Tag Archives: Data Recovery

Troubleshoot Buffalo External Hard Drive

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Like most external hard drives, Buffalo external drives are simply a wrapper around a regular hard drive. Aside from the protective shell they also have some electronic parts to convert between the internal hard drive and the external USB, Firewire, eSATA or Thunderbolt connections.

If you have problems with an external drive, you can perform a relatively simple test to check where the fault lies. Be aware that opening the external drive case will probably void your warranty, and if there is crucial data on the drive you should seek professional data recovery. That’s the obligatory warning out the way, so lets have a look at some troubleshooting.

Troubleshooting tips.

  • First check all cables are plugged in securely, and not damaged or frayed near the ends.. If you have an identical drive with spare cables try them, but make sure you don’t plug in a power supply with different voltage! Hard drives don’t handle extra voltage well so you’ll end up in a worse position than you started.
  • If you know how, you could remove the hard drive from the external case and attach it directly to a PC to see if that allows access to the data. If it does, you should copy the data off straight away. Problems have a habit of coming along in twos and threes so don’t push your luck.
  • Whatever you do, don’t dismantle the actual hard drive. Hard drives are built in controlled clean-air environments and even the smallest spec of dust can cause permanent damage to the drive.
  • Since the introduction of unique ROM chips on the hard drives, it is often no longer possible to exchange circuit boards with another hard drive to access the data. In our experience circuit board problems are far less common than they used to be.

If you are looking for data recovery from an external hard drive then have a look at our external drive recovery services.

SSD Data Recovery

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SSD Data Recovery

SSD Data Recovery

SSDs (Solid State Drives) may one day become the standard form of storage in computers. Apple laptops are already heading that way. There are certainly many advantages when comparing SSDs to HDDs (Hard Disk Drives), however they do bring their own problems, which are often not well reported. We don’t care how good SSDs can be. We care about how they fail. It’s common to hear things like: “I’m replacing my hard drive with an SSD so I won’t have to worry about it crashing again.” While this is technically true – there are no moving parts to crash – there are plenty of other ways an SSD can fail. Whether it’s technically crashed or not doesn’t matter at all when you can’t access your files. It’s a shame but an SSD does not get you out of the boring task of running regular backups.

There are some pros and cons which specifically affect data recovery from SSDs. I haven’t listed things like battery life or read / write speed as they are not relevant when it comes to recovering data from them.

SSD Data Recovery Pros:

  • Shock resistance. No moving parts to crash.
  • Just as susceptible to filesystem issues, deletion, reformatting, bad sectors etc which can be recovered using existing equipment.

SSD Cons:

  • False sense of security. The word reliable comes up a lot in SSD marketing with phrases like “More reliable, faster, and more durable than traditional magnetic hard drives.” Maybe research exists that shows SSDs are less prone to failure but it doesn’t seem to be the case at the moment. Anything that holds your valuable data runs the risk of getting drenched, getting stolen, getting lost, and that’s before we even take general failures into account.
  • Susceptible to electronic failure, Maybe more so than a hard drive as the storage and electronics are combined in SSDs. Some of the most common hard drive failures are caused by errors in the firmware which controls the performance of the drive. SSDs have very complex firmware, which opens the possibility of firmware corruption. In most cases firmware corruption will block access to your data.
  • Encryption. Most modern SSDs encrypt the data at a hardware level, which makes it impossible to remove data chips and extract data from them externally (you can do it, but the data is encrypted). The keys to the encryption are often stored within the controller chip, so if that fails, you could be locked out of your data for good. Modern encryption works well. You can’t get round it.
  • Wear-levelling algorithms. Which move the data around the SSDs to improve performance, can make recovery difficult as these algorithms would need to be taken into account when accessing a failed SSD. They don’t store data in logical order like hard drives do.

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.

iPhone Data Recovery – Obstacles

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Hardware

iPhone Data Recovery

iPhone Data Recovery

When developing our iPhone data recovery process we had to make a few decisions about the devices we can support. The newer iPhones (4s +) are not accessible in the same way as older models.

With the iPhone 4 and below we can extract the data using a forensically clean process. What this means is that we can take the data off without writing anything to the NAND chips (storage) inside the iPhone. This fits in perfectly with our regular data recovery process as we never write data to a device we receive.

With the iPhone 4s, Apple changed the part of the system we use to access the iPhone’s memory. There is a chance that a new method of extraction for iPhone 4s will become available, but until it does we will not be recovering files from these devices.

Physical damage

iPhones store their data on NAND chips which are soldered to the main circuit board of the phone. The data can only be correctly decoded if we also have access to other parts of the circuit board, so it is crucial that the iPhone is electronically functional. If water damage has shorted the iPhone then we have no way to access the data externally. It’s not that it’s impossible, just that the work would be unreasonably expensive and time consuming.

Deleted Files

Another potential barrier for iPhone recovery is down to the way files are stored. Since iOS4 most files including iPhone camera photos and videos are encrypted before being written to storage, using unique encryption keys. This means every file ends up with a different header. When files are deleted there is nothing to distinguish a photograph from any other random collection of bytes.

Another problem with the file based encryption is that if you restore the iPhone using iTunes, those encryption keys get erased and new ones are generated. This prevents recovery of the old data, which is good for security but bad for data recovery.

