hello there,

I'm starting a DR service, in Tunisia, and I wanted to know what you guys recommend for a newbie and not much investment for the head comb tools.

I've looked at
[*]HDDsurgery website: they have, what appears to be, great tools, but they are well beyond my financial reach,
[*]HDDzone website: much lower price less fancy (plastic tools) somehow affordable. [url]hddzone.com/advanced-hdd-head-combs-tool-p-1998.html[/url]


if you feel that there others sites or tools that you recommend please do so.

Thanks for your time.

_________________
Slim Farza

Arobas Uldry Tunis
I.T. support and data recovery.

http://tunis.ausarl.ch

Apex Tool Lab tools are an excellent alternative to consider.

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Sabo Computer Repairs & Data Recovery

Many thanks, LarrySabo for showing this link.

while I am a newbie (actually no experience in head replacement at all tbh), what should I acquire first? the ramp version or the e-type (unstick)?

_________________
Slim Farza

Arobas Uldry Tunis
I.T. support and data recovery.

http://tunis.ausarl.ch

I've used Apex Tools and thought they were good quality and not too expensive..

I think you will get more immediate use out of the Ramp tools.

_________________
Sabo Computer Repairs & Data Recovery

THank you for your advice, i do really appreciate.

_________________
Slim Farza

Arobas Uldry Tunis
I.T. support and data recovery.

http://tunis.ausarl.ch

I'm really looking at it so far both of you guys that have replied to this thread have the same recommendation. I do appreciate.

_________________
Slim Farza

Arobas Uldry Tunis
I.T. support and data recovery.

http://tunis.ausarl.ch

Given your admitted lack of experience, I would suggest doing head swaps on drives you own until you can do so successfully every time. Only then do head swaps on customer-owned drives.

To track how you are progressing, take one of your sacrificial drives and do a Read/Verify scan with HDDScan or Victoria and take a screenshot of the results. Next, remove the heads as if you are going to swap them to another drive, then re-install them into the original drive and repeat the scan. Take a screenshot and compare before and after results. You should end up with something like the image below.

Do this a number of times with various drives until you feel comfortable doing swaps and results are consistently better or not much worse after the swaps. Then you are ready to do swaps on customer-owned drives of the same models. When you encounter a new model, practice on sacrificial donors of that model before working on the patient.

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Sabo Computer Repairs & Data Recovery

This is exactly what i was thinking to do in order to learn what i need. I'm downloading HDDScan since it's a freeware. Many thanks for this precious advice.

Although i didn't know about those softwares.

_________________
Slim Farza

Arobas Uldry Tunis
I.T. support and data recovery.

http://tunis.ausarl.ch

It's much harder than you think. I never undertake it myself after much practice and many failures (thankfully on old drives). Because data recovery is only a part of my business I outsource physical damage to a specialist DR business and do the software ones myself using HDDSuperClone Pro, DMDE and sometimes MRT Ultra.
Just remember what I was told on a DR course a few years back, never open the drive unless you have to as the chance of losing everything will be greatly increased.

The other thing to bear in mind is sourcing donor drives. There are specialist companies around and eBay is always an option but you really need a good supply of all types of drives if you want to turn jobs around quickly.

I wouldn't dare to say that's an easy task to do to remove a head. I will start my DR service with rapidspar then i'll go for a pc3k portable + it's training. and outsource the head swap to another company. I'm getting as much old unused or problematic drives as i can get, then with rapidspar, i'll be able to diagnose their true status. What i will be lacking, i'll be outsourcing. I've got to get a laminar flow cabinet and those are beyond my reach unless i get a good deal here. I'll be sleeping less ignorant tonight thanks to you guys.

How good are those softwares that you mentioned compared to say R-Studio network edition?

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Slim Farza

Arobas Uldry Tunis
I.T. support and data recovery.

http://tunis.ausarl.ch

I've had good results with HDDSuperClone Pro to clone drives and also when it's used with DMDE to extract data from a damaged drive. The good thing is you can get a 2 month licence for the Pro version of HDDSuperClone to see if it's for you, it's a bargain at $20. If it is, the lifetime licence is only $200. Even better you can get 50% off the professional version of DMDE if you speak to the HDDSuperClone developer which brings the cost down to around $50 for a full licence.
I've only used R-Studio for testing, a full licence is beyond me. Both R-Studio and DMDE can be used with HDDSuperClone but the developer says he has had more success with DMDE.
It's worth a go given the initial outlay is very small..