Can I perform my own data recovery?

Disaster Recovery Group engineers have a saying “If data recovery software can recover your data, you really did not need data recovery services”.

Data Recovery Software: Distributers are vying for your time and money by offering their software packages as an all-in-one data recovery solution.  In most cases of viral infection or limited corruption the software process appears valid.  However for those with physical issues with their hard disk drive the time spent “trying” to recover the data may actually be substantially more destructive to the recovery process and can reduce the data recovery results of a specialist once you have decided to stop your attempts.  If there is clicking and or banging sounds emanating from the drive chances are great that software will not even see a device online or if accessible still can cause additional platter damages by allowing the unit to beat it self up.  The audible sound is the actual head assembly throwing itself across the platters looking or seeking for a signal to lock onto.  The physical stops put in place within the hard disk cavity prevent the heads in these scenarios to come off the media, clamp the heads together and snapping the gimble flexors in-between the head assembly arms and the actual heads as they are reintroduced onto the media.  Think of pinching two fingers on a piece of paper, sliding that paper out and trying to get the paper in-between your fingers again without making a gap.  We have seen many customer drives with broken stops that allowed the heads to do this and the media is damaged in a catastrophic fashion preventing any data recovery options.

Board swapping:  For today’s drives this is highly dangerous.  Most hard disk drive manufacturers equip their products with firmware located on the media within the hard disk cavity and embedded in a ROM on the circuit board.  Many engineering changes within the manufacturing process of a disk product line represent new revisions for that product to increase its reliability and performance.  In some cases we found the internals of a drive to be completely different then the others within the exact same model sequence.  Some cases also showed that the firmware could also be overwritten.  During power up sequences the drive performs a self check and will notice a discrepancy match with the board and hard disk cavity.  Then an erase command is performed on the firmware thinking a set of instructions is going to be written rendering the hard disk cavity useless.  Ten years ago, board swaps were common and reliable as the firmware was only located on the board whereas today’s drives utilize a lock and key style configuration.  The reasoning behind these matched sets are as more powerful electronic components are embedded in a hard disk these can be fine tuned to make ever increasing performance and reliability gains.

Microwave/Oven/Refrigerator/Freezer:  Customers still ask about these remedies so they must be addressed.  DO NOT USE THEM for anything other then storing or cooking your food.  Using a microwave on a hard disk drive can cause damage or injury to yourself and the appliance and will destroy the hard disk.  The oven, refrigerator and freezer are not used by any data recovery company but by “shade tree mechanics” when the hard disk drives developed stiction many years ago.  In the 1980’s and 1990’s hard disk manufacturers used media with properties that would deteriorate from the immense hot cold and cold cycles that a hard disk generates during usage.  When the unit was powered off the physical heads would literally latch or gel block to the media surface.  The torque from the motor was not strong enough to overcome this and would not allow the unit to spin up.  Heating or cooling the unit may have allowed expansion or contraction of the head/media to break it loose.  Cooling always produces precipitation and those water molecules are evident within the cavity and could initiate a physical head crash since it still is debris.  Today’s hard disk drives have laser etching and the media surface is now much more reliable.  Disaster Recovery Group data recovery engineers have not seen stiction since the late 1990’s and very early 2000 so these processes however effective were at that time are now moot.

Opening the Hard Disk Drive Cavity:  Besides the fact that the average drive has clearly stated instructions from the manufacturers regarding the cavity “Product warranty will be void if seal, label, cover or screws is removed or damaged” a few customers will still venture out in their recovery attempts.  Clean rooms rated as Class 100 have no more than 100 particles larger than 0.5 microns in any given cubic foot of air and the normal air one breathes is close to 100,000 particles in that same measurement.  Hard disk drive heads float on an  Air Bearing, roughly a few micro inches above the media’s surface. A human hair is approximately 100 micro inches in diameter to?illustrate the minute lift generated needed to accomplish this effect.  The air outside of a clean room is 1000 times more contaminated and those particles will come to rest on the media surface as the cavity is opened.  As the head comes up to speed and hits those particles the head chatters and gouges/scratches the media surface resulting in permanent data loss.

If the data you need is valuable or irreplaceable on your failed hard disk drive your best method is contacting a Data Recovery specialist like Disaster Recovery Group.  We offer free evaluations and a No Data = No Charge policy with all costs given up front with a guarantee that you will only be billed exactly what was quoted during the free evaluation.