Hard Drive Recovery

You will know when you need hard drive recovery because your computer won’t see the disk anymore, won’t boot or makes a clicking noise. These are signs of disk failures that require hard drive recovery. DTI performs hard drive recovery in their class 100 clean room. Be sure to check out any companies that you are thinking of sending your hard drive to. You want to do a search on Google for “western digital data recovery partners” to see what companies are authorized by an actual hard drive manufacturer, these companies will be able to recover your data. Hard drive recovery is tricky business and if your data is important to you, be wise in your choice. DTI is a world leader in hard drive recovery.

Leading Causes of Data Loss:

Natural Disasters 3%
Viruses 7%
Human Errors 32%
Software Malfunction 14%
Hardware & System Malfunction 44%

Computer’s are more relied upon now than ever, or more to the point the data that is contained on them. In nearly every instant the system itself can be easily repaired or replaced, but the data once lost may not be re-creatable. That’s why the Data Recovery Zone stresses the importance of regular system back ups and the implementation of some preventative measures.

The chart above lists the most common reasons that data recovery would be needed for. In all cases there are steps that you the user can take to minimize your risk of data loss.

Natural disasters Cause Data Loss

While the least likely cause of data loss, a natural disaster can have a devastating effect on the physical drive. However, Data Recovery Zone has rescued data from fires, floods, lightening strikes and the subsequent power surges.

In instances of severe housing damage, such as scored platters from fire, water emulsion due to flood, or broken or crushed platters, the drive may become unrecoverable.

The best way to prevent data loss from a natural disaster is an off site back up. Since it is nearly impossible to predict the arrival of such an event, there should be more than one copy of the system back up kept, one on site and one off. The type of media you back up to will depend on your system, software, and the required frequency you need to back up. Can you proceed with a day’s data loss? a week’s? a month’s? Also be sure to check your back ups to be certain that they have properly backed up. There’s nothing worse than attempting to restore data from a blank medium.

Data Loss From Viruses

Viral infection increases at rate of nearly 200-300 new trojans, exploits and viruses every month. There are approximately 56,712 “wild” or risk posing viruses and about 105,000 total known viruses, some of which are considered non-threatening. With those numbers growing everyday, you are at an ever-increasing risk to become infected with a virus.

There are several ways to protect yourself against a viral threat:

1. Install a Firewall on your system to prevent hackers access to your data.
2. Install an anti-virus program on your system and use it regularly and scan to see if you have been infected. Many viruses will lie dormant or perform many minor alterations that can cumulatively disrupt you system works. Be sure to check for updates on a regular basis.
3. Back up and be sure to test your back ups for infection as well. There is no use in removing the virus only to restore it again form your back up
4. Be wary of any email containing an attachment. If you don’t know where it came from or what it is, then don’t open it.
5. If you have contracted a “wild” virus that there is no known cure for, quarantine it to that system and contact the Data Recovery Zone for further information and assistance.

3. Human Errors

Even in today’s era of highly trained, certified, and computer literate staffing there is always room for the timelessness of accidents. Sometimes referred to as the U.S.E.R virus, human mistakes are made daily all over the world. There is not much we can do as users to prevent the intervention of Murphy’s Law, except to be cautious. Here are a few things you might want to try:

1. Be aware. It sounds simple enough to say, but not so easy to perform. When transferring data, be sure it is going to the destination you had in mind. If asked “Would you like to replace the existing file” make sure you are before clicking “yes”.
2. If you are even a little bit uncertain about a task you are about to carry out, make sure there is a copy of the data to restore from.
3. Take extra care when using any software that may manipulate your drives data storage, such as: partition mergers, format changes, or even disk checkers.
4. Before upgrading to a new Operating System, back up your most import files or directories in case there is a problem during the install. Keep in mind if you have a slaved data drive it may become formatted as well.
5. Never shut the system down while programs are running. The open files will more than likely become truncated and non functional.

Prevent Data Lost By Software Failures

Software malfunction is a necessary evil when using a computer. Even the world’s top programs cannot anticipate every error that may occur on any given program. There are still a few things you can do to lessen the risk:

1. Be sure you are using the software ONLY for its intended purpose. Misusing a program may cause it to malfunction.
2. Using pirated copies of a program may cause the software to malfunction, resulting in a corruption of you data files.
3. Be sure that you have the proper amount of memory installed if you plan to run multiple programs simultaneously. If a program shuts down or freezes up you may lose or corrupt what you were working on.
4. Back up, Back up, Back up. A tedious task, but you will be glad you did if the software corrupts your customer data base.

