Newbies are totally welcome....by about 85% of the people on here. The other 15% are going to drive you crazy by constantly trying to make you feel like you aren't a "professional" because you'll occasionally do stupid things which are risky and you didn't totally understand what you were doing. They'll tell you about a hundred times that you should "outsource" it since you "clearly don't know what you're doing". They'll constantly berate you for what you don't know while refusing to offer any meaningful help to improve your knowledge, and pretty much make you feel like crap for the next 5 to 10 years every time you interact with them.

But, did I mention the other 85% of guys on here? They're actually a really cool bunch who will give you the shirt off their back and teach you a lot of what you need to know to be successful in this business.

Welcome to the forum.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

Hey anyware69, welcome.

Totally agree with Haque and data-medics.

The only other thing that will certainly draw flame is to show up and ask a question such as
"i am new to data recovery and have a clients drive ..... what do?" or anything else that compromises DR tech/eng reputation by wilful neglect.

If you do experiment, do it on your own gear.

Plenty of free tools out there. you just need time, spare drives, curiosity and a persistent attitude.

Take the Red Pill, good luck and have fun

K

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Когда хочется кушать – съешь всё.
Голод не тётка!

Hi everyone!

I am new to the DR world as well and I'm very interested in learning more about data recovery, particularly Flash devices (chip-off/monolithic). I've already recovered data from several USB drives that had mechanical failures (connectors, traces etc). I guess the gurus will say that's not real DR but hey, the customers were happy!

HDD & SSD are also on the list but that will come later as I suspect Flash will be more than enough on my plate . I currently do micro-soldering repairs (hence my interest in Flash) on Apple products, including data recovery, but when it comes to iDevices, you have to fix them in order to be able to recover any data.

I'm curious on what folks here believe would be a good "first tool" for Flash DR. There's not much comparative info out there but from what I can gather:

SoftCenter Flash Extractor is a go-to solution but the cost, especially the annual support subscription, seems high and the long-term support seems to be based on what mood the developer is in.

RuSolut VNR looks like the most powerful tool but is probably "too much" for a beginner. The upfront cost and annual support fees seem like a good deal though, at least in comparison to SC-FE.

PC-3000 Flash is backed by the industry leader but I don't see it being used much, at least from my superficial review of the limited information out there.

I guess eventually, most pro labs have most or even all three tools to cover as much ground as possible but I wonder if you could only have one to start, which would it be and why.

I will be buying a bunch of flash drives, loading them up with my data and practicing for quite a while before doing this on customer data. You gotta start somewhere!

Thanks!

Most of the guys I know who are serious about flash recoveries have all of those tools because each has its own strengths and weaknesses and each will be able to handle some cases the other two can't.

Just be prepared that flash recovery is far more complex than you probably think it is. Even with years of doing HDD recovery professionally under my belt, I'm still pretty lost when it comes to flash. That's why I just dump the NANDs and have someone else do the hard part remotely.

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Data Medics - Hard Drive, SSD, and RAID Data Recovery Service Company

Thanks data-medics. Yeah, that's probably the approach I'll have to take as well at first. The drives with "mechanical" failures will be easier to do and I can outsource the tough ones until I feel ready myself (assuming that ever happens ;>).

I agree that eventually I'll need all three tools, still, I'd like to know which one is the best starting point in terms of ease-of-use (relatively speaking of course), and coverage of various controllers/NAND and support. I have to start with one...even if I had the cash, it wouldn't make sense to buy all three from the get-go.

a great place to start, with $0 down is over at rusolut website. they have put out 2 VNR books which double as manuals for the tool, but is packed with the basics of Flash. You will not find any documentation superior to this, and will need to spend quite a bit of time studying it. go through both PDF's, and read all the case studies on the site. anything that doesn't make sense, well come back here and clarify until it does.

The cases in there I would call easy and straightforward cases, which is what's needed for manuals, but there is MUCH more intricacies in flash, almost to the point where every device is different.

If you want to start right now doing customer cases, get a reader such as Soft Center and outsource the dumps. get the outsourcee(outsourcer?) to explain how they recovered.

The VNR tool is the only one that allows you to research dumps in a meaningful way, and has the backup of people that know flash extremely well, and are working full steam developing their tool as number one focus.

IMHO, if you decide to wait doing customers until you have done enough of your own test cases... you never will do customers!

but stop 1 on the Flash highway is Rusolut.com

Thanks HaQue. I have seen those manuals as I have been searching high and low for info. I skimmed through the first one but yes, I really need to dig deeper into it. Going back to your suggestion (dumping and outsourcing), if I were to buy the SC-FE reader and adapters only (no software), it would still cost ~1000$ whereas for ~2000$ with VNR, I could get the VNR software and a wide assortement of adapters (although only 2 have a socket). While more expensive, it would appear the VNR is better value.

