Data recovery - some useful info

[SouthBit]

Hi all,

We posted an article on Lifehacker last week, it might be of interest to some of you. It's a basic article that outlines some of the symptoms you might experience when your hard drive fails, and in some cases what you can try yourself to get your data back if sending it in for professional recovery isn't an option.

http://lifehacker.com/5982339/diy-data-recovery-tricks-for-when-your-hard-drive-goes-belly-up

 

[NomNom]

Cool article thanks!

 

[ponder]

Cool article thanks!

With some scary comments

 

[SouthBit]

With some scary comments

Tell me about it...

 

[The_Unbeliever]

Interesting article, thanks

 

[sajunky]

Funny things, write a good article and get spoiled immediately by the first comment (codenamed - freezer).
On serious note, I'd like to see more details how to identify failing drives, which is tricky job as it leads to filesystem corruption. Early diagnose saves lives. But the first things people try is Checkdisk and it is mistake in the case of disk failure.
Secondly, it should be consumer voice added on the issue of buying external drives which are encrypting data. Most of consumers are not aware of encryption involved - till they try to recover data. Such models affected are WD Passport and some WD Essentials. Now added to the encryption, some drives have intergrated SATA to USB bridge on the PCB, it makes very difficult for recovery, even for data recovery specialist. Consumer pays for it in the end.

 

[ponder]

Now added to the encryption, some drives have intergrated SATA to USB bridge on the PCB, it makes very difficult for recovery, even for data recovery specialist. Consumer pays for it in the end.

You can pick up the sata side tracks on the PCB and with a steady hand and soldering iron get a temp sata port going. Never done this before but have seen some guides on the net.

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1642867
http://www.datarecoverytools.co.uk/...-western-digital-drives-with-hd-doctor-suite/
http://forum.hddguru.com/wd10tmvv-t16204-100.html#p137176

 

[Park@82]

Thanks, will keep in mind when I have a drive fail on me.

 

[sajunky]

Thanks, will keep in mind when I have a drive fail on me.

Right, but it will not help much (even you find on the net a picture with pin location for your specific drive), as you will have to deal with encryption. Even you can read sectors, all you get is a stream of encrypted data.
And what if you need to swap PCB and transfer ROM chip?
It is why I wrote that combination of on-board USB bridge and encryption is a things to avoid. Spread a message.