Hardware Malfunction Hard Drive Failures Cause Data Loss

The most common cause of data loss, hardware malfunction or hard drive failure, is another necessary evil inherent to computing. There is usually little to no warning that your drive will fail, but some steps can be taken to minimize the need for data recovery from a hard drive failure:

1. Do not stack drives on top of each other-leave space for ventilation. An over heated drive is likely to fail. Be sure to keep the computer away from heat sources and make sure it is well ventilated.
2. Purchase an UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) to lessen malfunction caused by power surges.
3. NEVER open the casing on a hard drive. Even the smallest grain of dust settling on the platters in the interior of the drive can cause it to fail

If you need hard drive recovery do one of the following:

Call 727-251-2058 to speak with a representative and receive your quote over the phone. We answer our phones 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

First of all, don’t panic. Data loss is very common, but in nearly all cases, the data can be recovered by a trained technician. Only in the most severe cases of platter damage, magnetic degradation or a file over-write will the data be labeled as unrecoverable. With over 24 years of data recovery experience DRZ has seen nearly every scenario of data loss and our successful rate of recovery speaks for itself.

Here are a few tips to help you minimize further data loss and increase your likelihood of data recovery on some of the more common types of data loss:

Desktop PC’s:

1. If your system has “crashed” and you can no longer access the operating system or see the drive in the BIOS, then shut the system down immediately and do not run any further power through the drive by attempting reboots. This is considered a physical problem with the drive and is an extremely sensitive issue. If the headstack inside your drive has been damaged, you may cause further additional damage to the platter/s of the drive, upon which your data is stored. Contact a DRZ representative at 727-251-2058 and describe your problem. We can perform hard drive recovery and restore your data.
2. If you have deleted a file or files or accidentally formatted your drive, then the most important thing to remember is to NOT write or install ANY new information onto that drive. Deleting files simply removes the locating tag of the file, but the file is still intact on the drive. If you add new data to the drive, you may over-write your lost data; losing it forever. Using advanced software, DRZ technicians can re-assemble the binary code and restore your files.
3. If your partition has become corrupted, the most important thing to remember is NOT to attempt a re-install of your operating system or add new data to the drive. Again, DRZ technicians can use specialized software and techniques to repair the partition and/or extract your data.
4. If you have deleted a partition, do not attempt to restore it by formatting the drive as this will only result in the addition of an empty partition. It will not recover your data. Data Recovery Software can be helpful.
5. If you believe you have been infected with a virus, shut the system down and contact a DRZ technician. We may be able to help you identify the threat it poses to your data. You can also visit our Virus Encyclopedia, from a non-infected system, to see if you can determine the type of virus you have. This information helps DRZ technicians be better equipped to assist you.
6. If you experience a single file corruption, be sure not to attempt creating a new file with the same name as this will partially over-write the file and will greatly decrease our ability to recover fully.

Remember, these are just a few of the more common reasons for data loss. Any attempts that you or even an IT technician make to recover the file or drive may result in a decreased quality of our recovery efforts or even make it impossible for us to recover the data.

If you have any doubt, just ask yourself this question. “Am I prepared to move on without that data?”. If you answered no, then contact a DRZ representative by phone or email before making any attempts at a recovery. Data recovery is a highly specialized branch of computer science and should be left to those with experience and training to complete it successfully.

Call 727-251-2058 to speak with a data recovery expert.

DRZ can recover data from virtually any hard drive that hasn’t suffered major platter damage.
A hard drive has several mechanisms that make the technology of reading and the transfer of data from the platters possible.
Platters

The hard drive can have one to several disks made of glass or aluminum coated with magnetic iron oxide particles. The disk(s) spins continuously very fast in the hda and the head can travel in and out along a radius so that any location can be reached very quickly by the head. A typical hard drive contains several of these 3.5-inch platters, which can contain tens of billions of individual bits. The higher the Ariel density of the hard disk’s platters, the more bits that can be packed into each square inch of platter real estate. A platter is segregated into tens of thousands of concentric tracks. Because allot of information can be stored in one track, the tracks are broken down into smaller units called sectors. Each sector can hold about 512 bytes of data, or 4096 bits. Disk platters are mounted in a stacked formation on a spindle A spindle motor turns the platters at very high speed, typically between 5,400 and 7,200 rotations per minute, but as fast as 15,000 rotations per minute(RPM’S). The platters spin so that the appropriate sector or sectors containing the data can be positioned underneath one of the drive’s reading heads. There’s one head per platter, and all the heads move in unison.

