Data Recovery Blog
A selection of our articles, written by us and not Ai generated. These are generally details of some of the recoveries we’ve completed, or other associated info.
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iPhone Data Recovery – Obstacles
Hardware 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…
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How Hard Drives Store Data Across Multiple Heads
In most computers, when you save files they get stored on a hard drive. Although you wouldn’t know it, the drive does not store your files in a straightforward way. 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 spread across 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. When…
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Apple iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive Recall
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 noted the failure of these hard drives in a post 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. This recall program has now ended. If you have one of these hard drives that has failed you may be interested in our Mac Data Recovery Services.
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Data Recovery Success Rates October 2012
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…
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How a Data Recovery Engineer Sees RAID
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…
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How Your HDS722020ALA330 Looks To Us
This immense 2TB iMac drive may be heavy, but have you ever wondered why? 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.
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Where Does My Computer Store My Files ?
When you boot up your computer, you expect to see all your familiar files on the desktop, or maybe in the documents folder. What you may not realise is that those folders are actually a bit harder to find if you look at the disk externally. It depends what operating system you use so below is a general guide of locations for Mac & PC users. Windows Operating System All user data should be stored within the user profile folder, which is created when the PCs is first used. This is usually located in the following locations depending on the version of Windows: Windows 95,…
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Hard Drive Crash During OS Upgrade
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. 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.…
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Common Data Recovery Myths Exposed
Myth 1: When files are deleted they are gone forever. Fact: When files are deleted they are actually only removed from an index. Unless you then overwrite those sectors with new data, the files will still be there. If you delete a file it is important to stop using the computer. Even browsing the internet causes cache files and images to be downloaded to the hard drive, potentially overwriting the deleted files. Myth 2: Putting a hard drive in the freezer will bring it back to life. Fact: This is an old one, which will not die. We have never…
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What Is Hard Drive Firmware?
Hard drive firmware is the embedded software which controls the running of your hard drive. Most of it is stored within hidden sectors on the hard drive, and in normal operation you wouldn’t know it was there. Whenever you power up a drive, the firmware makes the motor spin, starts the read / write heads, and checks against a list of bad sectors. Only then will the computer be able to access the data area and allow you to see your files. If there is a problem with the firmware, the drive will get stuck and you won’t be able…