Category Archives: Guide

Tutorials or links to helpful resources

HTS5450 Second Generation

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Now in it’s new 7mm slimline form factor, and Advanced Format specification. This hard drive is proving a popular choice for Vendors with limited space within their new hardware such as Ultra thin laptops and slim portable external cases. Now being manufactured by Western Digital under the  brand name of HGST, the 500GB boasts just a single media platter to store all that data. I would like to make customers aware of the new Advanced Format specification of these drives. Certain Operating systems such as Windows XP require the use of the HGST Align Tool provided by Western Digital. Customers with the latest Macintosh Operating system and Windows 7, do not require the use of this Tool.

Advanced Format has been introduced to cram more data on a single platter. To do this the manufacturer has increased the standard 512 byte sector size to a whopping 4096 byte sector. This format design also incorporates better data integrity, hopefully giving the customer all round better performance.

Customers need to remember at the end of the day, electronic devices can malfunction at any time. So make sure you always backup your precious data.

Format Your Drive For A Mac

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Plenty of shops will sell you a “Mac Hard Drive” but there is no reason why you cannot use a windows format drive on a Mac. You just need to format it first. There was once a time when a drive was specially formatted by Apple to use on their Macs, but these days Apple use the same hard drives as everyone else. To use with the latest versions of OS X I would recommend following the steps below.

NOTE: Formatting your drive will destroy all the data. Make sure there’s nothing on there you need.

1. First attach the drive to your Mac. The Mac will notify you with a small finder window to initialise the drive. See below.

Format Your Drive For A Mac

Initialize Your Drive For A Mac

2. Once you have clicked initialize you will see the Disk Utility Application window. See below.

Format Your Drive For A Mac

Mac Disk Utility

3. You need to select the drive you want to format in the left hand window of the utility as highlighted in blue. Internal drives show as grey and external drives show as yellow. At this point make sure you choose the correct drive, the utility will not allow you to format the internal boot drive. See below.

Format Your Drive For A Mac

Drive selected

4. Now choose the Partition Tab. See below.

Format Your Drive For A Mac

Partition Tab

5. Now click on the Partition Layout drop down bar and choose the first option “1 Partition”. Also to the right under Partition Information give your drive a name and below that choose the partition type you want which will be Mac OS Extended ( journaled ). We are nearly there. You now need to click on the options tab in the bottom left of the utility window and choose GUID Partition Table and click okay. As you will read in the text information, this allows the drive to be used with all current OS X Macs. See Below.

Format Your Drive For A Mac

Options Tab

7. Now all you need to do is click the apply button as shown in red below.

Format Your Drive For A Mac

Apply

8. Another window will appear asking for confirmation to partition the drive. Click partition. See below.

Format Your Drive For A Mac

Partition Drive

9. A formatting window with a progress bar will now appear and then disappear when done. You will now see your named drive in the left window, which means that your drive is now formatted. Close the disk utility and the hard drive is ready to use. See below.

Format Your Drive For a Mac

Hard Drive Formatted

 

Our Apple Mac Data Migration Service

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We have been offering Apple Mac Data Migration as a service for many years now. Here’s a quick reminder about this service which we call Mac Setup. You are bound to be over the moon when you are told that we have recovered your lost data, but in many cases this is only half the battle.

We wrote a detailed blog on the subject back in November 2011, but it still appears to trouble many customers.

We still often get the questions: ”What do I do with the recovered data once I receive it?” and “How do I get the data back into it’s original places on my Mac?” For out-of-warranty Macs, this is where our Mac Setup comes into play. For a fixed cost we will provide you with a new installed hard drive, with all your recovered data migrated into it’s original locations, so that when you receive your Macintosh computer back, hey presto! it’s as if your Mac had never failed in the first place, everything up and running as it was.

How Hard Drives Store Data Across Multiple Heads

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In most computers, the data you save gets stored on a hard drive. However the drive does not store your files in a straightforward way. When you save files on your computer the data is written magnetically by a fixed comb of heads stacked above one another. These heads pass between several magnetic discs, writing data as they go. In most cases, instead of storing files on one whole disk they are split up and distributed among the disks. This means that when we carry out data recovery we usually need all of the disc surfaces in good condition to get the data back.

