2024-12-22

Data Recovery

Data recovery technologies, data recovery tips, data recovery skills…

Hard Drive Firmware

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A Hard Drive can be compared to a small computer. It employs microprocessors to control both the physical behaviour of the various electro-mechanical components, and the logical operations that store and retrieve data as an arrangement of the magnetic particles on the disk surface. This operation is completely independent of the operation of the host PC. Like any computer, the hard drive needs its own software to control the operation of the microprocessors, but unlike a PC this software is limited to the drive’s operational functionality, and is not (and under normal circumstances cannot be) changed by the user. This hard drive ‘software’ is, as a result, more usually referred to as ‘Firmware’. The firmware carries out a range of functions, from what might be termed ‘Analogue’ functions such as controlling the spinning of the disc and positioning of the read/write heads, as well as the ‘Digital’ functions used to pass data files to and from the PC, keeping track of the location and parameters of the data files stored, and many, many more. Without firmware the drive is simply a collection of electronic components.

Just as the software on a PC can have problems, so the firmware can also cause a hard drive to fail if it becomes lost or corrupted. Statistical analysis shows that up to 60% of hard drive problems are due to firmware failure. Firmware problems can arise from a range of causes:

·Instability or failure of electronic components
·Accidental or inadvertent removal of power to the drive
·Deterioration of the magnetic response of the data recording surfaces

The latter cause is virtually inevitable over time, and the deterioration will accelerate the longer or more intensively the drive is used. Additionally the disk manufacturing process is not 100% perfect and as a result disks will commonly leave the factory already having problems with certain areas of the disk. These areas where the drive has problems correctly reading data from the disk are known as ‘Bad Sectors’. Sectors that fail simply because the data stored on them has become corrupted are known as ‘Logical’ bad sectors and these can be ‘repaired’ by re-recording the data correctly or in the correct format, however areas with problems arising from the magnetic response of the disk surface failing are known as ‘Physical’ bad sectors, and these cannot be repaired. Bad sectors of either kind can occur both in the data storage area of drive, but also in a ‘reserved’ area dedicated to storage of part of the drive firmware called the ‘Service Area’. User data area bad sectors can cause the loss or corruption of data files or reduced performance of the drive, bad sectors in the firmware area can lead to the drive failing completely. As the firmware area needs to be accessed every time the computer is switched on and every time drive is accessed, the chance of bad sectors becoming a problem in this area is consequently higher.

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How to Start a Data Recovey Business

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What Procedure is Data Recovery assignment involved?

The following three issues are critical for your data recovery business. They includes the first (Technical Know-How) and the last two (Marketing Plan and Financial Resources) followed only if you can handle the first.

Technical Know-How: As this industry is professional, specialized know-how is required to handle the varied types of data recovery assignments. Generally speaking, there is 3+1 work flow applicable to all data recovery case:

Of all the stages, Stage 3–data retrieval, is the most widely spread and long-running; all data recovery companies, even end users, by downloading software, can handle mission of this stage easily. But according to SalvationDATA experts only 30 to 40 percent of all data recovery cases are simply stage 3 cases. The left percentage requires an ability to handle with the stage 2 and stage plus 1 issue.

Stage 2, disk data extraction, is also widely known and adopted as “disk imaging” by data recovery services nowadays. But to SalvationDATA, according our experience with lots of potential clients, they perform this important stage using ghosting tools designed for and work on good HDDs only, not the patient HDDs that are unstable or inaccessible because of media defects and instable head, which are common challenges of Stage 2 in practice. Even more, with those traditional imaging tools, the time involved and the ordinary user-level repeated-read access to the media bring a risk of damaging the disk and head, making data lost irretrievable.

Stage 1, drive diagnosis & restoration, is the primary stage in a broad sense data recovery flow but in fact deals with the deepest level in 3+1 broad sense data recovery flow. Unfortunately this Stage 1 is missing from most of the data recovery services or even noticed but was being done in a zigzag procedure or simply incorrectly due to lack of proper tools, meaning that they are putting away customers and profits. Our data has shown that up to 40% of data recovery cases have Stage 1 issues; and that IS NOT what going to happen that we can skip Stage 1 and perform Stage 2 and 3 and still to get certain percentage of data. You CAN NOT get anything in case you are not capable for the primary stage
Plus 1, it refers to Head or Platter Exchanger when encountered with motor seizure or head crash. This kind of problem often happens where the Drive is clicking or dropping from height. Concerning this issue, you need to replace the components and fix the mechanical malfunction first.

