HddSo easy,



I guess I'm not the only one who will appreciate your feedback, let us know

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Francis Parent-Valiquette
http://www.tux-tech.ca/

Craig6928,



This machine can also be use to mount the bad HDD to windows or any High level data recovery software and the data recovery software include in it is working great up to now to scanning necessary. Witch is a lot for me when you receive Bad 500GB drive who take years to image when they only have 2GB of pictures to recover out of it.



I haven't touch this product yet witch seems great if it can do what it's pretend to do for me this product is also the double of the price but I'm very interest in this product for my next buying if anybody who work with it as comment to do I would appreciate it.



I agree with you !!!

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Francis Parent-Valiquette
http://www.tux-tech.ca/

craig6928,



I haven't try it yet, I don't think power supply will help clicking drive ...

The only time witch I think it might help is in the case witch I guess you already had when a drive is reading then clicking then reading again and so on ... I guess it helps avoiding system crash due to PS overload. Maybe I will need more documentation or to see it with my eyes to believe this ...

_________________
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Francis Parent-Valiquette
http://www.tux-tech.ca/

Honestly I found this thread alittle unhelpful - I own and use on a regular basis HD Duplicator, Deepspar Image and Media Tools. So far Deep Spar Imager handles the drives better and with more effeciency than the other products I have. While I doubt data compass is a better cloning tool than Deep Spar (very impressive and totally customizable but requires a level of expertise) I am really interested in any users having success with its abilities to resolve SA issues and other physical issues which typically would require clean room.

Hi everyone, I have received the Data Compass from salvation.
First I want to say I am very satisfied with Data Compass by working on one Toshiba 2.5" and one Hitachi 2.5" from (with SA defect which I have to give up originally). It did exactly what SD told me, in fact much better than my expectation. Just like what I said I am now here to share my experience and support franckrules' point of view: It is a very good product what's worth much more than its price.

I noticed that it is a tradition here to say something with pictures, I want to but this forum got limitation on posting pictures.

It was delivered directly to my office via DHL. Very interesting thing was I found some brochure thing about DC when I openned the outer package, but I think it is in Chinese, I don’t understand a d**n thing. Is this a joke or something?
Things contained in the suitcase are just the same as what they showed on the website, but with something extra: Warranty, Packing List, a quick start on installation and the software CD. I don't remember I received these extra things last time I purchased their hdd doctor, I will say this is a good improvement for salvation.
It is just a very simple step-by-step installation, I simply do nothing but clicking "next". Even the driver was installed automatically when I ran the DC launcher program for the first time.
I read the "quick start" on the CD and for me it is quite clear since the use of DC is quite simple (I agree with franckrules that it is basic but enough).
By starting the DC panel software, the first thing I thought of was to test the reading speed.
Since I have no data recovery case around me that day, I just took one of my system disk which was newly purchased and still in very good condition for the testing.
I connected my system drive to DC, and my HP media portable was connected as the shadow disk, by following the quick start I first initialized the shadow disk and have it enabled. finally I went to the sector servo screen for testing the reading speed. By activating the read sector, I found a very disappointing speed which showed only around 11000 KB/S, that means the speed is only 700 MB per minute. I rechecked that the UDMA mode was on, read was enabled. I was then about to complain and want to tell everyone about it. But I am lucky not have done that but sent an email to salvation support, they contact me back very quickly and here are what salvation told me:
1. By activating the shadow disk, DC performs the image and the recovery simultaneously: first image the requested sector to the shadow disk, and then recover the requested sector from the shadow disk, that means DC performs two steps of traditional image and then recover procedure in one step, that's why your test gave 700 MB per minute only. It is unfair to compare our speed with other tools that do image disk to disk only.
2. Data Compass was designed to work on defective hard drive to show you its advantage on speed, not the good hard drive; what I suggest is that you test the speed on a defective drive. If what you need is just image good disk to another disk, DC is a waste because it was not designed for this kind of simple task.

