Archive for the ‘Data Recovery’ Category

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What to do if you dropped, kicked, tipped-over or subjected any hard drive with trauma #3?

Friday, October 14th, 2011

There is over 95% certainty that an operating drive that was dropped or kicked is seriously damaged, even if it keeps working after you pick it up.  Rarely does it continue to work after the trauma for more than a few hours, most of the time it may work for a couple of minutes with difficulty reading any files.  So if you keep using it you are taking a major gamble if you have valuable information on that drive.

Non-powered drives are much less likely to fail than powered ones.   But the problem is that the risk is still significant enough to be cautious.   The highest likelihood of damage to dropped non-powered drives, is for the READ-WRITE  heads to get deformed from the impact.  Powering a drive with such damage will most definitely cause severe platter media damage.   So what is the best action to take? “Let a qualified recovery lab check the sealed area of the drive”.  If they prove that there is no damage, go ahead and use it, but MAKE-A-BACKUP asap.   If there is damage, you have a choice to make.  The checkup should cost a minimal fee under $50, and some like Cherry Systems will do it for free.

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What to do if you dropped, kicked, tipped-over or subjected any hard drive with trauma #2?

Friday, October 7th, 2011

What happens to the media surfaces of a dropped drive?  If you are old enough to remember vinyl music records, you can visualize the needle being forcefully moved across the record surface and making a deep non-concentric groove, which often rendered that record unusable.  For the younger reader, think about a CD or DVD that made contact with a rough surface or is badly scratched and will not play anymore.  Similarly to the playback-head of a record player, the force of a dropped drive will cause the READ/WRITE heads to move across the platters and make several damaging contacts with the media surfaces.  The contact will typically dislodge a sizeable amount of the magnetic material, which will then be dragged along with the moving READ/WRITE heads, causing further damage.  You would be amazed how quickly the disk surfaces will deteriorate to a dusty-mess.  That is why we suggested in our first blog post on this subject to PULL-THE-PLUG!!

Because the damage is mostly to the media, there is absolutely nothing that a non-data-recovery-lab engineer can do.  An inexperienced attempt by anyone else, will only make things worse!

Next posting we will cover, what happens to a dropped drive which was not-powered at the time of the trauma.

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What to do if you dropped, kicked, tipped-over or subjected any hard drive with trauma?

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

The bottom line is that one could do no more harm to a hard drive, than one of the above traumas.  The largest risk factor of permanent data-loss usually begins with this type of an event.  What you do right after this type of event will greatly determine the outcome, or in other words, the success of, a recovery.  The first action is, immediately disconnect the drive!  Don’t wait for a ‘proper’ shutdown, PULL-THE-PLUG!!

Manufacturers and distributors are misleading us by publishing technical drive specs, that drives should be able to withstand 5 to 10G’s of shock.   What they are not saying is that they are only testing this type of resistance to shock, on media which is not powered.   Even then, if you drop it on the wrong corner, you may be in big trouble.

So, if  you are smart, and you read and obey the first recommended action (above), the next step is do not power that drive again, do not even let your IT guy try!!!   This media is now considered “Highly Fragile”, take it directly to a recovery lab like Cherry Systems Inc. and make absolutely sure they understand what happened to your drive. 

You have about a ZERO chance, or very close to it, to get the data out of the drive on-you-own (we will explain more in following postings).   People who neglected this advice almost always end up with a lot-of-ferrite dust inside the drive, and severe, if not complete, data loss.

For more advice and solutions tune-in to your next blog on this subject.

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How to deal with flooded Digital Data Media 3

Thursday, September 15th, 2011

We can’t stress it enough, like in a case of a heart attack, the urgency to get care for a flooded drive is very similar.  For both of these cases, ‘TIME-IS-OF-THE-ESSENSE.’   In the case of flooded drives, ‘time is of the essence’, because oxidation, corrosion and rust doesn’t wait.

For the Tech savvy readers who want to know more:

Unusually high humidity, and even a short period of contact with fluids (like an accidental spill), can create both internal and external damage;

 **External  -  On the outside it will affect the controller board or PCB;  mostly by corrosion but also by creating  a short-circuit.   Commonly,  if  moisture gets underneath small surface mount components, it can short out the device.   It is impossible to see it or to clean it efficiently.   In modern drives (manufactured  in the past 6-8 years) you cannot simply replace the board with a “similar” one, even a very close match will not be good enough.

Please note that the above pertains to solid-state and flash media (Like SSD, or USB drives) also.

