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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Stop Password Expiration In Windows 7
My brother has just brought me his laptop to look at after forgetting the login password. It was frequently asking him to change the password, and one day he changed it and then forgot it. I found a simple command to stop the password from expiring: First run Cmd (Command Line) as Administrator (click Start -> and type cmd. Right click on Cmd and choose “Run As Administrator”). If you followed correctly this should give you a black command line window with white text. Then type: net accounts /maxpwage:unlimited And press return or enter. It should congratulate you, or say…
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Seagate Head Crash
This Seagate ST31000333AS 1TB drive suffered a head crash resulting in severe media damage. The contamination caused by the damage can be seen on the disc surface as well as the internal filter. The filter is usually white but is now silver metallic in colour as a result of the contamination. The customer did not have any indication that this was going to happen.
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MacBook Pro Glitching Fix
Just fixed an annoying problem that started when I upgraded to Lion. When dragging something to the dock from finder, or from a stack to Finder there would be a flash of strange coloured graphics at random points around the screen. It’s gone too fast for me to do a screenshot but I may try to get a small video of it. Anyway, the fix is easy and involves turning the dock from 3D to 2D mode. The Terminal commands are as follows: defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES killall Dock The first command sets the Dock into 2D mode,…
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Make a file or folder hidden in Finder
Sometimes when we clone a Mac drive using unconventional methods, it works fine, but has an annoying side effect; Files that are usually hidden in the Finder are instead displayed and accessible to users. These files are hidden for a reason, and contain things like the UNIX system files and some Mac system files which you probably shouldn’t mess with. Luckily there is a simple terminal command to make these files hidden again. It doesn’t delete them, just changes their file attributes. sudo chflags hidden filename sudo allows you to run commands as Super User so be careful! It will…
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Mac Data Migration
If we recover a good amount of your data, the easiest way to get your Mac running again is using the Migration Assistant – a standard Apple utility included with all modern versions of Mac OS X. The process for restoration varies a little bit depending upon how your Mac is currently set up. Best Case Scenario: If you have a new hard drive with a fresh system installed, and have not yet clicked through the Setup Assistant screens follow this guide. >>> 2nd Best Case Scenario: If you have a new hard drive and have set it up with…
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Mac migration to a previously setup system
So you have a Mac which boots up to a desktop as normal, but without your recovered data. This is not quite ideal, and gives us a few things to sort out before the migration. If you’ve not yet had your data recovered, check our Mac Data Recovery Services. Arrange. You will first have to backup any newly created data. If something goes wrong with migration then you don’t want to lose your new data. If this new system has been created with the same username as the old one, you will not be able to import the old user…
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Mac migration to a freshly installed system
If you have a new drive in your Mac with a fresh system, this guide shows you how to get the recovered data back in the right places. We can transfer your whole user account and most Applications into the correct locations on the new system. When you reboot, the Mac will be back how you left it when the hard drive failed. Perfect! Connect. Connect the new hard drive to your Mac. If it’s a desktop 3.5” drive then plug in the power adapter and switch it on. The Mac should be off at this point. If you are restoring to…
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Show or Hide Mac Files – Simple Bash Scripts
Had to make these little scripts today. All they do is change AppleShowAllFiles to either YES or NO and then relaunch the Finder. No warranties for this, just thought it may help somebody out. WARNING: This May Not Work, Or May Break Something. Keeping it online for reference only. Script contents below: #!/bin/bash defaults write com.apple.Finder AppleShowAllFiles NO killall Finder && open /System/Library/CoreServices/Finder.app You may need to chmod +x to get these to run. Download Show Hide Mac Files / Folders Script.zip Download removed as I no longer use this, and I’m not sure if it still works.
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Thai Floods Also Hitting Seagate
Last week we wrote about the Thai floods affecting hard drive manufacturer Western Digital. It now appears that the floods are causing problems for Seagate. Although not directly affecting their own manufacturing plants, the floods are causing problems in the supply chain, which could cause delays and shortages getting their drives to market. Read more at the Register
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Badly Damaged Heads
Working inside a broken hard drive today we came across some of the most damaged read / write heads we have ever seen. First, below is an example of how the heads should look. Notice how straight they are at the ends. Then below are the damaged heads. They are at 90 degrees to the discs (tomb stoning) and would have been scraping the inner disc surfaces to pieces. Bad times! If you ever hear scraping, scratching or screeching noises from your hard drive, turn it off as soon as possible. If left too long, it could scrape all of the…