Anybody purchased data recovery hardware?

[computerfx]

Has anybody purchased any data recovery hardware? It seems to me that after the floods and the temporary hard drive shortages I am seeing more bad hard drives now than ever. Maybe I am just a sucker, but I feel terrible telling customer after customer that I can not recover anything. Currently I have a caseless PC workstation with open SATA and IDE ports, as well as some USB docks, and I used EASEUS Data Recov, On Track Data Recov, DDRescue, but there are still countless drives that I am giving back along with the old "back up your data speech" I currently refer my customer to Drivesavers because they do a free analysis to tell you what they can recover and how much. The pricing however is astronomical and in 5 years of referring customers to them I think twice have I ever had customers go through with it. All the equipment for data recovery that does not require a clean room seems to cost a small fortune, and not that I am opposed to coughing up dough, or don't think it will pay for itself, just wanted to hear some opinions etc first. I have looked at the following:

http://www.acelaboratory.com/pc3000.udma.php

http://www.salvationdata.com/data-recovery-equipment/data-compass.htm

http://atola.com/products/insight/

If this has been posted before I apologize. I did a forum search for Data recovery, hard drive recovery, and just recovery first, and went back 3-4 pages each and did not see this discussed anywhere.

 

[16k_zx81]

Has anybody purchased any data recovery hardware? It seems to me that after the floods and the temporary hard drive shortages I am seeing more bad hard drives now than ever. Maybe I am just a sucker, but I feel terrible telling customer after customer that I can not recover anything. Currently I have a caseless PC workstation with open SATA and IDE ports, as well as some USB docks, and I used EASEUS Data Recov, On Track Data Recov, DDRescue, but there are still countless drives that I am giving back along with the old "back up your data speech" I currently refer my customer to Drivesavers because they do a free analysis to tell you what they can recover and how much. The pricing however is astronomical and in 5 years of referring customers to them I think twice have I ever had customers go through with it. All the equipment for data recovery that does not require a clean room seems to cost a small fortune, and not that I am opposed to coughing up dough, or don't think it will pay for itself, just wanted to hear some opinions etc first. I have looked at the following:

http://www.acelaboratory.com/pc3000.udma.php

http://www.salvationdata.com/data-recovery-equipment/data-compass.htm

http://atola.com/products/insight/

If this has been posted before I apologize. I did a forum search for Data recovery, hard drive recovery, and just recovery first, and went back 3-4 pages each and did not see this discussed anywhere.

search for the brand names and you will find plenty of information. Pretty much every post on data recovery hardware discusses the specifics of the units - ie brand and model. If you search for brand(s) you will get pretty much all the significant threads.

 

[lcoughey]

I've purchased data recovery hardware before.

Before purchasing hardware, you really need to determine exactly how much data recovery you want to do in house and how much you are actually capable doing.

First off...you don't want Salvation Data tools, unless you need some door stops and book ends.

PC3000 is worth its weight in gold and is the premiere tool for most data recovery professionasl. However, it is definitely not a plug and play tool.

The Atola products are certainly making their mark in the world of data recovery. But, if you are going to spend the money on Atola Insight, you would be better off buying PC3000, which costs less and is a much more powerful tool.

On the data recovery imager hardware side of things, there is nothing that compares to DeepSpar Disk Imager.

Unless you want to spend tens of thousands of dollars and have a lot of data recovery projects right away, you are likely better off finding another lab to outsource your projects.

 

[bertie40]

Rstudio is pretty good.
I use that on occasion.

 

[JustInspired]

Stop sending them to DriveSavers. Refer them to or outsource to $300 Data Recovery- 300DDR (not sure I got the username right) here in the forums. I know I would if I was based in the US.
I keep telling him he needs a branch over here

I have come very far compared to last year before I discovered and mastered DDRescue. Still, I would love to have my own DeepSpar unit. Some day...

+1 for R-Studio as mentioned by Rob.

 

[bertie40]

Yeah.
Getting my head around ddrescue is on my todo list.

 

[computerfx]

I am not familiar with rstudio, will check it out for sure. I just did my first successful ddrescue a couple weeks ago. It was not quick, but definitely got some data for a valued customer that I was not able to get using any other software. If I was going to save money and had to choose would you guys recommend getting the PC-3000 first or the Deepspar Disk Imager? Seems like most people go with the DDI, and then deal with data extraction once the drive has been cloned. Also I will ABSOLUTELY be sending work and referring to 300DDR from now on.

 

[16k_zx81]

Yeah.
Getting my head around ddrescue is on my todo list.

Im in the same boat, I have used it a couple of times but if I am completely honest I find command line stuff just too much of a PITA. In my younger days it didnt bother me but now that Im old and grumpy and time poor its a different story

Anyway, there is a 'zero learning curve' option to use gddrescue

try this:

BOOTMED

 

[computerfx]

I used to see people rave about HDD regenerator. But if my understanding is correct it must be run on the original failing drive. Where as most people recommend immediate imaging of bad drive, and not really messing with it much more for fear of worsening it beyond what professionals can recover.

