I am going to share my recent and unfortunate experience here with others to warn and caution people who are thinking about Salvation Data tools.

I have tried reasoning with salvation Data and tried to work out a fair resolution but since this is not going anywhere i am here to warn others. i have tried for 6 days to reach a fair resolution.

Just over a week ago i purchased the Salvation Data HD Docotor for Fujitsu and Toshiba as my current tools did not support the working of firmware of the fujitsu drive, After researching that the tool does indeed support my 2 fujitsu drives i proceeded to make my purchase and paid for the tool.

the tool was delivered on time and no issues, i have no complaints here and the deal went through smoothly.

the tool arrived, i setup the tool and started experiencing all my issues.
the first fujitsu drive was identifed by the tool, when i attempted to clear the glist to rectify the situation the tool would not do do,

On to my 2nd Fujitsu drive the tool will not even idetify the drive, a message comes up within HD Docotr saying Busy, ( both the PC3000 and Atola tool at least identifed the drive correctly.

On to my 3rd Drive a Toshiba drive with the typical Glist errors, even though Pc3000 does not specifically support the family it is still an easy fix with the Pc3000 when you know how, but i decided to try and work with the newly purchased tool. Long story short here the drive Glist could not be cleared by the HD Dcotor tool.

I contacted support online and after waiting for over 2 hours finally got support to try and assist me,

I will say support is absolutely crap and feel like they are doing you a favour by even talking to you, surely you should not expect any support after just handing over about $800 for their tool how stupid of me to expect any support. The conversation ended with being told by support well mabye the drive is not supported so wait for the next update. this was the standard answer for all 3 drives, even though these drives are listed as being supported by HD Doctor.

In frustration i contacted the sales lady at Salvation hoping to get a refund here as the tool is less than 24 hours and has failed on 3 from 3 drives.

I was told there is nothing wrong woth the tool therefore there will be no refund, i tried explaining my reason as to why i should get a refund, this ended up in a frustrating conversation being told all sorts of things such as I dont know how to use the tool, I am doing something wrong, The hard drives are faulty,( well i figured the drives were faulty oterwise i would not buy the tool to fix a working drive) and eventaully told how the tool is superior to the PC3000, is the best tool on the market and being accused of lying and being called a liar.

nearly a week has gone by and still the same answer, instead of discussing this with me they will avoid the conversation by talking about how i should learn chinese to be a more patient person and how i am rude but they are still doing me a favour by talking to me.

I did warn Salavation i will post on the forum unless i get a reply and i was asked not to defame them, well they should not take money for something that does work. In business people should start treating each other fair, something Salvation Data obviuosly wont do as they are too narrow minded and greedy to see what will happen to their business from yet anothert person complaining.

for what this is worth i am sure Salvation will write here saying how they were the angels in this matter, well i have all the logs from the conversation free for anyone to read if they would like.
If i get banned form the salvation data forum or dont get support form them for my existing tool no loss as truthfully i dont think they know one end of a hard drive from another.

I truly regret spending the money for the useless tool, i dont think i am being unreasonable in asking for a refund for what they claim the tool will do when it clearly cant. I should of listened to my self and when i said if Pc3000 or Atola doont have support for a drive then surely Salvation data cant have support for a drive, instead i thought mabye they know something the others dont.

so in short if you want a crappy tool, crappy support and the privilige of paying money to Salavation to then be called a liar go ahead and buy their tools, but i recommend you save you money and look elsewhere.

I am sure slavation will read this as i will be giving them the link and wonder what other crap they can think off when they respond to this. So some feedback to you, supporting a drive family does not mean just putting the model number on the documentation and user interface of the software,

to the moderator of the forum i am not trying to get myself banned here, i am simply trying to warn others on the forum and trust you will not see this as anything but that.

If you are thinking about this particular tool ask me first before you buy it.
I will not comment on the other tools from salvation Data as i have not used them, i will leave it ot those that have.

HAHAHA thanks for sharing.....you have been WARNED!!!

Reading this is like déjà vu .

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Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

ISTM that, if the tool is advertised as supporting your drives, then Salvation Data could get online and show you how to use it. Then you (and we) would have a video record of their attempt to solve your problem(s). Afterwards you could show us how your other tools approach the same problem. At the moment we only have some vague complaints in respect of some unspecified models. AISI, that would leave you open to accusations of defamation.

http://www.salvationdata.com/data-recov ... upport.htm

"If customers have very urgent data recovery cases or you meet some very difficult problems using our tools, you can apply for remote assistance and our engineers will use Team Viewer to connect you and show you the solutions or operations step by step to repair the drives and recover the data."

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

Well i waited for over 2 hours for support, i only had support come online because i asked the sales person ot contact the support person, the support person was most unhelpful in the entire situation.

I have no interest in defaming any company or any ones tools, that is why i waited for six days before i posted to warn others, a simple fix for all would of been to accept the flaws of the tools they design, refunds the money and no one would know any more about the situation.


the fujitsu drives in question were an MJA series and an MHZ series, both of which they advised me prior ot purcahse were supported drives on the tool.

to go on about defamation is a bit pointless as they should of simply sold a tool that they advertisied which they didnt, or the tool that they sold did not actually meet its intended pourpose. not going to get into that here,

ISTM that you have a genuine case for a full refund, unless SD can show you how to use their tool.

