Last month we received a crashed 2.5″ 2TB Western Digital hard drive for recovery. We see a lot of these drives but this one was special as it came from one of Canada’s most famous explorers of space .. Chris Hadfield … Canada’s Astronaut!
Chris has a team of support people who help him make decisions and complete his various obligations. When Chris’ hard drive died, his team began reviewing and researching where to send it for data recovery. They contacted a number of their top choices but ultimately chose Memofix Data Recovery Services.
We think they made a wise decision and considering the great 5 star review he gave us, he must have too.
Thanks Chris, your praise and recommendation are very much appreciated.
Almost every month someone in Canada sends a hard drive that has been involved in a house fire. They often resemble burnt bricks like the picture below of a drive we recently received from a client in London, Ontario. None of our techs were in a hurry to get their hands dirty, but as terrible as these situations look, there is often an easy recovery lurking just under the mess!
Plastic melts easily and this external hard drive is in-cased in plastic like a pair of jeans on a teenager in the 80’s.
But with a little invasive surgery we are able to free the hard drive from its prison.
But will the prisoner be able to talk?
As we have discussed various times in this blog, it is the condition of the disks that will ultimately decide if we can make this hard drive talk again. So let’s open the bonnet and have a peak under the hood …
WOW! It looks pristine. Notice the lack of any contamination due to the fire or the liquids used to douse it. We proceeded to perform a full recovery on this case by replacing only the PCB
Below is another fire victim from a client in Montreal, Quebec which was not in such great shape when we opened the lid. In fact, it may not be recoverable … but we’ll never know for sure as the client declined our quote.
As a general rule for data recovery purposes, fire damaged drives are not typically unrecoverable due to the heat and smoke of the fire, BUT more often, it is the excessive use of firefighting liquids that do the damage, especially if they are allowed to dry out. The drying out leaves mineral and other debris deposits on the disks which are tough to overcome.
And here is a look of what happens when someone applies power to a fire damaged hard drive that has had the sealed assembly breached. You can see the deep ring on the inside of the disk where the heads are. This disk drive will NOT be recoverable.
So if you have a sad looking case of melted data don’t give up hope, data recovery may be as easy as a PCB replacement.
Memofix Data Recovery Services will be an exhibitor at the upcoming 2015 Canadian Imaging Conference and Trade Show in Niagara Falls, Ontario on April 26th and 27th. Please feel free to be our guest at this event by printing and presenting the Trade Show Pass shown below.
This trade show is put on by the PPOC or Professional Photographers of Canada and is part of a 4 day conference aimed at the professional photographer and imaging professional. The conference offers various educational seminars hosted by 19 well respected industry experts and is aimed at improving your artistic and technical imaging skills.
Memofix Data Recovery Services has extensive experience recovering data for professional photographers and videographers. We routinely recover data from all types of camera memory cards, as well as external hard drives, NAS devices, LTO tape and RAID storage devices. If you’ve lost your valuable photos or video, we can help.
In my last blog I recounted how we managed to recover the data from a multiple hard drive RAID array AFTER two different European data recovery companies had failed. In that situation, we were the white knight, coming in to save the data where others had failed. But recently, we were painted as the villain for performing similar data recovery magic right here in Toronto. In fact, the title of this blog came from our 1st ever negative Google review as a result of this recent case.
To summarize, we received a 2.5” Western Digital WD hard drive for data recovery. The particular model drive sent in, has a USB3 interface built onto its PCB (printed circuit board) and it does not have typical SATA connections. From experience, we have found that data recovery imaging utilities (both in-house written and commercial) work terribly with USB interfaced hard drives. As a result, we don’t attempt to access or image USB3 type WD drives using their native USB PCB. Instead, we have learned how to convert a particular standard WD SATA PCB to work with these native USB drives.
So when we received this case, we immediately converted one of SATA PCBs to work with this drive. The conversion process required us to remove one small 8 pin programmable chip from the client’s original USB3 PCB and transfer it onto our SATA PCB. Once we did this, we were able to evaluate the drive fully and concluded that the drive had bad heads and likely minor disk damage. We contacted the client and quoted them $1300, which they declined. We transferred the client’s 8 pin chip back to their original PCB and returned the drive to the client.