From above 3+1 work flow, you may get know the basic guidance of data recovery.
Then let’s move the following 2 factors which are relevant to your data recovery service.

Marketing Plan: It is the same as other service you are engaged in. It needs marketing plans and strategy. You should think more about customers’ convenience, satisfaction, price setting, and target market. If possible, you need advertising on different mediums too.

Financial Resources: Of course you need budget to get the business started before you benefit from your investment. You need facilities like a Clean Room and equipments to carry out the assignments. You also need to pay expensive technicians.

Supposing the Marketing and Financial investment are not the barriers to stop you, then you need think more about the facilities and data recovery equipments.

I have to admit that Data Recovery is a game for professionals and engineers to play, it is impossible to get started without any HDD Data Recovery Equipments provider.

SalvationDATA technology LLC, not unacquainted name in Data Recovery Industry, is the biggest and cost-effective solution provider all over the world. Their free technical support & Remote assistance and free updates, enhance the industry beginners’ confidence greatly and assist them to enter the industry as soon as possible.

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How can IT industry survive in the Financial Crisis?

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Fact sheet: IT Industry is affected by the Financial Crisis

On Sept 30 2008, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft spoke at a news conference in Norway “We have a lot of business with the corporate sector as well as with the consumer sector and whatever happens economically will certainly effect itself on Microsoft,” he told Reuters.

“I think one has to anticipate that no company is immune to these issues,” he said,

Meantime, stock price of Apple dropped 40% during 6 weeks. On the other hand, according to the Forrester’s survey(a research company based in USA), nearly 43% company cut down the budget on IT to deal with the financial crisis, and more than 49% IT dept in financial industry has the same planning.

Furthermore, from the majority IT Company’s third quarter Financial Report, we can see the whole industry meet a large decline in sales; it marks that the winter for IT industry coming.

Why financial crisis affect IT industry?

As we know, financial industry is the most important factor in the economy development. When financial organization suffered a great loss, the financial crisis will become credit crisis. It means currency circulation crisis, then it’s very difficult for us to borrow money from bank. Without the support from financial organizations, a large amount of companies will meet a financial shortage and have to cut down the budget.

Secondly, due to the shrinking discretionary spending, people can not figure out the trend of Financial Crisis and no one can say how much it will affect our business and life. The so corporations and individuals keep their pocket tight and wait and see; it is going to affect business investment on IT products consumer spending.

Thirdly, each industry is connected and affected by the economic structure. Since the bankruptcy of banks and financial organizations, how can IT industry be immune from this crisis but ignoring the interactional linkage?

Is there any solution for IT Firms to survive from the financial crisis?

The answer is absolutely yes. Those are “innovation in technology, switch or begin into new business sector” can definitely survive and grow their business, though the financial crisis took all us to a predicament.

Nevertheless, Crisis not only gives us challenge but also Opportunity. Challenge and Opportunity are twins and often appear simultaneously.

Let’s analyze the current situation in IT Industry(for a primer on IT education, Since the shrinking purchase power, most companies would prefer to maintain and repair their IT hardware instead of buying new ones. For the IT service/Repair Firms, they will not decrease but get more business.

However, we can not ignore the crisis and wait passively. We have to expand our business arrange and survive from it.

For example, IT firms can invest and start new business in IT industry, such as computer application service, computer maintenance data backup/recovery and etc.

Along with the proliferation of computers in business, the demand for various incidental IT services is increasing. Data recovery service is one of these incidental services and the most promising one.

Why Data Recovery is a most promising service for IT firms?

Firstly, Data loss not only means a large sum of cost wasting for companies. It also hampers routines and slows down development of enterprise. So if there is any way to rescue the data and avoid the loss, all companies are willing to accept and buy the service.