HDD Repair Tools-HD DOCTOR for Fujitsu & Toshiba:
http://www.salvationdata.com/data-recov ... doctor.htm

"HD Doctor for Fujitsu & Toshiba is ... so far the most competitive hdd repair tool supporting different Fujitsu HDD families varying from 2.5inch to 3.5inch, supported drive families are MHA , MHB , MHC , MHD , MHE , MHF , MHG , MHH , MHI , MHJ , MHK , MHL , MHM , MHN , MHO , MHP , MHQ , MHR , MHS ,MHT ,MHU ,MHV ,MHW ,MHX , MHY , MHZ , MJA in 2.5inch ..."

Main features of HD Doctor for Fujitsu & Toshiba

Defects Operation
Clear P-list, clear G-list, disable zone, defects to P-list, surface scan, zerofill and other defects fixing features and solutions are included.

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

It will only fall on deaf ears.....trust me ....I know..

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East Anglian Data Recovery Services
http://www.eadr.co.uk

"If it's your only copy - then it's not a backup!"

In my opinion SD tools are a 'stepping stone' into the industry for people who really do not know much about data recovery. The tools are poor and (mostly) ineffective.

If an engineer owns just SD tools, there is no basis for comparison so the tools are perceived as good.

If an engineer owns SD tools and tools like PC3000, I think for the most part the SD kit will be good only for collecting dust.

Always there is someone trying to sell on SD equipment on here. there is a reason for this...

Stones well and truly stepped..... lots of dust on my SD tools..

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East Anglian Data Recovery Services
http://www.eadr.co.uk

"If it's your only copy - then it's not a backup!"

WOW this is sad. Really Sad. Well do not buy Samsung then it is really bad. I was given the Beta model on it and it never has worked and they just do not update the tool at all. I think this was almost 2 years back now and it is a tool that has not been updated or even tried to make work. I never heard anything good from the Toshiba/Fujitsu tool and people say it is way too new a tool to buy. I know some drives are not supported in UDMA and I do not think they would or could be supported in SD tools.

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Iorana Haraharaini

These two sentences represent 100% of the truth i might add.
Since i bought UDMA, even PCI is collecting dust (which PCI, IMHO is 10 times more effective than SD tool).

Also, if you take a quick tour on this forum's "For Sale" section, you will see dozens of Doctors' for sale and almost never a UDMA or a DDI (esp. these DDI's noone is willing to sell any! Hello! Anybody selling one? I am interested!).

I am very sorry to hear your story, as Franc says, you should be entitled a refund after this.

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http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

As with most things in life, you get what you pay for. I was tempted to go with SD when I first got into DR purely because of how cheap they were, but instead decided to go with ACE and am so glad I did. A lot of money to spend....but money well spent.

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Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town

I don't think someone can be accused of defamation by telling the truth. They would be foolish to press the issue because a lot of others would back up Crecomp with their comparable experiences.

My experience with them is mixed. They did refund my purchase price of the Seagate tool, which I could not get to work and which they could not support to my satisfaction (I'm being generous here).

How many of you bought their later "multi platter tool" replacement device, only to discover in trials that it marred the platters and did not work? They have promised me an update for a few years now . . .

If you sell problematic products and don't support them, then you deserve whatever press you receive.

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http://www.datasaversllc.com

Yep I fell for the "multi platter tool"

The original "tin can" platter tool is pretty for for what is does, so I presumed the later one would be of comparable functionality. How wrong I was, I have never dared use it on any live cases and it just gathering dust along with the HDRC piece of crap.

I almost went for the fujitsu tool, foolishly (so it transpires) believing the sales blurb about it supporting all these models that UDMA does not.

I see they do head exchange tools now, that look suspiciously like HDRC tools. But to be fair the HDRC tools aren't that bad and could be used in an emergency, say for example if my CPR combs caught fire!

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

HDRC tools are very useful, I always use them to return clients drives to their orginal state when they do not want to pay

+1.

One week I was messing around and told a coworker, I bet I could do better if I just used shipping tape to swap platters. He laughed and I just toyed around with the idea that week and when I tried it, it worked every time.

I don't do actual recoveries like that, but here's the score for the 12 test subjects (500gb to 1tb) during our experiment:

Salvation tools 6 failures, 0 successes, Shipping tape: 1 failure, 5 successes

Not bad odds for a nickels worth of tape, vs. $600 for some useless plastic.

I just can say that the Seagate tool works just fine. But it's me. Some additional K-H and understanding (and probably patience) is required.

About the Fujitsu tool, I have the feeling that the problem is ELSEWHERE , but again it's me.

The Seagate tool is probably the best out of the lot, it has actually paid for itself a few times over. Mind you it did take some work to convince them that the first one was faulty, whatever hdd I attached it would just "beep" and switch the power off, sometimes right away and sometimes at random. Not good when you're writing fw! Eventually after days of whining I got them to admit it was faulty, I returned it and they replaced it straight away. New one has worked fine ever since (the handful of times I've used it anyway).

The WD and Hitachi tools have had their uses and have paid for themselves, so can't really complain too much. Maxtor tool? Hmmm... Paperweight anyone?

The HPE pro stand is OK too, I use it every day.

Like I said before, the old platter tools were OK too for single platters or 2 without platter guards.

But the new platter tool.... Utter garbage.

Do anyone have anything good to say about the Fujitsu tool? I.e. Does it actually support clear g-list on newer drives etc... Or was it just bads in SA preventing the OP from doing this?

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PC Image Data Recovery
http://www.pcimage.co.uk

New!! HDD-PCB.COM for all your PCB and donor HDD requirements!