Is MRT worth a try ?

[samstown]

Hello,

I am considering buying a new tool for data recovery. I have a RapidSpar unit and it's disappointing, I can fix less than 10% with that device. PC-3000 is not an option, my volume is too low and I don't have enough experience and time. So I discovered MRT here. I would go for the Express version. Then I need to decide online/offline and data recovery/repair.

My first chat with MRT didn't make me feel confident. No really answer, just "buy and we will help you".

Are you guys happy with the product ?
How easy it is to use to fix non-mechanical issue (e.g fixing WD or Seagate slow disk)
Is it worth paying those monthly fees ?

Thanks
Sam

[michael chiklis]

I was happy at the begin when i bought MRT Ultra, if i've to buy it today i wouldn't.
Too many bugs, mrt staff don't listen customer when we report those bugs, they say "thank you for reporting issue, we will fix with next update", but they never fix important bugs.
Also, after few years my ATA1 channel got faulty, drives attached to that channel go often offline or don't power on or even worse make drive spin down/up/down/up until kills them.
When i reported this fault, mrt staff said to me to change cables or to fix power connector because joints can get loose, but that's not the problem because i've changed cables more then twice and did resoldered connectors joints without any change.

I will try to fix ATA1 channel by changing x4 ICs TPS2590, i ordered those on Aliexpress, still waiting that they arrive.

Have you check about other products as Dolphin product or DD3000
https://www.dolphindatalab.com/
http://www.en.iccsys.net/

[fzabkar]

The TPS2590 is a load switch. To eliminate it as a potential culprit, you can bypass its input and output. Of course this disables power control, but at least you will narrow down the fault.

[vx1]

Also, after few years my ATA1 channel got faulty, drives attached to that channel go often offline or don't power on or even worse make drive spin down/up/down/up until kills them.

I had two situations with similar problems.
In one of them I did the nonsense of plugging a shorted HDD into one of the ports. I was testing a large batch of HDDs and had checked them all for a possible short, but it seems that some were not checked. ATA0 started to present problem. I also bought some TPS2590 on Aliexpress, but while it wasn't coming I removed the TPS from the board (5V and 12V) and put them back. The problem is gone.
In the other situation, the culprit was the power supply.
The 5V and 12V output filter capacitors had problems (leaked).
In the symptoms you report, I would check your power supply.

[vx1]

Believe me, your best option is MRT Ultra.
But you will find that your rate will go from 10% to 50-60%.
With a laminar flow chamber and the necessary tools you can go further.

Is it worth paying those monthly fees ?

What monthly costs do you refer to?

[maddin]

What monthly costs do you refer to?

You can finance MRT - 360 USD downpayment and then 24 x 150 USD.

@samstown:
if you have an MRT you can work with drives a PC don't even recognice. I got till now a lot to work what I had to hand to an lab otherwise.

But MRT is not just an imager like DDI. The DDI you can learn in a few hours. There is even a great Video from DeepSpar which teach you all the basics about imaging an drive and things you may try. The Firmware-Repair Tools have a much steeper learning kurve. For firmware-issues would be some kind of training quite useful!

But I start also to see the difference between MRT and PC-3000. Not in the tool itself till now but in the support and the documentation.

Just with the DE-Module you will be able to pay the tool very fast. I made till not in 3 month the money which would cost me the MRT - so if you have enough clients for DR it will pay of multiple times. The SSD-support is actually not really great. They lack a lof controllers and models. I just hope for us both that they will work on that much more in the future.

[maddin]

If you search a easier tool then have a look for that: http://rapidspar.com/index.html

[alfarom]

MRT support is more or less non existent. The latest software update adds quite a bit to the monthly cost and from what I've read the update doesn't add much to the product. Tutorials are available but aren't exactly comprehensive. It seems that if you know PC3000 you will understand MRT but anybody with the PC3000 surely wouldn't need the MRT product.

[maddin]

MRT support is more or less non existent.

... thats a bit hard - biggest problem is here sure the time difference for some people and yes, often they just leave you a 2 or 3 liner in Skype and often you have to gess or figure a missing step out on your own.

If you stay online when they are working they try to help you.

The latest software update adds quite a bit to the monthly cost and from what I've read the update doesn't add much to the product.

... as far as I know they just add SSD support and that you need to buy / lease as an add-on. With that SSD add-on you pay 40 USD / Month more - that is true. They also increased the price from +30 USD to +40 USD for the SSD-support.