The client then took it to another data recovery company who claimed it was unrecoverable because we had damaged the PCB and furthermore we left solder paste around the 8 pin chip and were thus “VERY AMATEURISH”. Ok we forgot some totally inconsequential solder paste on the PCB. But we never once applied power to the PCB so the claim we damaged it seemed unfounded. Of course there was a chance we damaged the small 8 pin chip so we suggested the client bring it back to us. They did; we removed the chip and verified it’s functionality using a chip reader. While it was here, we re-established the fact that we could still recover the data, but again the client did not want to pay us anything and left with their drive intact but with no solder paste residue to complain about.
Apparently, the client then went to KROLL ONTRACK, “the industry leader and the largest data recovery provider in Canada and in the world”. The client claims they also declared the drive unrecoverable due to the same “damaged” PCB.
The client then came back to us, and we again re-iterated that we had not damaged anything, and we could still recover the data for him. In fact, just to keep our good guy image alive, we offered to reduce the cost by $300. At 1st the client accepted thinking we offered the recovery at $300. But when he realized we weren’t giving it away and still required $1000 to complete the recovery he declined and created his mean spirited Google complaint.
Whether this client was trying to get a free recovery or not, I don’t know, or care, but in the end I am aghast that 2 other professional data recovery companies in Toronto cannot recover the data from a situation where we regularly do.
It helps to realize, that the world wide data recovery industry has no standards, no way of knowing a company’s competency, or a company’s integrity. There are lots of bad guys waiting to take your money for very little in return and many posers issuing inaccurate statements about what is recoverable and what is not. The damage they can cause is inexcusable. I have heard it said that something like 70% of small companies that lose their data permanently are out of business within 6 months. Don’t be one of them!
If your data is important, don’t believe the 1st “It’s UNRECOVERABLE” that you hear. Data recovery companies and technicians are not created equal. Please seek a 2nd or 3rd or 4th opinion, or maybe you should just come to Memofix Data Recovery Services first.
As a member of a worldwide consortium called the TSC or Technical Services Consortium, we are part of a family of companies that offer many of the same services, but in different geographical areas. Because we are not competing with each other, we have developed some amazing business relationships with folks that would normally be our competitors. This has allowed us to gain knowledge in areas where we were weak and to share knowledge where we are strong. As the only member of the consortium offering data recovery services, we often get called in to help with data loss situations.
Recently one of our TSC partners in the Netherlands, Sprague Europe, was approached by a well-known University in Germany. The University had had a catastrophic failure with a small RAID 5 server and the hard work of hundreds of students was in jeopardy.
Initially the University had contacted a well-respected but smaller data recovery company in the Netherlands to help. They were able to image one of the 3 drives used in the RAID 5 array, but unfortunately, all attempts at resurrecting either of the remaining two drives was met with failure.
With RAID 5 and it’s built in redundancy, we only needed to image one of the two non-responsive drives to be able to rebuild the RAID. Both drives had developed light rings on their disks and the heads were physically destroyed by travelling over the damaged areas and had become stuck in the head loader ramps. With each recovery attempt, these rings would increase in depth and width, and soon no recovery would be possible. The smaller Dutch data recovery company had exhausted their supply of parts drives and realizing the chances for success were decreasing with each attempt, they advised the University to send it to Kroll Ontrack, the largest data recovery company in the world. Ontrack had a branch in Germany and off the case went.
But again, all attempts to recover the data were met with failure and the University was almost ready to concede defeat. But as luck would have it, the head of the University’s Computer Centre was an old colleague with one of our friends at Sprague and in a last ditch effort he called Sprague for advice. Our friend at Sprague suggested Memofix “may” be able to help.
Unlike most data recovery service providers, Memofix does not charge an extra fee for working on hard drives that have been previously worked on by other data recovery companies. In fact we cherish those data recovery cases because it gives us a chance to show just how good we are. Over the years we have recovered approximately 70% of the recoveries that have been previously attempted by our competitors.
When I first saw the request and the summary of what had been attempted, I was skeptical if we could do any better than the two professional data recovery companies that had already tried, especially when one of them was a “world leader” in data recovery and cost did not appear to be a constraint. I spoke with the original data recovery company that tried the 1st attempts. They told me that both defective drives had heads that were bent, distorted, and stuck in the head ramp loaders. They also told me that they had gotten both defective hard drives to function for a very short period of time after replacing the head assembly. Things were looking a little more promising.