 

[othersteve]

R-Studio is excellent. However, like everything else, before it is run, a proper image of the failing media needs to be created. As previously mentioned, nothing beat the DeepSpar for this step.

DeepSpar + R-Studio is how I roll; everything else (around 30-40% of stuff) I outsource to Brian at $300 Data Recovery (300DDR) and Luke at Recovery Force (lcoughey).

 

[bertie40]

R-Studio is excellent. However, like everything else, before it is run, a proper image of the failing media needs to be created..... .

rstudio has an imaging function built into the program. It can step through the suspect drive and create an image. You can then work on that image directly, again from within rstudio.

Incidentally, it is also good for recovering data from problematic cd and DVDs

PS. Bootmed. A new one to try. Cheers.

 

[lcoughey]

I used to see people rave about HDD regenerator. But if my understanding is correct it must be run on the original failing drive. Where as most people recommend immediate imaging of bad drive, and not really messing with it much more for fear of worsening it beyond what professionals can recover.

HDD Regen is a scam, as far as I'm concerned and you are definitely wise to explore better options.

DeepSpar and R-Studio just announced that R-Studio Technician Edition now support DeepSpar Imagers with the Network Add-On. What that means is that you now see access all your DeepSpar Imagers as drives within R-Studio, which is a very cool feature. I'm sure that there are some improvements to be made, as this was just announced yesterday, but it is a huge step forward in the world of data recovery.

 

[bertie40]

HDD Regen is a scam, as far as I'm concerned and you are definitely wise to explore better options.
.

I wouldn't go as far to say Hdd regen is a scam, as I bought it and used to use it.

It's just that its usefulness is suspect and can give the tech a false sense of success.

I believe it does find bad blocks and does its best to recover the data and relocate it (as per spinrite).

It's just that, if I recall, it stops those bad blocks being redetected afterwards so the drive appears "repaired"

It's worth a try if all else fails, but image that drive first.

 

[computerfx]

I hope I am not crossing too far into the shade of grey here.... I am looking at R-Studio licenses. I am a small shop and only do in store data recovery, typically never a need for more than one at a time. $899 for a tech license is a bit high.... If I buy the regular R-Studio license for $80 and install it on my one bench pc and hook all of "my" hundreds of drives up to it.... Will it do everything I need?

 

[JD1248]

I talked to an R studio rep before purchasing because I wondered the same thing. You can install it on your bench computer and use it on as many drives as you want, according to him. JD

 

[andcorptech]

HDD Regen is a scam, as far as I'm concerned and you are definitely wise to explore better options.

HDDRegen has paid for itself many times over for us. While im sceptical it can permanantly FIX a drive , its allowed us to get data from drives where we previously could not. So while there are other better , more expensive options, I wouldnt class it as a scam.

 

[seedubya]

HDD Regen is a scam, as far as I'm concerned

I can't agree with this. However, we have become more and more concerned with its test results. Recently if has tested a few drives as OK that have failed on other programs and that definitely had serious issue. We have stopped using it for now, as a result.

 

[computerfx]

Am I correct that HDD regen must be used on the original failing drive? Or will it work on a clone? And if it must be used on the original is there a chance of it screwing it up worse for the professionals I may ultimately have to mail it to?

 

[Martyn]

Am I correct that HDD regen must be used on the original failing drive? Or will it work on a clone? And if it must be used on the original is there a chance of it screwing it up worse for the professionals I may ultimately have to mail it to?

It has to be on the original, it's checking the drive. I image the drive to get the data off in case then run HDD Regenerator on the original drive. I have recovered a few drives that way but give the client the option of fitting a new drive or getting a bit more life out of the old one. I also tell them to make a regular backup of their data. After the remapping I do a sfc /scannow etc. I find that under 100 bad sectors you have a good chance of getting the drive working ok again. Don't get this mixed up with drives that are failing which I image with GetDataBack then work on the image to recover the data.

 

[lcoughey]

Trust me, if there were any reasonable use for HDD Regen in the world of data recovery, Brian at 300dollardatarecovery would most certainly be using it. He can correct me if I'm wrong, but I am confident that he wouldn't use it any more than I would.

If you want to offer data recovery services, these are the steps that must be followed to ensure the safest and cleanest recovery possible.

1. Properly diagnose the cause of the problem
- logical?
- firmware?
- PCB
- heads?
- motor?
- surface?
2. Resolve physical issues
- replace heads, pcb or motor
- correct firmware issues
3. Clone the bad drive to a good drive
- quickly get the healthy sectors first, then narrow in on the bad areas
4. Perform a logical recovery to a new destination drive (never the original)
- run a program like R-Studio
- copy files directly off, if file system healthy on clone
5. Verify that the data integrity

At no point during the process would a professional data recovery technician attempt to alter sectors on the patient drive...with the exception of repair the modules in the hidden service tracks in order to get the drive to physically detect.

There you go...now you have all the steps to become data recovery professionals.