 

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.

Data Recovery Success Rates October 2012

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October was a pretty busy month for us, so I thought it would be a good chance to check on our success rate. As you can see from the graphic below, we have a great success rate of at least 69%. We always keep an eye on our success rate, to make sure we are still recovering as many drives as possible. Our success rate is often higher than 69% but we did get a few non-recoverable drives which had suffered physical media damage. For an example of why those are unrecoverable, have a look at a photo of a head crash. (Tip: Those dark circular lines are not meant to be there!)

Data Recovery Success Rate October 2012

Data Recovery Success Rate October 2012

Of those successful jobs, a whopping 90% of them were recovered without even needing to repair them in our cleanroom. This is interesting as cleanroom facilities are often advertised as one of the most important factors when choosing a data recovery company. Not to undermine the need for cleanroom facilities, but they are not required for most hard drives.

Data Recovery Success Rate October 2012 Split

Data Recovery Success Rate October 2012 Split

In the graphic above we have classified non-cleanroom jobs as external, and cleanroom jobs as internal.

 

How a Data Recovery Engineer Sees RAID

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As somebody recovering data from RAID arrays, my view on them is a little different to the norm. In most cases I would say avoid RAID wherever possible. Simplicity is key.

Below are my answers to some real questions I have received from clients about RAIDs.

Why did this RAID disk fail?

Hard drive failure is not unusual and is often not avoidable. The truth is that all hard drives fail eventually, whether they are used in a RAID or not. Even though a RAID system can provide some fault tolerance from physical drive failure, they do have limits. A RAID5 on three disks for example can only handle a single drive failure at any one time. It is common for a second disk to fail whilst the other disk is being replaced. This is when RAID recovery is required; to first access the failed drives, and then rebuild the RAID. The best protection against RAID failure is to make backups. Backups in as many formats, in as many different physical locations as possible.

Why did the server fail so badly? Isn’t RAID meant to prevent this?

A 3-disk RAID5 can only cope with one bad disk. This doesn’t help when two drives fail at the same time. Although a RAID array can provide some leeway when it comes to disk failures, it doesn’t always help when you have multiple failures in quick succession. Adding more disks to the RAID can provide more redundancy, however this costs more money, and also adds complexity when things go wrong. Also you could be in a similar position if three disks happen to fail next time. A live system could fail at any time so prepare for the worst. Backups are cheap, and take a relatively short amount of time. RAID recovery can be expensive and cause unnecessary downtime.

Why couldn’t our IT support recover this?

We are a specialist data recovery company, with access to tools and resources which are not available to IT Support staff. We have spent the last fifteen years perfecting the process of extracting data from failed & failing hard drives and RAID arrays. For the best chance of recovery, we like to get the drives as soon after failure as possible. If more work gets carried out on the drives, things can be made much worse.

How can we avoid this happening again in the future?

To avoid similar problems in the future, the best way forward is some form of regular backup. The backups should be verified and then tested / restored as often as possible. This is where disaster recovery comes in, which can involve simulating certain types of failure and making sure you can get up and running again from your backups. At the very least, it wouldn’t hurt to put the really crucial business files onto an external hard drive every few weeks and store it in your company safe. It’s low-tech but at least you could plug it in to any PC and access the important business data if required as a last resort.

I’m not against RAIDs. They do have their place, but cannot be relied upon as a replacement for regular backups.

We have more articles about RAID here.

How Your HDS722020ALA330 Looks To Us

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This immense 2TB iMac drive may be heavy, but have you ever wondered why? 

HDS722020ALA330 2TB iMac Drive

HDS722020ALA330 2TB iMac Drive

When we recover these drives we often have to work on individual heads. As you can see from the image, this monster has 10 heads (the first is numbered zero). This means there are 5 spinning disks inside the drive.

From the outside, the only clue that these drives are so rammed full of disks is their weight. They are no bigger physically than any other desktop hard drive.

Hard Drive Crash During OS Upgrade

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It is common to hear of hard drive problems happening as a result of a system update, or operating system upgrade. We have a theory that could possible explain this.

First of all, you should always make a full backup of your system before installing an update. It’s not unheard of for updates to go wrong, so this is crucial.

Hard Drive Crash During OS Upgrade / Update

During a software update, a large amount of data gets read and written to and from the hard drive. If the hard drive is functioning fine, this happens without issues. Installing updates is a normal (and necessary) part of computing.

If the hard drive is not quite 100%, then maybe running a software update is the last straw. It puts the failing drive under a bit of extra strain and bang. The hard drive fault which had been lying dormant for months, now rears it’s head and the hard drive gives up, leaving you stranded from your data. Bear in mind that the drive would have failed eventually anyway, but the heavy disk usage probably accelerated the failure.

There are a couple of things to look out for, that may predict an imminent hard drive failure. (Please don’t wait for these signs before backing up. Do it now!)

  • Warnings or messages during boot up
  • Computer being unresponsive / slow at times
  • The dreaded beachball animation (On the Mac)
  • Clicking / chirping noises

If you are running any computer with important data, you should back up immediately and as often as possible. That way it doesn’t matter if your hard drive fails; just throw in a new drive and reload it from your backup.