Monthly Archives: January 2012

Head crash gallery – when data cannot be recovered

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Non-recoverable data is not good for any party. The customer does not get their data back, and we do not get paid, anything. Our ‘no-recovery, no-fee’ policy applies to all of the work that is conducted by Cheadle Data Recovery. There are no diagnostic fees or up front fees. That means that when we can’t recover data it is disappointing for us in every regard.

When we break the news to a customer that the data is not recoverable we can get a number of responses. Some are very grateful for the effort we put in, some are understandably disappointed, and some want a second opinion and think that another data recovery company will be able to recover the data. There of course could be occasions when a second opinion might be valuable, particularly working on challenging firmware corruption. There are however, many occasions when we know that data is not recoverable.

Below are some images of three hard disk drives that have been received since January the 6th. All of these disks have visible damage to the surface of the top platter. Within the industry this is called a “head-crash”. This is where the read/write heads make contact with spinning platter and damage the surface. When there is physical damage to the surface of the platter it is not possible to recover the data.

Being told that data is not recoverable can be hard to hear, and many customers look for a glimmer of hope. I have had customers tell me that they have phoned a data recovery company who said they can recover the data in these situations. Needless to say these companies tend to charge a non-refundable upfront diagnosis, ‘re-opening’ or donor parts fee. Again, we’d like to reiterate, if your hard disk has a head-crash it is not recoverable.

 

December RAID follow up

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Following the Christmas time post regarding the six RAID arrays Cheadle Data Recovery received in during December, I thought it might be useful to follow each of these up and let you know of the results.

HP/Compaq RAID 5, 5-Disk SCSI with a 2 HDD failure: This RAID array had two badly degraded hard disk drives. Cheadle Data Recovery was successful in taking a high quality disk image of each, and then rebuilding the array. The result – a full recovery of the data. We were also able to provide the customer a de-striped ghost disk image of the RAID volume. This allowed the customer to recreate the RAID before the time of failure and boot the server, saving him hours of time having to potentially reinstall and reconfigure the Windows Server operating system.

RAID 10 Dell, 8TB 4 x 2TB SAS comprising of a dozen virtual servers: Cheadle Data Recovery successfully rebuilt the RAID array and recovered all of the data within 48 hours on the our emergency service. This was a challenging job, largely due to the high capacity hard disk drives, the total volume of recovered data and having the ensure error free virtual server image files (.VHD). What the customer said:

“Obviously this has been a difficult process for all of us [at the company], and we appreciate that you have gone to unusual lengths to provide us with the data we require, and to satisfy our changing requirements.” R. Illing, Web Applications UK Ltd.

HP/Compaq RAID 0, 3-Disk SCSI with a 1 HDD failure: One of the SCSI Seagate Cheetah 10K hard disk drives was suffering from a translator fault. The result of this is that the hard disk drive is completely inaccessible and shows a capacity of 0Mb. Cheadle Data Recovery was able to resolve this issue and then rebuild the RAID array. The result was a full recovery. What the customer said:

“That’s amazing…Many thanks for the recovery work you performed for us. I will have no hesitation in recommending your services to anyone who needs them.” P. Thornicroft, Tectrix Solutions Ltd.

RAID 0, mini G-RAID 1TB external hard disk, 1 HDD degraded, and corrupt HFS+ filesystem:   A full recovery of 900GB of data was made. The critical 120GB of this was returned to the customer within 24 hours of starting working on the device. The remainder of the data was was returned at a later date at the convenience of the customer. What the customer said:

“This is all good, thanks for all your help yesterday and thanks so much for giving me such a good deal, it is really really appreciated.” S. Owen, Standby Productions.

RAID 1, 1TB Netgear NAS:   Partial recovery – it was not possible to fully recreate the folder and file tree. This was a direct result of the owner of the device starting a full format of both drives recording approximately 20GB of new ’0′ data to the front end of each disk. The owner did not require the recovered data back, and as per our policy Cheadle Data Recovery made no charges other than a £7.99 return postage fee.

16 SAS HDD 8TB RAID 5 SAN:   Recovered remotely over a period of 5 days to ensure data was available before the Christmas.  Filesystem reconstruction was possible, the recovery of the two critical Sql databases was made. There was some corrupt data due to 40GB of new data which had been written to the volume before Cheadle Data Recovery had started work on the array.

All in all a very busy month for Cheadle Data Recovery in December, and a nice way to finish the year.

 

This HP controller was found in one of the failed servers. This is a very long card (about 20 inches!), and we struggled to find a case that it would fit in.

Scientists Fabricate Magnetic Data Storage Unit with Area 4 by 16 nm

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Scientists Fabricate Magnetic Data Storage Unit with Area 4 by 16 nm.
The German Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL) and IBM scientists have developed a storage on an incredibly small scale. It works out at about 100 times the present media density of modern hard disk drive. What this might mean the in future is hard to know; by the time this technology is applied to consumer storage devices will Flash based media have become the main method for data storage?

Hard drive manufacturers cutting warranties as of 2012

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Hard drive manufacturers cutting warranties

A news summary of the changes announced by Western Digital and Seagate regarding the warranty period of any HDDs you might buy in 2012. It appears that, in no uncertain terms, they are reducing the warranty period for nearly all consumer drives. This comes as little surprise, given how tight the OEM manufacturers are on replacing failed drives. I know a number of customers who have had difficulties with Lacie/Buffalo/Freecom as they have opened the caddy (not the hard disk assembly) and have voided their warranty in an attempt to retrieve their data.

The question which could be raised is, ‘are the warranty changes a result of decreased reliability in hard disk drives?’ A knee jerk response, would be, “Yes, they are selling worse and worse products and need to reduce the warranty period accordingly to save them money”.

But, one has to consider the way in which hard disk drives are being used presently. Cheadle Data Recovery sees an increasing number of hard disk drives which are used in laptops and external units compared to when we started trading about 6 years ago. These hard disk drives tend to be used ‘on the move’ unlike their desktop computer predecessors. Any increased failure rate could well be attributed to the (mis)handling of these mobile devices which then cause failure. The obvious example which comes to mind is hard disk drives sustaining a physical shock, usually resulting in a clicking or buzzing sound. There is very little way for the hard disk manufacturer to tell if the HDD has sustained a physical shock, and is under an obligation to replace the failed drive, despite the fault lying very much with the owner.

Would you consider it reasonable for John Lewis to replace a broken vase which you dropped? Probably not.  Unfortunately most people don’t understand that hard disk drives are incredibly delicate devices. That is not to say that they should, after all many hard disk drives are advertised as ‘portable’, and of course laptops are designed to be used not just at a desk. But in reality an ideal environment for a hard disk to be used is a stable one; physically, electrically and by temperature/humidity. You are not going to get that whilst plugging in your laptop to the AC charger on the mid-summer Virgin Voyager train service from Manchester to London. Be warned.

 

 

Normal business has resumed

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Normal office hours have resumed after the Christmas and New Year holidays. Cheadle Data Recovery is working as quickly as possible through the HDDs submitted shortly before the Christmas period, and accepting new work in too.

Working hours:
Monday to Friday: 9am – 7pm
Saturday: 10am – 6pm
Sunday & Bank Holiday: 10am – 6pm (Emergency recoveries only)

Contact: 0161 408 4857 / info@cheadledatarecovery.co.uk