suspect that a _lot_ of the companies do little more than we do, other
than perhaps having "clean" facilities so they can open up to see if
faults like I had are the problem.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

What's awful about weird views is not the views. It's the intolerance. If
someone wants to worship the Duke of Edinburgh or a pineapple, fine. But don't
kill me if I don't agree. - Tim Rice, Radio Times 15-21 October 2011.
  #17  
Old April 22nd 18, 12:43 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,453
Default Recommend data recovery company?

nospam wrote:

They don't but how is the OP going to use the new drive unless it mates
with his old PC from which the failed drive came? What good would
getting recovered files put on a SATA drive when the OP said an IDE
drive failed?


sata first appeared nearly 20 years ago, so he almost certainly can use
a sata drive.


That a technology appeared does not mandate it is immediately captured
by consumers. We will have to wait and see what the OP says he has for
hardware in his old computer. How long did it take after CD drives
appeared before consumers felt it was at an affordable price point to
start adopting that technology? How long after writable CD drives
showed up before they became priced where the market would adopt en
masse.

if not, a sata card or adapter is cheap. he could also
put the drive in a usb enclosure and connect via usb.


But why have the lab put the files on media that requires special
equipment by their customer? Again you are making assumption. How do
you know there is a spare daughtercard slot in his motherboard? How do
you know if a daughtercard compatible with the protocol of his mobo's
slots still has drivers for Windows XP? He posted in a Windows XP
newsgroup but that does not dictate that Windows XP was the target OS
for which his computer was built. Could be that old computer was reused
from MS-DOS to Windows 3.1 to Windows 9x to Windows ME. We, and that
means you, too, do not know what hardware is inside the OP's computer.
All we know, so far, is that an IDE drive (which ATA version is unknown)
came out of it.

We aren't discussing what YOU can do with your computer.

With a ~15-year old computer, we don't know that it will
have USB ports in which to use a flash drive.


yes we do. a 15 year old computer has usb, which first appeared about
20 years ago.


Again, unimportant to this discussion what YOU have. You're not the one
with the failed drive inquiring about costs to recover files from it.
Not worth a gnat's fart what you have.

he also didn't say he had a 15 year old computer. he said he had a 15
year old drive. his computer could be (and likely is) more recent, but
if he really does have a 15 year old computer, it's long overdue to
upgrade.


Ah, now you're starting to see my point. We don't know what hardware
the OP has other than a vague mention of an IDE drive.
  #18  
Old April 22nd 18, 01:35 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,453
Default Recommend data recovery company?

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

Rather than move the platters, why not move the controller (from the
good drive to the dud), if you think that's what's faulty? Doing that
might also be possible without breaking the seal on the housings.


The problem with swapping PCBs (assuming you can find a replacement that
matches the old one) is the calibration and low-level bad-sector mapping
recorded by the factory during manufacture and testing won't match from
the replacement PCB to what is on the failed drive's PCB. Sectors
marked and masked out by the replacement drive's minicontroller will
prevent access to sectors for files you want to recover on the failed
drive, and you would end up trying to use the bad sectors no longer
mapped out to the minicontroller on the failed drive.

https://www.hddzone.com/fix_hard_drive_pcb_board.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn2eL4o-6Eo
Timemark 5:40 - Swap doesn't work.
Timemark 7:12 - Gotta swap the ROM chip.

You'll end up having to move the ROM chip, if still usabled, from the
failed drive's PCB to the identical replacement PCB. Easier and more
likely to succeed by repairing the failed drive's PCB, like replacing a
burnt TVS diode, than to replace the PCB and somehow transplant the
calibration and bad-sector tables to the replacement PCB.

Since the OP is asking about using a recovery lab on his failed drive, I
doubt he has the skills and gear to swap the ROM chip assuming he finds
a donor drive with EXACTLY the same PCB (same minicontroller, same
firmware) and even knows how to identify which is the ROM chip to move.

There are lots of urban legends out there on swapping PCBs and magically
the replacement PCB on the failed drive suddenly works. The success
rate of a simple PCB swap is rare. Go to your nearest casino and you'll
have better odds of winning enough money to pay the recovery lab.

  #19  
Old April 22nd 18, 02:41 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10
Paul[_28_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,467
Default Recommend data recovery company?

VanguardLH wrote:
J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

Rather than move the platters, why not move the controller (from the
good drive to the dud), if you think that's what's faulty? Doing that
might also be possible without breaking the seal on the housings.


The problem with swapping PCBs (assuming you can find a replacement that
matches the old one) is the calibration and low-level bad-sector mapping
recorded by the factory during manufacture and testing won't match from
the replacement PCB to what is on the failed drive's PCB. Sectors
marked and masked out by the replacement drive's minicontroller will
prevent access to sectors for files you want to recover on the failed
drive, and you would end up trying to use the bad sectors no longer
mapped out to the minicontroller on the failed drive.

https://www.hddzone.com/fix_hard_drive_pcb_board.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yn2eL4o-6Eo
Timemark 5:40 - Swap doesn't work.
Timemark 7:12 - Gotta swap the ROM chip.