One more thing, I notice that no one has mentioned PC3000 yet. They have a wide assortment of adapters and are the leader in HDD/SSD. Does anyone use this tool regularly?

Thanks again...this is really helpful. I'm willing to invest time and energy, I just want to avoid the error that HaQue details earlier in this thread.

ACE has released a new update yesterday.
http://www.acelaboratory.com/news/newsi ... itemid=219

I believe that a good thing that ACE also have is their Spider Board that might avoid a good time of soldering....
Don't you guys think the same?

_________________
http://www.pclab.com.pt facebook.com/PCLAB.Assistencia.Tecnica
ACELab partner

Well,
Update Is Good But My Chip Is Still Not Supported -> Micron 2c646456

_________________
Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

Hmm...the soldering is the part I look forward to Does that make me a masochist ?

_________________
Designated Fixer at home | Learn more about what I do

Everyone has his own preferences. There are just few people who really like soldering and can do it. But if you like soldering, it is cool! Anyway if you have many cases, Spider Board will save your time on soldering and you will be able to solve more cases. It's the universal adapter for monoliths, so you wouldn't need special adapter for each monolith you deal with.

_________________
http://www.pclab.com.pt facebook.com/PCLAB.Assistencia.Tecnica
ACELab partner

Plus ,
Now They Are Adding Pinout Finding Feature Slowly and Also It Can Act As SD Interface

_________________
Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

@pclab @Amarbir Thanks for the feedback.

_________________
Designated Fixer at home | Learn more about what I do

BTW Minho ,
No One Says PC 3000 Flash is a Lousy Tool .Few Guys Do Brilliant Work With PC 3000 Flash Also Like Greydkang Etc .But Having All The Tools Gives You Nuclear Bomb Powers in NAND Flash Lol

_________________
Regards
Amarbir S Dhillon , Chandigarh Data Recovery Labs
Logical,Semi Physical And Physical Data Recovery
Website-> http://www.chandigarhdatarecovery.com

Thanks Amarbir, I hope no one thought that I was implying one tool was worse than another. Yeah, I'd love to have all three but even if I could afford it (I can't ), it wouldn't make sense to have so many tools when I have so much to learn. Baby steps...baby steps.

For the record, I will be buying the SC Reader soon to start playing around with reading IC's off of known-good USB drives. I'll probably only get extraction software in the new year. That should give me some time to figure out which extraction tool to start with.

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Designated Fixer at home | Learn more about what I do

Well I am a perfect scenario of what is being discussed here. Newbie, who will hit the forums as I get stuck (which I will) and then some might treat it as spam or waste of time because they might think I have not done my homework. But sometimes you need to be guided to do the homework too. Just saying. Learning is a journey not the destination. Love your work team.

Welcome !

You might want to start by reading this :

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=176

At least check the first links on the post

Good luck and happy learning !

_________________
1Q9xrDTzTddUXeJAFRn37aqh1Yr6buDCdw - (Bitcoin Donations)
paypal.me/Spildit - (PayPal Donations)
The HDD Oracle - Platform for OPEN research on Data Recovery.

Spildit, thanks for the link. It will take a while to get work and get to know how to work so let's see where it goes. Cheers.

Good luck ...

And remember .... it's very important to know your own limitations to avoid something like this ...

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=56&t=1427

_________________
1Q9xrDTzTddUXeJAFRn37aqh1Yr6buDCdw - (Bitcoin Donations)
paypal.me/Spildit - (PayPal Donations)
The HDD Oracle - Platform for OPEN research on Data Recovery.

OK, hitting the semi-zombie post as my first post, but...
I've been working on computers for over 25 years. I've been recovering data for 15 of those years, but with limited access to hardware recovery tools, and no clean room.
It's amazing how many people try to recover data and wind up doing more harm than good, but it takes experience to know when NOT to try software recovery on a drive, and to instead send it to someone who has the hardware and/or clean room access to properly handle the situation. Unfortunately, experience is the only real teacher when it comes to recognizing a hard drive that can be recovered with software, and one that needs way more help than that.
Glad to see this post; I've been accused of not being a "real" data recovery professional because I don't have access to expensive hardware and/or a clean room. But 15 years with a 90% success rate, and having learned when not to attempt recovery with what I have available, I beg to differ.