Secondly, IT firms have one unique advantage to start Data Recovery Service. Mostly, Data loss is always companied by computer crash. When Computer Crash happened, most clients wouldn’t realize that they need data recovery service. They prefer to call IT service companies to repair their computer. So if IT firms can provide data recovery service while clients need it, it is very favorable for both clients and IT firms.

Thirdly, data recovery is new and it has bright prospective future. If you heard of the JBL ad on airplane and know JBL starts providing Data Recovery Service, how will you react on that?

So for most IT firms, Data Recovery Service can be new revenue.

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What is Hard Drive Data Recovery?

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Hard drive data recovery is the method of recovering data from computer hard drives when it cannot be accessed in the normal manner. This failure to access the hard drive could be caused due to logical damage to the file system or any physical damage that had occurred to the storage device, thereby preventing it from being mounted by the host operating system, and demanding a hard drive data recovery in progress.

The physical damage to a hard drive could occur due to several mechanical failures such as failed motors or head crashes. The physical damage of a hard drive can always lead to some data loss and in many cases this can also results in damage to the logical structures of the file system requiring a logical hard drive data recovery, too. In fact, logical damages to a file system are more common than physical damage. This includes damages caused by power outages, which prevent file system structures from being completely written to the hard drive, system crashes, and problems with hardware (particularly RAID controllers) all of which may be retrievable through hard drive data recovery.

Most physical damages to hard drives cannot be repaired by end users and require professional hard drive data recovery. For instance, opening a hard drive in a normal environment can cause dust to settle on the surface, resulting in further damage to the platters. Mind you, normal computer users may not have enough technical experience to make such type of repairs. This is where hard drive data recovery companies play a major role in helping the end user to recover their valuable data from a damaged hard drive. Almost all of these hard drive data recovery firms use Class 100 clean room facilities to protect your hard drive while repairing, and use the latest tools such as magnetometers to retrieve the lost bits from the magnetic media. The extracted raw bits retrieved from the damaged disk are used to rebuild a disk image, which can then be mounted to have its logical damage repaired.

Nowadays, there are several companies which offer hard drive data recovery software programs which help the end users to recover all their important files or folders lost after an accidental format, partition loss, software malfunction, file or directory deletion, or virus crash. Whether your computer crashes or you accidentally delete the files, hard drive data recovery software helps you to locate, recover and restore lost information from your disk.

Some of the main contexts where hard drive data recovery software could save one from the blues include a formatted drive, deleted file or directory, missing file or directory, drive not booting, inaccessible drive, support copying system locked files like registry hives, damaged or corrupted partition table, recovery of deleted files and folders on FAT and NTFS hard drive or partitions, retrieve compressed files from NTFS partitions, hard drive data recovery on damaged FAT and NTFS partitions, and formatted hard drives.

Most of the hard drive data recovery software programs available in the market are easy to install and use and are virtually self maintaining. It is highly recommended to use any of the popular hard drive data recovery software in your computer along with other programs. Some of these programs frequently create backup copies of all your files so that you need not have to worry about any potential unexpected data loss.

In order to avoid the high costs of a hard drive data recovery, always bear in mind it is better to prevent and prepare than repent and repair later.

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The Sorts of Data Recovery

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Category 1 data recovery does not require clean room procedures. Typically, formatted hard drives, deleted files, data copy or transfer to a new hard drive, deleted, damaged or corrupt partition structure, virus or spyware infections, when your computer keeps rebooting, after power surges and outages fall into this category. Category 1 data recovery prices start at $299 and always costs less than $500. Basically, if your hard drive is recognized by the system but you cannot locate or access files you are looking at a category 1 data recovery.

Category 2 data recovery does not involve opening your hard drive but does require specialized equipment to rewrite firmware, modules and recalibrate or program your hard drive in order to get it reading so we can extract your files. In many cases it is necessary to perform low level access of your drive to gain access to your files. Pricing for Category 2 data recovery typically runs between $499 and will never exceed $999. Category 2 data recovery is often required when your drive shows up corrupt, some clicking, incorrect drive size, n40p, Athena, a model number only, Maxtor, ROMULUS, RIGEL, NIKE, PROXIMA, etc.

