DriveSavers Unrecoverable?

[hhddrec]

Hi Black

Can you explain any experiment¿

[RyaV]

Hi everyone. I'm brand new here and have been lurking the past week trying to get some answers to my data recovery nightmare. I had a 1.5TB SeaGate GoFlex Free Agent hooked up to my laptop. I came home one night and found that a folder I normally save videos too was not showing up. I saw that the drive was showing up, but when I clicked on it, no files or folders were found. I tried stopping the device, but the device manager said it was busy. I then unplugged the device and plugged it back in, device was not recognized by windows. Noticed drive was making a click-buzz sound every few seconds. Verified it could be the click of death, unplugged it. I sent it off to DriveSavers who seemed optimistic at first, but then I got this e-mail:

Thank you for choosing DriveSavers for your data recovery needs. We regret that data recovery was not possible in this case.

This hard drive has suffered from an electromechanical failure and severe media damage. This occurs when the read/write heads make physical contact with the surface of the disks, causing abrasive damage to the media where the data is stored. Our engineers replaced internal components and rebuilt the drive in our ISO Class 5 cleanroom in an effort to work around the failure, but because of the severity of the damage in this case, no data was recoverable.

I called them and they said something like the actuator arm chewed up the drive too badly, and that even if they could get partial they would have given it to me. There was too much media damage to read the data, that it was turned into dust. I asked them if they had any pictures, they said they didn't and were shipping the drive back to me. They gave me the option to recycle the drive. I called Kroll Ontrack and they said they would not be able to do anything either.

The drive wasn't dropped or jarred so I don't understand how this could have happened all of a sudden. There are irreplaceable videos on that drive that I would pay to get back. I'm already pretty much resigned to my drive being toast, but if there is a chance, would anyone be willing to try?

If there is extended media damage chances are slim and price for attempt will be high regardless of result. Would you be willing to spend in that case ?

I would be willing to spend quite a large ammount of money to recover this data. It means a lot to me. Priceless video journals and GoPro footage. Do you know of any firms or cases that were able to get severe media damaged data where DriveSavers failed? I'm thinking about sending it SeaGate, since it was thier drive that failed. Maybe I just got a team of technicians that didn't have the skills...

[Keatah]

Exactly what does severe media damage mean?

If the heads & arms ground away the surface (sounds severe to me), then it's a gonner. The data would be free-floating dust particles. I suppose..

[Dmitri]

This hard drive has suffered from an electromechanical failure and severe media damage
...
because of the severity of the damage in this case, no data was recoverable.

Priceless video journals and GoPro footage. Do you know of any firms or cases that were able to get severe media damaged data where DriveSavers failed?

We regularly work with physically damaged hard drives here, including the ones we get from our partners. Right now we have a drive with damaged platters, another internationally known data recovery company mentioned in this topic called unrecoverable, and we already have extracted all the data from two of its surfaces.

But obviously there are cases, when platters are damaged beyond recovery. Sad there's no photo to estimate the platters' condition, as without that no way to tell about the chances for sure (but please do not open the drive at home!).

And generally such recovery is indeed likely to be expensive, as besides the expertise it will require donors, probably a lot of them.
What's also worth mentioning is for videos (especially the large ones) chances are lower, as at least some files definitely will be damaged due to the physically lost chunks of data. Should you be looking e.g. for JPEG photos, prospects would be surely better.

[athena]

Hi Dmitri
Congratulations for doing work which is termed as impossible. Can you share photos of some of the damaged platters where you have got success. This will give us idea ,that data can be recovered even from such conditions. At our end unfortunately a even a microscopic scratch makes recovery impossible. It is interesting to see how servo alignment is restored after removing platters.

[Dmitri]

Can you share photos of some of the damaged platters where you have got success.

OK, will look around, we should have few drives with scratches at the lab.
Just please hold on till weekend, no chance for me to take any photos earlier due to a rather urgent job, which takes virtually all my time atm.

[RyaV]

Exactly what does severe media damage mean?

If the heads & arms ground away the surface (sounds severe to me), then it's a gonner. The data would be free-floating dust particles. I suppose..

The person that I talked to that day who informed me of my hard drives unrecoverability mentioned the actuator arm chewing up the drive too badly for them to get even a partial recovery. They also said in the e-mail that they rebuilt the drive but couldn't get any media off of it. Would it still be worth a shot? I really want these video memories back

[Leo]

RyaV
Check PM.

[Dmitri]

Can you share photos of some of the damaged platters where you have got success.

Getting back late, as Xsan kept us quite busy. I got some spare time finally, so made a few pictures promised.

I took two photos for each drive to give a clearer idea of the situation. Did my best when shooting, hopefully media damage is discernible.
To speed the things up I decided to pick the drives with a mechanical damage on the top surface, which are visible without platters removal.


First one is Seagate ST31500341AS. This is a completed job, results have been accepted by the client.
We have recovered approx. 70% of data from the hard drive.

Jobs like this have much better chances than like one in the next post.

Attachments

Seagate HDD with scratched platters

Seagate hard drive with damaged media

[Dmitri]

Second drive is Seagate ST9500325AS. Situation with it is considerably worse: besides the scratch is more severe, dust settling on the platters makes data extraction much more problematic. There are damages on the lower surfaces as well.

This job is in progress and I'd say the most optimistic recovery forecast is 5% of user data.
This drive already killed two donor head stacks, but the client needs data desperately, so we keep working on it.

Attachments

Laptop hard drive with severe media damage

Seagate hard drive with concentric scratch

[hhddrec]

Hi dmitri!

about ST31500341AS case: disabling 1 head?

[hhddrec]

and about ST9500325AS case

trying to read data until heads crash, exchange it for new ones, read another time until headscras another time, and so on?