OK, then I decided to spend another try before I sentence it to death. I finally managed to find a very old 20G Maxtor 740 3.5" drive which was forgotten on the corner with dust. I had it scanned and it detected very slowly and lots of bad sectors were found. When I checked it on my computer, it did detect something but never complete the installation (finished with an error), I can not see the drive in device manager, not to mention in "My Computer".

Using the UDMA DE from PC3000, I can't manage to recover by files since I can't see the partition at all, I have to produce a good cloned copy of the defective drive. It took me 3 hours to finish the image (I started thinking what this is good for me then) DE reported me that all the drive content was successfully cloned to the target drive. When I loaded the drive onto my R-Studio, no file structure was detected (that probably meant I had just wasted 3 hours according to my experience). Anyway, I ran a ‘Full Scan’ tried to restore the partition and file directory. What had not surprised me was that none of the partition has been detected after the "Full Scan", only the ‘Extra Found Files’ (which we all know has no use for the recovery) had been found. I kept receiving this kind of problem when I worked on drives with severe bad sector problem, I don’t know if it is a problem of me or DE is really incapable for this kind of job.
I still remembered my original intention: test on DC. I connected the drive to DC and started the control panel; also I enabled the shadow disk as advised. You know what? By using the default settings I was able to see all the partitions by launching the built-in DR Studio. I tried to recover several folders of files, and all of were correct and clear. There was no need for me to produce a clone of the drive separately since the files I need as well as its file structure would be first be imaged to the shadow disk and simultaneously the DR Studio reads and recover the files from the shadow disk. But to my intention, I was testing the image speed; I still need to produce an image of the drive. It took me 3 hours again to finish the image (same as UDMA DE), when I loaded the cloned drive onto R-Studio, the result was the same as what was like when I browsed the defective drive in salvation's DR Studio: all partitions were detected directly.

Although I had wasted 7 hours in testing the new equipment, but I was more than excited:
1. DC has a same speed as UDMA DE in disk imaging (maybe a little bit faster but I haven't noticed that).
2. The success rate of recovery/image of DC will be the best one I had ever seen. I will definitely recommend DC to all data recovery professionals. And great job, salvation, you guys made my life much easier.

To franckrules, thank you for your useful information which helps me a lot in making my final decision. I will give the same 9.5 of 10 for this great product.

What can be improved in this tool to be perfect and receive my 10 of 10 review?

I noticed that when I opened the drive in the DR Studio, it took a long time just because when I open one partition, the software will scan all the directories and sub-directories. Correct thing to be done should be scanning the first layer of directories requested only, because I won't need to recover the whole partition but only intended folders or files. The scan to other folders will be a waste of time then. I think by improving this, DC will be the tool I dreamt of.

I will definitely consider a second order from them when they inform me the above improvement has been done.

I think when I have time I will share more about DC in my other practices here, but now I have to work hard to get ROI of this equipment.
I also look forward to comments from other DC users.

_________________
Never be young?
Never be a dream-maker?

Bullshit!

Umm... Could you be more specific on that? Did you have any issues uploading pictures?

Also, why are you using web proxy when posting to HDD Guru forums? I can see that some of your posts come from Chinese broadband ISP, but most of them come via web proxy service (such as www.rxproxy.com and similar).

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Dmitry

Post from HddSo Easy reads to me as a sales pitch, hopefully I'm wrong but the proxy service makes me suspicious too. Guess I just need buy one and do my own direct testing. I made the mistake of buying the old PDE data copier from Salvation Data and it was crap so nervous of SD products.

I have started feeling "Nostalgia" with Salvationdata, their guys and their all time familiar tricks..
But I really pity for the guys, who still get captured in the pithole of of them, by reading their such posts, threads and so called " True Customer Reviews"...and this is like "Food" for them, which provokes them doing it again and again and more and more.....

I must go with Dmitriy.....Salvationdata is the true leader!!

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I just hate spammers...It was a Spammer, who ruined my life!

to foolus is nOtsOEAsy,

Who needs good products when there are easier ways to make the sale!

Well, even without the doubt cast on the review, there was no way I would have taken a chance. Expensive experience beats glowing reviews any day.