Tutorials are available but aren't exactly comprehensive. It seems that if you know PC3000 you will understand MRT but anybody with the PC3000 surely wouldn't need the MRT product.

You leed some kind of training - that is true for MRT and PC-3000 or DFL. The Forums, Tutorials, etc. for PC-3000 are much much better but you can also use most of the Informations there as MRT user.

If you know PC-3000 you will definitivly be able to work with MRT. Just that you know it doesn't mean that you are willing / able to spend 10.000 USD on a PC-3000. MRT is a cheaper option and offers 70-80% of the functionality for 1/3 of the price. If you need a more affordable starting-point the rent / leasing model of MRT comes quite handy.

That a lot of them will upgrade sooner or later to PC-3000 is clear to me. I save from every job some money an collect with jobs I do on MRT the money for PC-3000. But that will make my MRT also not absolete. Sooner or later I will need more then one workstation and MRT will also in the future handle some tasks as my secondary workstation.

For plain imaging of drives which will not ID in a PC you need not really much training. Look the Videos of DeepSpar about the DDI and in 1h you know almost all you need for imaging a drive. Only that will increase your rate of success quite a lot! And MRT is perfectly fine for that. Read also the Manual of the DE module from MRT - that will raise a few questions more but make a lot of the options clear!

[maddin]

For plain imaging you could also use a tool like that but that would have quite a limited set of options: https://guardonix.com/

Thatfor I would try an MRT or RapidSpar if you are planning to get your self into DR. DeepSpar also offers some kind of financing for the RepidSpar.

[mhp666]

Hi,
As @michael chiklis says, there is a problem of the 5v power output of the MRTLAB, in fact the source input is correct, but when you power the hard drives the output channels, the voltage of 5v drops between 0.1v and 0.5v and that is what makes the disks connect and disconnect.
You have to be very careful, as it may seem that the disk is bad and it really is the power failure of the MRTLAB. Also say that it occurs on very few disks and you can try to power the disk with an external power supply.
In the same way the application has many errors, but still it is a very interesting option with which many disks can be fixed.

[Abdul Rauf]

Hi,
As @michael chiklis says, there is a problem of the 5v power output of the MRTLAB, in fact the source input is correct, but when you power the hard drives the output channels, the voltage of 5v drops between 0.1v and 0.5v and that is what makes the disks connect and disconnect.
You have to be very careful, as it may seem that the disk is bad and it really is the power failure of the MRTLAB. Also say that it occurs on very few disks and you can try to power the disk with an external power supply.
In the same way the application has many errors, but still it is a very interesting option with which many disks can be fixed.

I also face this problem but solved,for your kind information just change both SATA power connector of MRT card .

Attachments

[michael chiklis]

Yes, you can solve the issue temporaly by changing power cable (a new cable helps a lot when the issue on mrt card port is at the begin).
After few weeks/months it will get worse and so changing the power cable or data cable (or both) will not help anymore.
Also, i've noticed that when you clone in DE in this condition, another very annoying issue will appear. This bad issue will sometimes write zero bytes on destination drive and you'll see green square on sector map, but if you check on source drive those sectors you will find out that are not zero.
This is very bad because if you are not very carefull and expert you'll not notice this issue, this will partially screw your data recovery job.

I've noticed this issue few days ago because i'm working with a very slow Helios family drive which has a lot of bad sectors on surface, i was forcing to read few sectors by double clicking on few of those squares, i've noticed that few hundred of consecutive sectors where read as zero after i've saw that the relative jpg file was corrupt. Then i did scan those relative sectors directly on source drive and i saw that they weren't zeros, so i've cleaned sector map of that file and repeated the reading and finally i got a REAL good reading and of course a good file (this time i had connected destination drive directly to my pc sata port).

I don't trust this DE cloning so i'm repeating it, this time destination drive is attached to pc sata port since the begin.

I can't trust anymore my ATA 1 port of my mrt card until i will be able to fix (still waiting those components from aliexpress).

[fzabkar]

Hi,
As @michael chiklis says, there is a problem of the 5v power output of the MRTLAB, in fact the source input is correct, but when you power the hard drives the output channels, the voltage of 5v drops between 0.1v and 0.5v and that is what makes the disks connect and disconnect.

Does this voltage drop appear across the load switch IC, or is there an additional current sense resistor or Hall effect IC?