**Internal –  Most hard drives have “breathing” holes and access ports in the casing.  If a drive is soaked or submerged for even a short period of time, the fluids will find their way into the sealed portion of the drive, causing, in addition to corrosion, a chemical interaction with the platters and the special lubricants needed for proper operation.  The most damaging result is the breakdown of the thin film of residual lubrication fluid that coats the platters.  All of this has to be thoroughly cleaned,  by professionals, like the expert at Cherry Systems or the damage can be irreversible.

For more advice and solutions tune-in to your next blog

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How to deal with flooded Digital Data Media 2

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

It is not redundant to keep repeating that in this case ‘TIME-IS-OF-THE-ESSENSE’, because oxidation, corrosion and rust does not wait.

One of our senior clean-room lab engineer, Jason, says:

  •  Time is of the essence, corrosion can occur in days and even hours depending on the other chemicals and agents in the water.  Freshwater is much better than saltwater, but certain chemical contaminants can be just as detrimental.
  • Do not power the drive if moisture or liquid is, or was present.
  • Do not attempt to dry-out the drive or equipment yourself, humidity and moisture is likely trapped inside the sealed portion of the drive.

 

Do not waste time with various software tools or solutions, either the very expensive or the free ones.  The media has to be cleaned and dried completely before applying power.

Do not loose time taking it to your favorite computer/IT store.  Instead find the closest data recovery lab with a qualified “clean-room” on-site like the one we have at Cherry Systems and either drive it or ship it over-night.  

 For more advice and solutions tune-in to your next blog

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How to deal with flooded Digital Data Media 1.

Friday, September 2nd, 2011

Timely advice for flood victims, how to treat wet, soaked or submerged data storage media, like hard drives , SSD, FlashDrives, digital music players and SmartPhones.

We apologize by stating the common-sense advice first;  “The faster you get the wet media into the hands of a professional, like Cherry Systems  who is trained in dealing with this type of event, the more likely it is that you will get your data back”

Warning!!!

There is a lot of miss-information about what to do and how to do it DIY.  Most are best described as a form of Russian Roulette, where you are most likely to shoot yourself or your data.  The primary reason is Oxidation.

If you know a little about hard drive and storage media they are constructed using materials which get very easily and quickly OXiDiZED.  Exposure to moisture/water is not the primary problem, except that it accelerates the bonding with the Oxygen in the water and around it. 

The best way to slow down the process is a bit counter intuitive:  Isolate it from free oxygen molecules.  The quickest and cheapest way to achieve it is to:

Insert the storage media into a zip lock bag squeeze out the air as best you can and seal it with the water in which it was submerged inside.

 

For more advice and solutions tune-in to your next blog #2

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A personal data recovery story

Monday, November 8th, 2010

It doesn’t happen very often that we have the opportunity to experience the reward and impact of what we do and preach every day.  Here is a personal data recovery story from Mr. Recovery at CHERRY SYSTEMS.

 

My daughter got married recently having a beautiful, joyous, once in a life time celebration all recorded (or so we expected) on video by a professional photographer. 

A few days after the wedding the photographer called with trembling voice and informed my daughter that most of the video is gone…! It is simply not to be found on the media he pulled out of the camera.  After the initial shock of the bad news was absorbed and processed,  my daughter remembered that we are in the business of saving lives, by that I mean digital lives, recovering among others mundane business data also personal mementoes like child birth, wedding, rare vacations and family pictures.   I see the ashen faces daily, and I often offer words of encouragement and hope, not fully realizing that it can happen to anyone.  She suggested to the photographer to bring the media to our lab.  He was reluctant and very pessimistic about the likelihood of finding anything, after he had tried several ideas, and frankly based on his report I was too.

After several tries and many tense hours by the recovery station terminal the clouds slowly started to move away, the news was encouraging.  We were able to recover about 95% of the video. 

I love happy endings and that is what makes the data recovery business such a great one to have, I get to experience many such stories daily.

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Tip #11 on Enterprise Disaster Recovery for IT Managers

Tuesday, May 18th, 2010

In a recent article in eWeek.com the headline read:

 ”Data Storage, Data Backup, and Storage Virtualization: 10 Important Enterprise Disaster Recovery Tips for IT Managers”

The article goes on to explain how Sepaton, www.sepaton.com a data backup provider from Marlboro MA, can backup very large data volumes using VIRTUAL TAPE LIBRARIES at a high rate of 34Tb per hour.   Clearly, this is  an important development for IT departments with large amounts of data to protect.  The article continues with 10 tips for Enterprise IT managers to address in their disaster recovery planning.  All 10 tips are valid and essential.  However, I would like to suggest an 11th tip which is commonly missing from most such recommendations:

Tip # 11.    Evaluate a Data Recovery lab or two and establish ongoing relations.  We at Cherry Systems have daily proof that is indisputable: systems and processes designed by humans will fail.   Murphy’s Law clarifies it by saying that it will happen at the worst time!  Therefore if our experience is a good indicator and Murphy’s law concurs then the 11th tip should be included and executed.