How Hard Drives Store Data Across Multiple Heads

How Hard Drives Store Data Across Multiple Heads

When required we can use a process to take the data from the drive one disc surface at a time. This can allow us to avoid using a failing head until we have the rest of the data extracted. When we have extracted all of the data the parts are rejoined to allow access the files. In some cases this is the only way to get the data back.

Hard drives do not allow access to individual disks during normal operations so we need to use specialist hardware and software.

 

Apple iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive Recall

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Apple have recently announced a recall program for all iMacs with internal 1TB Seagate Hard Drives. These hard drives fail unexpectedly with no prior warning. We highlighted the failure of these hard drives in a blog back in 2009. You can check whether your iMac has an internal 1TB Seagate Hard Drive by entering your iMac Serial Number at this link.

If you have one of these hard drives that has already failed and you wish to recover your data, then please contact us.

Where Does My Computer Store My Files ?

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It is surprising how many times were are asked this question when a customers data is recovered and ready to be put onto a hard drive to send back. Apart from a customers personal pictures and documents many of them are not familiar with what other information they may need. This will include such data as Mail, Address Book, Internet Bookmarks & Favourites, Calendars and some Program Data Files.

The operating system you use will determine where this data is held. I will try and give a general description below of locations for Mac & PC users.

PC Windows Operating System

All user data should be stored within the users profile folder, which is created when the PC’s is first used. This is usually located in the following locations depending on the version of Windows:

Windows 95,98,NT,2000 & XP Local Disk C:\Documents and Settings\User ( for example C:\Documents and Settings\John )

Windows 7 Windows C:\Users\User ( For example C:\Users\John )

In systems earlier than Windows 7, some software may put user data or settings within the “Program Files” folder in the root of the drive. This was considered bad practice so in Windows 7 any Program Data should be found in the “Program Data” folder on the root of the drive and not in “Program Files”.

Macintosh Operating System

All user data is stored within the users profile folder, which is created when the Mac is first used. This is located in the following location.

Macintosh HD/Users/user ( for example Macintosh HD/Users/john )

Novatech Data Recovery Nationwide

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Following the success of our local data recovery partnership with Novatech, we now have expanded our partnership services to cover Novatech’s other stores nationally. You will find our leaflets at the service department counter in your local store.

Burning Linux ISO to USB Using a Mac

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My main computer is an old MacBook Pro. I often download Linux ISOs to install on other computers. In recent Debian-esque releases this is actually really simple.

1. I find it quicker and easier to install from USB so first insert a USB pen / stick of some sort.

Note: This USB stick will be erased, so don’t use one with data that you need to keep!

2. Next we need to find out which number has been assigned to the USB stick. If you only have one disk in your Mac then the USB will usually be disk1, but always check first. (Note: Disks are numbered from zero, so your internal drive should be disk0) On your Mac open Disk Utility, which is located within Applications / Utilities. (See Image)

Disk Utility

Disk Utility

Select the USB stick from the lefthand window and then click the Info button which is on the toolbar. (See Image)

USB Info

USB Info

You will get a pop up window with loads of information about the device. We only need the Disk Identifier. Make a note of this for later.

Disk Identifier

Disk Identifier

3. To allow us to write data to the USB stick we need to unmount any volumes currently on there. (see image)

Unmount USB

Unmount USB

4. Now comes the actual writing. First locate the Terminal application, again within Applications / Utilities. (see image)

Mac Terminal

Mac Terminal

5. Remember to change the code to match your Disk Identifier from earlier. There are a few things to note about the following command.

  • sudo – allows you to run dangerous commands, so will require an administrator password
  • Instead of typing the location of the ISO file you can just drag the ISO onto the terminal when required.
  • “if” means input file (in this case the ISO file), “of” means output file (the USB stick)
  • When we found out the Disk Identifier, it was disk1. That will work in the command, but we use rdisk1 instead, which gives us raw access to the disk. This may not be necessary, but it works for me.