When it comes to recovering data, there is one MAJOR factor that influences the chance of recovering data and that is the condition of the disks. If the disks are in good shape, a recovery is usually going to be possible. If the disks are badly scored and ringed, then it will be next to impossible to get a set of heads to function inside the drive without damaging them almost instantaneously. For a disk to get that badly damaged usually means the drive has been running/spinning in a crashed state for a long time. The fact that these drives had their heads stuck in the loading ramps is good news, as they could no longer damage the disks. The second fact that made us hopeful was that the drives were manufactured by Western Digital and Memofix has one of the best Western Digital data recovery techs that we have ever met and we do know a lot of data recovery techs.
So we decided that we may have a chance of successfully recovering at least some of the data and consequently the case was sent to us for a final data recovery attempt.
Our initial evaluation confirmed that we would need to get one of two defective drives imaged. After much scrutiny it was determined that one of the defective drives had shifted disks. When heads are replaced, there is a procedure for adjusting the disks which can sometimes help in getting access to a non-responsive hard drive. I suspect one of the data recovery service providers had attempted this procedure or something similar. This procedure can sometimes make things worse, so we decided to concentrate on the more pristine of the two drives.
Our Western Digital data recovery specialist got right to work. His first task was to get the drive functional enough to read off the drives system area, a normally inaccessible storage area on the drive used for its own housekeeping and the storing of drive specific settings. The system area tells the drive how many heads are present and what settings to use with each head. Without this road-map, recovery may not be possible.
Bent Heads vs Good Heads
We quickly determined that two of the disk surfaces had physical damage and we would worry about those surfaces last. Modifying the system area allowed us to configure the drive to ignore the 2 damaged heads/surfaces. We then physically removed the 2 heads (corresponding to the damaged surfaces) from a good parts head stack. This would prevent further damage to those disk surfaces as well as preventing read interference from the heads going over the damaged areas. We then used this head assembly to get the drive to initialize and we started to image off the good surfaces. After approximately 20 hours of imaging, the heads assembly became too contaminated with crash debris to function and we had to modify a new set of heads to continue. After two days we had managed to image 6 of the 8 disk surfaces. We were now ready to go after the two damaged disk surfaces.
At this stage, our greatest danger was the inherent risk of developing new crashes & destroying our chances of imaging off the last two disk surfaces. Consequently, the drive was imaged only while it could be monitored by a dedicated human watching and listening for any potential new crashes. Imaging of these last two surfaces took almost a week and in the process we consumed five sets of heads and still had some areas where nothing could be read because of the damage to the hard drives’ disks.
With the best drive images we could obtain, we began to analyze what we had. Once we determined the correct RAID 5 configuration settings we were able to use the RAID’s parity to virtually rebuild the missing disk and to de-stripe the 3 drive RAID 5 volume onto a single drive. Then it was a matter of repairing some minor file system structure damage, mounting up the volume, and copying the data to a new target hard drive.
In the end, we were able to recover over 99% of all the students’ data. But there wouldn’t have been any data recovery had it not been for one individual at the University refusing to take NO for an answer.
Consequently, I think the real takeaway point, has to be the fact that not all data recovery companies have the same abilities and just because the world’s largest data recovery company says it can’t be done, doesn’t mean Memofix, the world’s most determined data recovery company, can’t prove them wrong.
Over the last 5-6 months we’ve received an influx of inaccessible Solid State Drives (SSD) from MacBook Air laptops. Apparently Apple is aware of this problem and they are replacing them under warranty. The laptops effected were sold between June 2012 and June 2013.
Once removed, these SSDs are easily identified by the large “Toshiba” controller chip residing on the left side of the SSD as shown in the picture below. However Apple considers the removal as something not do-able in the field.
As for data recovery from these units, you had better get your wallet out. Typical costs for us to recover your data range from $2000-2500. Costs could be even higher depending on the nature of the data required, and due to the complexity of these recoveries we typically require 3 weeks or even more. We are getting faster but the rebuilding of SSD devices is very labor intensive.
If you have one of these Solid State Drives in your system, we suggest you keep all your important data backed up to at least one additional storage device or hard drive.