BTW, the current limit for the TPS2590 is configurable with a resistor. PC3000 UDMA uses the same load switch IC.

In fact this PC3000 user is having exactly the same problem:

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=216&t=2422

[mhp666]

Hi,
As @michael chiklis says, there is a problem of the 5v power output of the MRTLAB, in fact the source input is correct, but when you power the hard drives the output channels, the voltage of 5v drops between 0.1v and 0.5v and that is what makes the disks connect and disconnect.

Does this voltage drop appear across the load switch IC, or is there an additional current sense resistor or Hall effect IC?

BTW, the current limit for the TPS2590 is configurable with a resistor. PC3000 UDMA uses the same load switch IC.

In fact this PC3000 user is having exactly the same problem:

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=216&t=2422

I have 2 seagate hard drives with which the mrtlab gives me this problem. I will see what voltage the 5v line has for these 2 hard drives and I will connect them directly to a power supply by limiting the voltage to those values to see first the effects on the hard drives. The current limitation makes perfect sense, as these cards have to be prepared for the connection of HDDs with short-circuited TVSs.

[sin]

MRT is worth the try...their support however is too confined in terms in case if you wish to pick a second hand unit.

They do not allow second user to be registered replacing the first user in their data base.

So the glitch is, if I pay all my installments and the old user wants his unit back...all my money is lost.

so there is no definite ownership even after a second hand purchase from a friend.


So the first user I had got my card from didnt intend to recharge ever! and if I recharged on his behalf, MRT was not ready to move the license and support in my name.....

Would Recommend PC3k ...just 1000USD apart...saving money and buying outright is the best....
Also, it is not an English friendly tool..

--

[yuji22]

I don't know if this reply is too late but here is my two cents.

MRT has done almost every job that I have thrown at it so far. I use the monthly payment plan and it works best for me. As for using the tool, a product manual is almost non existent and their videos are with someone doing fast clicks with zero explanation. You need to learn "click language" if you want to learn how to use MRT. Based on further observations, PC3000 is the ultimate tool but cost prohibitive if you are a smaller shop like me. You can start with MRT monthly plan and transition to PC3000 if your business grows.

I also have the Rapidspar and it will probably do about 50 percent of your cases and the new USB add-on makes it an excellent compliment to MRT. You can perform minor diagnostics with Rapidspar too and if you can't get the job done then you activate your monthly plan and get the job down with MRT. A win win for you.

If only these guys at MRT would understand their North American client base, they can do a lot more business here. No one seems to listen and customer service is less than satisfactory. It would be to their advantage to do an annual training program via the internet with their users and use a much better program than Skype. Little things can go a long way for MRT if they can listen to their client base.

Someone here mentioned WD Marvel too but I have never used it. It may be something to consider because MRT is a bit weak on repairing WD drives.

Thats my honest two cents.

[alfarom]

I've got MRT Ultra and use it now and again in my business. What I just don't get is MRT Labs' almost complete lack of decent support. Their own forums are barely used, they never seem to answer technical support questions in a timely manner and the available support is a bit of a mess.

I can't understand why they have developed a pretty good DR product but don't support it very well. I know they are in the Wuhan Province but there support issues go back much longer than this flu outbreak
.
There could be a huge market for this product if it was targeted at computer repair/support businesses like mine if they could get their marketing and support sorted. Deepspar have realised this and developed Rapidspar to sell to that market. MRT Ultra can do more than Rapidspar and yet they seem to work on the principle of "build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door".

They can't think that trying to compete with Ace Labs PC3000 used by professional DR companies is ever going to work?

[yuji22]

Excellent observations.

The lack of MRT support and manuals are frightening and frustrating. If only these guys could listen to their customers, they could actually improve a pretty decent product. They are yet to understand the value of marketing and customer support.

Rapidspar is an excellent product and support is top notch. They precisely targeted a specific (small shop) market and have demonstrated on how to market and support a product. PC3000 will remain king while MRT will continue to "build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door".

They can forget about competing with Ace as long as they hold on to the mouse trap mentality.

I use their product and like it a lot but had to crawl and search for information when I first started using it. It's like buying a nice product but begging the manufacturer to provide a manual. Learning "click language" is essential to watching their videos. Why no vocals with their videos ?

Anyway, back to using that MRT mouse trap.

[alfarom]

Do you use PC3000 or is that too expensive to justify in your business?