By saying executed, what does it mean?   It means that IT management should establish communication and form relations with a P.D.R (Professional Data Recovery) http://www.cherrysystems.com/blog/data-recovery-recognizing-a-professional-part-2 provider, who can consistently recover lost data.   

IT managers:  Don’t wait until that awful day lands in your lap.  Safeguard your disaster recovery plan with a proven data recovery  provider.

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Data Recovery-Recognizing a Professional part 2

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

As with all highly skilled professionals services, like doctors, dentists, CPA’s etc, the level of professionalism is achieved combining extensive higher education, years of training in the field, specialized industry specific tools and facilities.

Cherry Systems Inc. is an example of a P.D.R (Professional Data Recovery) provider. Our recovery process is based on the 3D Data Recovery worldwide standard.   As such some of our specialized software and tools are designed and marketed by DeepSpar  a company who adopted and adhere to that same standard.  On their web-site DeepSpar refers to the 3D standard as;

          Phase 1: Drive restoration

          Phase 2: Disk imaging

          Phase 3: Data retrieval

 For more information please go to http://www.deepspar.com/pdr-system.html and read the section “Know your terrain”

 

A P.D.R engineer knows the terrain;

The first D starts with properly diagnosing the media to determine the most efficient  process to recover the data.   There are two primary outcomes;

            1.  Drive performs electro mechanically well.

            2.  Drive has failed or failing.

                  A.  If drive is failing it must be restored to working condition,  which should allow the engineer enough time to make an image.

 

The second D is for obtaining a good image of the failing drive as QUICKLY as possible, since you never sure how long is the failing drive will cooperate.  A tool like DDI, developed by DeepSpar as well as other similar tools by other vendors, were developed to facilitate and automate storage media specific code to optimize the cloning processes.  Do not confuse a tool like DDI with a tool like Ghost by Norton. While they seem to do the same at a first glance, Ghost should only is be used if the drive is performing well. 

<*>Warning, a P.D.R tool like the DDI typically does a great job imaging a failing drive but it is no substitute for the skill and knowledge of the P.D.R engineer to monitor, manage, and tweak the process to a successful completion. 

 

The third D is the the one in which the file system is rebuilt utilizing the clone drive (see  the 2nd D) and recovered files extracted to a safe repository site, for delivery to an anxious customer.

 

When evaluating potential providers, you should ask if they are following the 3D standard. A provider that does not utilize proven specialized tools or bypasses the 3D standard, should not be considered a P.D.R provider.  If your data is valuable, don’t take chances – choose a professional.

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Data Recovery – Recognizing a Professional

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

What do you get when you combine ”easy to use” inexpensive recovery software and a downturn in the economy?   In many cases, its a recipie for an amature to practice with your one-of-a-kind data which in many cases create recovery disasters.

Along with the development of off-the-shelf recovery software, we are seeing more and more new comers into the data recovery field.   And, in an effort to boost sagging bottomlines, we see more computer service & repair shops that profess to offer data recovery services.   Some are partnering with professional providers in an effort to provide a wider range of services to their clients.  But how do you tell the professionals from the pretenders?   There are a few requirements you’d be well advised to check upfront – before handing over your fragile and failing digital life.

  1. Facilities – A Class 100 Clean Room is essential for recovery from  physical hard drive failures.   While some recovery jobs are purely logical, requiring  software tooling only, what does the provider do should your recovery require clean room work?  Do they work with another provider?  Does that provider meet the DR professional test?
  2. Experienced Staff - Software is only as good as its user and a clean room is only as good as the engineers that run it.   The higher the level of education and experience, the higher likelihood of successful recovery of your data.
  3. Established Business – Just as you would check out any vendor, you need to know the reputation of the provider.  How long has the provider been in business?  What is their record with the Better Business Bureau?   As in any business, problems can arise.  You need to know the company will stand behind their service.

Often, you have only one shot to recover your most valued data.  Don’t take chances with a novice provider.  A little additinal research work can save you a lot of grief (and money) in the long run.

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