You'll end up having to move the ROM chip, if still usabled, from the
failed drive's PCB to the identical replacement PCB. Easier and more
likely to succeed by repairing the failed drive's PCB, like replacing a
burnt TVS diode, than to replace the PCB and somehow transplant the
calibration and bad-sector tables to the replacement PCB.

Since the OP is asking about using a recovery lab on his failed drive, I
doubt he has the skills and gear to swap the ROM chip assuming he finds
a donor drive with EXACTLY the same PCB (same minicontroller, same
firmware) and even knows how to identify which is the ROM chip to move.

There are lots of urban legends out there on swapping PCBs and magically
the replacement PCB on the failed drive suddenly works. The success
rate of a simple PCB swap is rare. Go to your nearest casino and you'll
have better odds of winning enough money to pay the recovery lab.


According to this, the main chip has firmware.

As well as the external 8-pin 25P05AV flash chip.

The 25P05AV is a 64KB chip, too big to be a config ROM, too small to
hold a decent amount of code. I looked at an 80GB Seagate here,
as the first drive I could find that has a chip like that.
("Modern" drives flip the PCB upside-down, so easy visual
inspection is not possible on those.)

Some of the eight pin chips, are actually power MOSFETs
and not ROMS at all. So if you spot an eight pin one, get
out your magnifying glass and look up the part number.

That's how I got to this thread, using 25P05AV as a search term.

https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic....35678&p=249841

As near as I could tell, the main chip (the "MCU") is a mask ROM
processor of some sort. And I don't think flashing ever changes
that chip. I got this idea, from seeing different MCUs with
different 9 digit part numbers on them. Normally, silicon companies
don't like to make a ton of SKUs like that. Bad for business.
Which implies a standard part, with a custom layer 1 metal
for the ROM. Using ROMmed parts like that, makes sense if you
plan on buying 50,000 of them (you have to place a minimum order).
For some reason, there's a price penalty for having parts with
EEPROM inside instead. A masked ROM is about the ugliest way
of doing things, you can think of (i.e. not very practical,
not flexible).

Adding an external EEPROM, implies the product has variants,
and you weren't clever enough with the ROM code to cover
all of them.

My failed 40GB Maxtor didn't have a problem with this.
If the MCU cannot access the Service Area, the MCU declares
"this drive is 10GB in capacity and the product name is Falcon".
Which of course, it isn't. That's the internal critical data,
before the MCU loads the Service Area. Once the Service Area
is loaded, then it changes to a Maxtor part number and the
proper 40GB capacity. The implication was, that controller
could have worked with a single platter 10GB setup, or
a four platter 40Gb setup.

I wouldn't know this, and the part wouldn't normally do that,
but, while that drive was powered, it was dying while running.
And it revealed its new name, because it was already spinning
and didn't have the common sense to stop responding. That's
how I got the name "Falcon" out of it. It shouldn't really
have responded and given away its "secret identity".

Paul
  #20  
Old April 22nd 18, 03:20 PM posted to alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,alt.windows7.general,alt.comp.os.windows-10
nospam
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 160
Default Recommend data recovery company?

In article , VanguardLH
wrote:

They don't but how is the OP going to use the new drive unless it mates
with his old PC from which the failed drive came? What good would
getting recovered files put on a SATA drive when the OP said an IDE
drive failed?


sata first appeared nearly 20 years ago, so he almost certainly can use
a sata drive.


That a technology appeared does not mandate it is immediately captured
by consumers.


except in this case, it was. sata became common a couple of years
later, in the early 2000s, and by the mid- to late 2000s, it was
standard just about everywhere.

We will have to wait and see what the OP says he has for
hardware in his old computer. How long did it take after CD drives
appeared before consumers felt it was at an affordable price point to
start adopting that technology? How long after writable CD drives
showed up before they became priced where the market would adopt en
masse.


it was a couple of years for both, but cd drives are not relevant.

if not, a sata card or adapter is cheap. he could also
put the drive in a usb enclosure and connect via usb.


But why have the lab put the files on media that requires special
equipment by their customer?


sata drives do not require any special equipment.

just about every computer made in the past 15-20 years can read a sata
drive, either internally or externally via usb.

the only 'special equipment' *might* be a $10 enclosure, which he
probably already has, but if not, it's useful to have one for backups
so it's a worthwhile purchase. since the recovery cost is going to be
in the $2000 range, possibly more, $10 is nothing.

or just put the files on a usb stick. a 15 year old drive is probably
around 100 gig, so all that would be needed is a 128 gig usb stick,
which is cheap. a 64 gig might even suffice.
 




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