Category 3 data recovery involves some cleanroom procedures to access your hard drive and recover your data. Recovery may involve removing stuck heads from platter surfaces, realigning heads, cleaning platter surfaces, replacing PCB, electronic components and utilizing our imaging equipment to create a sector-by-sector image of your hard drive while bypassing bad areas. Category 3 data recovery procedures are labor intensive and prices start at $999 and are will never exceed $1500.00. You normally need a category 3 or 4 data recovery if your hard drive is clicking, making unusual sounds, not recognized by the system, it isn’t spinning or the heads are stuck on the platters.

Category 4 data recovery requires intensive cleanroom procedures to recover your files. Category 4 data recovery is the most intensive and time consuming and starts at $1379.00. Read heads are replaced, platters may be transplanted (requires high-tech equipment to remount and align properly), internal electronics may need to be replaced, platter surfaces are scratched, scarred or contain multiple head crashes. Platters may be warped from excessive heat or the spindle motor is frozen (often indicated by beeping, buzzing or musical sounds like Mario).

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Cleanroom

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A cleanroom is an essential facility for any reputable data recovery specialist because of the close tolerance mechanisms found inside storage media.

They are used in situations where environmental variables such as temperature, humidity, airborne contaminates etc. can adversely affect the critical repair of sensitive electronic components.

The cleanroom is a perfectly sealed environment designed to prevent migration of contaminants onto the highly sensitive media. State of the art filtration systems and air management equipment creates positive air pressure inside the chamber to provide the highest level of protection against potential contamination.

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To prevent data loss

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The best prevention is to always remember to back-up your data!

Accidents may happen: coffee is spilled on your CD or Zip drive, a CD falls on the floor and gets scratched, the hard drive does not want to spin after being unused during 2 humid summer months, … Anything may happen, but you should not worry if your most valuable data is stored separately in a safe place.

Another thing to remember is to use anti-virus software routinely, especially if you download from the Internet! Your data could be as easily corrupted by a computer virus as by any natural disaster. To protect your data from the newest viruses, update your antivirus program as often as possible.

Avoid electro-static discharge (ESD) during installation of the drives and later handling. Do not touch electric contacts on the controller board with your bare hands. When handling the drives, try to keep your other hand on a metal part of your PC, which will serve as a “ground”.

Keep your storage systems clean!
Particulate contamination is a clear and present danger for all types of storage media since is causes mechanical damage which is rarely recoverable and can crash the entire storage device!

Keep your data cool!
Storage systems, especially magnetic media, may suffer from the so-called ‘thermal decay’ of magnetic information. In other words, your magnetic domains will lose their magnetization much faster at higher temperatures, and your bits of information will disappear… Magnetic drives are designed to operate in conditions comfortable for humans. Therefore, there is no danger in keeping your drives at 40 (104F) and even 50C (122F). But, exceeding this temperature by much can be harmful.

Prevent impacts on your storage device, especially when it is running! For example, don’t move your desktop when the power is on! All commercial storage systems are designed to withstand significant shock and vibration, but there is always a chance that your drive may be damaged by an impact.

Keep away your magnetic storage from strong magnetic fields!

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My disk presented problems. What should I do?

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Turn off the computer.
Call professional data company to make a more precise evaluation and to certify that the problem is really loss of data.

Remove the media (hard disk) from the computer carefully.

Do not let any person without specialization in this area open your hard disk or execute programs that promise to recover your data.

Do not reinstall the operating system or any other kind of program.

Avoid turning on and turning off the computer repetitive times to try to make the hard disk work, because this could damage it even more and make the recovery of data impossible.

If you feel or sense strange noises in your hard disk don’t even try to turn it on again.

Avoid using any utilities program to reconstruct the FAT tables and partitions. These programs could make the recovery work even more difficult and sometimes impossible.

If it was necessary, we could tell you if the program you are trying to use could or not have an influence with the data recovery.

Before sending your media to a professional data recovery company, make sure that it will really need the information that is within it.

Send your media to a specialized company in data recovery.

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