I am not trying to say it is Salvation data promotion again since I do not have enough evidence (and I am not specifically looking for such evidence anyway). I am only trying to clarify some suspicious things...

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Dmitry

Well, I didn't mean that I can't upload pictures, but only that the picture number allowed is not enough, sorry I didn't make it clear.

As to the proxy thing, I am sure you guys haven't heard of the so called 'campus network' in Japan which makes me have to do something extra (like using proxy) in order to access the www without limitation.

Well, I wanted to say something good about data compass because it is really a good product, but obviously I was doing in a wrong way and wrong place. I was a fool who wasted 7 hours of spare time and finally get kicked. I think I won't do that again since i am not tough enough and don't like to argue with anyone here (it is such a bad thing and it won't do any good to me).

And maysoft, I think you can erase my post to stop those suspicious voices before they really hurt if you think it is necessary, I still care much about what people say about me.

_________________
Never be young?
Never be a dream-maker?

Bullshit!

Despite any suspicion, I personally appreciate your time. It's just that I've been burned by Salvation too many times. I certainly hope DC is a good product, but I will personally need a lot of convincing, over a long period.

You could just make extra posts to uploaded the pictures.


Is it an invoice ! for you to pay an extra $1000 a year, or the product stops working.. ?

HddSoEasy
My apologies then. Thanks for the explanation.

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Dmitry

First impression (not technical):

The unit arrived yesterday with DHL and there is the box with all pieces mentioned
in the offer. 3 pages showing a package list, how to do installation and a page containing
the "Product Warranty" where is also stated at the bottom, that the warranty is not valid
without the stamp of SD.

SD and their partner Computer Sience Labs react very quickly. I paid on friday and the unit
left on Saturday their office in Chengdu, Sichuan. I got the tracking # and followed that
package until it arrived. It left China on Monday - so only 3 days is perfect.

I find it a bit strange, that with a unique combination of hardware and software such a
complicated registering and activation is created.
To SD: You know your customers, why is that double proof necessary?
If someone wants to copy something it will happen - and sorry to say, the Chineese know that best
.... (perhaps thats why..)

At first I wanted to be clever and tried to open the manual (PDF) on the CD from SD. It did
not work with Fox-IT and not with Acrobat Reader 9. Only after installation one can open,
read and copy that file. It contains 36 pages where the first 21 explain the installation.

I could not go deeper into the product because after registering the reply with the activation
code did not come immediately. It seems to be done manually and so I had to wait the night
(time difference) for the reply. I received it this morning.
Unfortunately it is not explained how to proceed now, i.e. in which catalog one has to copy
the key file into. 21 pages for installation, but this info is missing...

So I wait now for the answer to my mail.

***

The installation is now done (with a lot of work and also with assistance from
Computer Science Labs in UK).

Anyone who wants to use the unit with a Windows version other than english language
has to activate it in an english Windows at first. After this is done, the unit will work on
any language version of Windows.

It looks like I am the first one to use the unit with different language of Windows than
english....

I am sure, that SalvationData will fix this point very quickly.

I wouldn't be so sure. Salvation seems almost proud of their bugs.

We will see. I think they will fix it. Its a matter of easier selling. Now, due to that forum
its known to a broader range of possible customers.

Do you really think they will force future customers in not english speaking countries
to buy a copy of english Windows and install a system only to activate the unit? I dont.

There are only two solutions:
1. they fix the bug and keep the activation procedure
or
2. they change or forget the activation procedure

***

I've got a number of Salvation's previous products. You're forced to buy specific hardware, and they don't even make clear what hardware that is. Otherwise, their products continually crash. It's not even clear that buying the right hardware will solve the problem. This was over a year ago, and they collect dust. Do you think they would fix obvious flaws in their products? No, they instead came out with a new product. Trying to determine what Salvation is going to do, based on logic, is hopeless.

Also, this is all unimportant. I suspect strongly you'll find a bunch of other obvious, and more important bugs once you start using it. I hope I'm wrong, but history isn't encouraging.