Heads

Each head in the hard drive is mounted onto a slider, which is mounted onto an arm. A mechanical device called an actuator controls each hard drive arm. The actuator moves the arm to the correct position on the spinning platter, which puts the head in the correct position. The reading head ( reading and writing heads are separate) floats about 2/1,000,000 of an inch above the disk surface. As it passes over the appropriate disk sectors, it interprets the magnetic pulses and converts them to electrical pulses that can be interpreted as 1s and 0s.

Although the head may look large, actually the sensitive part of the head is defined by micro lithographic methods so that the actual exposed portion of the head,which can either read or write the information on the disk,is very small-comparable to the dimensions of features on a microchip! As the manufacturing technology has improved over the years they have been able to shrink this area down to smaller and smaller sizes, and that is how the hard disk memories have risen to such large figures now. In addition they have increased the density of magnetic particles on the disk which makes the storage capacity larger. For example in 1991 the density of storage memory was about 0.l3 Gbits/square inch. In 1998 it was up to around 4 Gbits (30X the density!). At the same time the lithography limit of the sensitive head area was about 4.5 uMeters in 1991, and in 1998 was down to 0.5 uMeters, reduced by a factor of 9. So that is how the storage density of the disks is now up to 200 GB or higher. The information is stored in circular patterns on the disk and the location of the rings is measured by the computer and the spatial resolution is very high, so the location of the head to find data on the disk is exceedingly precise!

We hope this brief explanation of how a hard drive works has enabled you to understand the technology better.

If you are experiencing any of the following errors then you may need data recovery!
Hard Drive/Ide Errors

1701 1702 1703 1704 1705 1706 1707 1708 1709
1710 1711 1712 1713 1714 1715 1716 1717 1718
1720 1726 1730 1731 1732 1733 1735 1736 1737
1738 1739 1740 1750 1751 1752 1753 1754 1755
1756 1757 1780 1781 1782 1790 1791 Fixed disk general POST error
Drive/controller time-out error Drive seek error
Controller failed Drive sector not found error
Write fault error Drive track O error Head select error
Error Correction Code (ECC) error Sector buffer overrun
Bad address mark Internal controller diagnostics failure
Data compare error Drive not ready Track O indicator failure Diagnostics cylinder errors
Surface read errors Hard drive type error Bad diagnostics cylinder Data compare error
Controller error BIOS undefined error return Bad command error Data corrected error
Bad track error Bad sector error Bad initialization error Bad sense error Drive verify failure Drive read failure
Drive write failure Drive random read test failure Drive seek test failure Controller failure Controller Error Correction Code (ECC) test failure Controller head select failure Seek failure; drive 0 Seek failure; drive 1 Controller test failure Diagnostic cylinder read error; drive 0 Diagnostic cylinder read error; drive 1

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ESDI Drive and Controller Error Codes
10450 10451 10452 10453 10454 10455 10456 10461 10462 10463 10464
10465 10466 10467 10468 10469 10470 10471 10472 10473 10480 10481
10482 10483 10484 10485 10486 10487 10488 10489 10490 10491 10499 Read/write test failed
Read verify test failed Seek test failed Wrong device type indicated Controller test failed sector buffer test
Controller failure Controller diagnostic command failure Drive format error Controller head select error
Drive read/write sector error Drive primary defect map unreadable Controller; Error Correction Code (ECC) 8-bit error Controller; Error Correction Code (ECC) 9-bit error Drive soft seek error Drive hard seek error Drive soft seek error count exceeded Controller attachment diagnostic error Controller wrap mode interface error Controller wrap mode drive select error Read verify test errors Seek failure; drive O Seek failure; drive 1 Controller transfer acknowledge error Controller reset failure
Controller; head select 3 error Controller; head select 2 error Controller; head select 1 error Controller; head select O error
Controller; read gate Controller; write gate Diagnostic area read error; drive 0 Diagnostic area read error; drive 1 Controller failure

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SCSI Drive and Host Adapter Error Codes
096xxxx
112xxxx
113xxxx
210xxxx SCSI adapter with cache (32-bit) errors
SCSI adapter (16-bit without cache) errors
System board SCSI adapter (16-bit) errors
SCSI fixed disk errors

Call: (727) 251-2058 for 24 hour a day 7 days a week help.