What do data recovery companies use?

ponder

ponder

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This thread could probably also be in the Software section.

What do data recovery companies use to recover data?

Besides the swapping logic boards & opening a drive up in a clean room to replace components & remove platters.

Scenario: HD has so many bad sectors you cannot recover the data by using one of the many utilities from places like Ontrack or making an image via linux dd util etc. Data recovery companies in this case can recover the data without opening the drive or replacing components. Do they have some form of software with low level access to the drive?

I'm curious. Anyone in the data recovery business care to comment?
 
HTC_Guy does this type of stuff, he would probably know...


so how much blue movies did you lose this time?
 
From a few google searches it seems the Russians are into the low level stuff. So far I've come across MHDD.
 
you can attach / solder a lead to the controller serial out pin and initiate a data dump by shorting the read pin and providing a clock on the appropriate pin. Then you have a raw binary dump which can be analyzed with other thingies. Thats if you can get the platters to spin of course. Otherwise they need to be transplanted into a working bench setup and then spun up. You get some pretty cool benches that include all sorts of read heads.
 
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bleh69 said:
you can attach / solder a lead to the controller serial out pin and initiate a data dump by shorting the read pin and providing a clock on the appropriate pin. Then you have a raw binary dump which can be analyzed with other thingies.
Click to expand...

Raw binary dump of what? Surely not the data as it would take frigging years to dump via serial.
 
Data recovery software used by every serious data recovery company is from Russia manufactured by ACE labs, called PC-3000 UDMA. It controls all drive functions at the lowest level for all brands of drive. Firmware module repair, selective head imaging, etc.

It costs about R50,000.00. I know - I've paid my pennies for it.
 
South_Bit said:
Data recovery software used by every serious data recovery company is from Russia manufactured by ACE labs, called PC-3000 UDMA. It controls all drive functions at the lowest level for all brands of drive. Firmware module repair, selective head imaging, etc.

It costs about R50,000.00. I know - I've paid my pennies for it.
Click to expand...

Shot. Since I posted this I have actually researched a lot and came across PC-3000 as well as others like Atola, Salvation Data, Deepspar, Data Extractor etc that make imaging or diagnostic tools. PC-3000 seems to be the best for diagnostics & repairs.

Overall a very secretive industry though when it comes to information sharing.
 
Hah funny you say that, it is indeed a secretive industry. A very specialised one so it figures. Salvation's software is known to be very buggy and still in its infancy. Atola is also very new. Deepspar's Disk Imager is the best that money can buy. Data Extractor is an addition to PC-3000.

Hoping to get a DDI soon to add to my inventory.
 
South_Bit said:
Hah funny you say that, it is indeed a secretive industry. A very specialised one so it figures.
Click to expand...

It would be less specialised if a lot of the information was public and not hoarded, there will however always be a need for higher level stuff. Average joe at home is not going to swap heads or transfer platters, desolder surface mount chips etc because he does not have the correct environment & tools, nevermind carrying the spares.

Average joe at home does not even follow simple basics when dealing with a corrupted drive or one with a few bad sectors.
 
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True, but this stuff isn't out in the open and isn't 'taught' anyway. Kind of like a scientist and his secrets. Information is money.

True, average joe isn't going to be able to do more than run a few terminal commands if he's lucky. I feel sorry for joe when he opens the top cover to 'have a look'. Game over. Replacing SMD chips is pretty easy actually...if you know what you need to replace and have spares to replace with :)

It's taken me a long time to find suppliers of parts, so I'm in a position now of having a clean enviroment to open drives if need be, spare donor parts and now PC-3000. It takes a lot of time, a lot of effort and money to gather all of these aspects and put them together.
 
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