There is a lot of discussion about block sizes, but I find 4MB is reasonable for writing ISOs to USB. In Linux we often type bs=4M, however the Mac prefers it like bs=4096 instead. It’s the same thing, just expressed differently.

The command:

sudo dd if=[drag iso here] of=/dev/r[disk number] bs=4096; sync

Example:

sudo dd if=/Users/dan/Desktop/linux.iso of=/dev/rdisk1 bs=4096; sync

If you’ve got it right, you shouldn’t get any feedback until it finishes. Your USB stick may have a blinking LED whilst the data is being written. For reference the 200MB debian-netinst ISO took just over a minute to write.

Once complete you should get something like:

48896+0 records in
48896+0 records out
200278016 bytes transferred in 95.151719 secs (2104828 bytes/sec)

This means you’re finished. Now eject the USB and try to boot your PC with it. The Mac may complain that the disk is not readable but just ignore that and try it on a PC.

Debian Boot

Debian Boot

What is a “Digital Negative”

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We see various types of camera media come into us for data recovery, with surprisingly many different photo image formats. Many camera manufacturers use their own particular raw format set as a default when the image is taken.

This raw format is called a “digital negative” containing untouched data straight from the camera. These raw format images are usually larger in size compared to standard compressed JPG images.

The benefits are that it allows modification of the untouched uncompressed image such as sharpness, saturation and white balance at a later date using relevant photographic software. It is surprising how many customers we see who are not even aware that their digital camera stores the images in this way. Below are a few of the different raw file types in use today

The following is a description about some RAW formats:

  • CRW - Canon Digital Camera Raw Image Format. Raw image format for some Canon digital cameras. Raw images are basically the data as it comes directly from the CCD detector in the camera. Raw files can also contain text information about the picture and conditions in the camera when the picture was taken.
  • CR2 - Canon Digital Camera Raw Image Format version 2.0. Raw files can also contain text information about the picture and conditions in the camera when the picture was taken. These images are based on the TIFF image standard. Konvertor will display these EXIF metadata.
  • NEF - Nikon Digital SLR Camera Raw Image File. Raw image format for some Nikon digital cameras. Raw images are basically the data as it comes directly from the CCD detector in the camera.
  • RAF - Fuji CCD-RAW Graphic File. Exif (Exchangeable Image File) information is within the file along with the image. Some graphics programs are starting to recognize the format; e.g., Qimage, Thumbnails for Fuji, and others.
  • X3F - Sigma Camera RAW Picture File. Use the SIGMA Photo Pro software provided with the camera to download and manipulate the photos. The Foveon X3 direct image sensor captures all three colors at every pixel location and requires special software to manipulate the RAW files.
  • BAY - Kodak/Roper Bayer Picture Sequence. A specific Kodak picture format used by some high speed video cameras such as Kodak HRC-1000.
  • ORF - Descent 3 Outrage Room Format.
  • MRW - Minolta Diamage Raw Image File. Raw image format for some Minolta digital cameras. Raw images are basically the data as it comes directly from the CCD detector in the camera. Raw files can also contain text information about the picture and conditions in the camera when the picture was taken.
  • RAW - Image Alchemy HSI Temporary Raw Bitmap
  • SRF - Sony DSC-F828 Raw Image File. CCD-Sensor RAW Data File from Sony DSC-F828 8 megapixel digital camera. Adobe Photoshop CS with Camera-RAW-Plug-In v2.2 opens this file type.

 

Old Quantum Pro Drive 250 MB 50 Pin SCSI

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Old Quantum Pro Drive 250mb 50pin SCSI

This hard drive was opened in our clean room for internal rework. In the process we found that the rubber crash stops attached to the VCM magnet were perished.  They were oozing sticky rubber solution contaminating the drive internally. A word of warning to anyone who may still have one of these hard drives with critical data. I would recommend back up and replacement. This particular hard drive was out of a synthesiser that had stopped working.