We hear the words “my hard drive has crashed” at least a hundred times a month and yet it is seldom what we discover when we open the lid of someones “crashed” hard drive. The picture below shows two Seagate 500 GB hard drives we recently received for data recovery. Both drives were declared crashed by their owners! However only one appears to be physically crashed.
The drive on the left is in pristine condition. The disks are extremely shiny and consistent across the entire surface of the disk surface. The clients problem was determined to be a bad PCB or printed circuit board.
The drive on the right is not so pristine and has physically CRASHED! The smooth shiny disk surface has been scored and ringed by constant contact with the heads while the disks were spinning. This amount of damage could only occur if the drive was left running for a long period after the initial contact damage. Click on the picture for a closer more shocking look.
The drive on the left should be recoverable. The drive on the right is NOT recoverable.
If you require a price estimate on our data recovery services, follow this link for a quick reply … Canada’s Data Recovery Experts
Memofix was recently asked to help out a fellow Canadian who had lost the latest pictures of his deceased wife after his computer became submerged in the recent Calgary and High River, Alberta floods. Memofix’s expertise with water damaged hard drives was invaluable in recovering the data and putting a smile on a saddened face. Here’s a letter of appreciation we recently received for our gratuitous assistance.
Despair to HOPE!
This is a story of how a few acts of kindness can build hope in a person’s life
My name is Rick Ellis and I am one of the thousands of displaced citizens of High River, AB after the floods of 2013 but I consider myself lucky to have met a few “angels” during the anguish of these times.
I lost my wife Chris AKA Princess on the 14th of June, 2013. Less than a week later, on June 20, we were hit by the worst flood in our history. I had gotten our computer, Ipod and cellphone out before the flood but left them at my place of work not dreaming that they would be in any danger there. More than a week later they let my employers back into the building to retrieve valuables and \my employers, Tony and Penny Marshall of Highwood Crossing Foods, who are angels in their own right, retrieved my bags for me, one that held my clothes , one that held our valuables,computer etc.and one of important documents. Upon arriving at the TIDE loads of hope caravan I opened my trunk to retrieve my bag of clothes that had been sitting in the flood waters for over a week. A volunteer came out to help me unload my clothes and when he grabbed my bag with the electronics in it I broke down and told him of my wifes passing and that I was going to try and recover any info I could off of them. This complete stranger then offered to make a few phone calls to see if he could help me. This truly caring person was David Brodie, vice president, Western Canada of Citizen Optimum. He was from Vancouver and yet he was out in the middle of this disaster helping people unload their few remaining clothes to be washed for free by TIDE.Within two days I received a call from Mr Brodie to take all my electronics into Future Shop in Shawnessy, Calgary, and they would see what they could recover. Please remember that these devices held all of our recent and last pictures, music and memories. He asked me to speak to Rob Kean, general manager for the Shawville Blvd store, When I went in Rob greeted me like an old friend and his IT wiz Andy said that they would do what they could to retrieve whatever info they could. Remember these devices had been sitting in flood waters for more than two weeks. From here my thanks go out to countless people that I have never met but their assistance has made a difference in both my and my children’s lives, three great sons, two and hopefully three great dauthers in law,and two plus three more on the way grandchildren. Larry Shulman@memofix.com, [email protected], and all the great people at FUTURE SHOP. On Jul 30 I got a call from Rob Kean saying that they had retrieved some of my lost data. I must say that I was a compleat puddle (my boys description of how I break down) when I went into the store and not only had they retrieved all the info from my old computer but also downloaded all the info onto a brand new laptop, complete with an emergency backup drive, a brand new ipod 5, I’m still trying to figure out how to run these, headphones, sony speaker system and A large part of my memories to share with my grandchildren. To all these people who have helped pull me out of my despair, THANK YOU. I think all of you must have seen the last piece of art my wife bought. “Kindness changes everything” I am going to try and attach it to this email but if it doesn’t work please email me and I will see if I can rectify this.
I know that there are still some prople trying to retrieve our last phots off of my wifes Iphone but even if you don’t, you are still part of Chrissy’s angels.
Last month we received a crashed 2.5″ 2TB Western Digital hard drive for recovery. We see a lot of these drives but this one was special as it came from one of Canada’s most famous explorers of space .. Chris Hadfield … Canada’s Astronaut!
