What Recovery Hardware would you recommend ?

[rchadwick]

If you're serious, PC3000. If you're not, Salvation's software tools are nice to PLAY with. Yes, there's a price difference, but buying Salvation based on price is false economy.

I have to agree... It's a BIG jump from logical to physical. From my experience, it's a bigger jump than what most PC techs expect, or can handle.

[shahij]

First to say, You Are The DriveR Of Technology, Technology Just Enables.

PC3000 IS COMPLETE SUITE INCLUDING ALL BRANDED DRIVES.
DOCTORS ONLY OF 4 (HITACHI/WD/MAXTOR/SEAGATE)
BOTH ARE PROFESSIONAL TOOLS.

[dmoldovan]

So, what you are trying to say is that SalvationData's equipment is not worth the money.

I also heard that their HD Doctor for Hitachi, Seagate and probably Maxtor are quite good. The WD tool I heard that is not so good.

Any other help is very greatly appreciated.

Dan

[BlackST]

For me they are all ok, maybe it's me...

[Money fan]

Dan, I also use PC-3000. And it helps me greatly. They were the first. Only after many years Salvation appeared. PC-3000 is the most professional, all others are just amateur toys.

[dmoldovan]

How about the so-called kinda dead support from their behalf lately ?
I heard so many rumors about that lately.

Dan

[irs]

i use both i prefer SD for some drive families and ace for others but is to say that i was able to access sa on damaged maxtors using SD PCHS reading (and not with pc3k).
What i think is that SD products has less options ... so they would be more simple for newbies but the lack of manuals doesen't help. Acelabs manuals are better to begin in my opinion but pc3k is not the only professional tool available.

[dmoldovan]

OK,
What other professional tools do you know of ?

[harddrivespecialist]

OK,
What other professional tools do you know of ?

It is time to do a research on your own!

You have to keep in mind that noone will hold your hand and walk you thru everything.

[magneto]

OK,
What other professional tools do you know of ?

It is time to do a research on your own!

You have to keep in mind that noone will hold your hand and walk you thru everything.

I kind of agree. BlackST put together the most through list I've seen so far on this site. Research all of that equipment. Cost and most relevance to what you intend to do. Then you always have to include education costs for learning how to properly use each piece of equipment in general. AND then you have to learn how to use it in regards to DR. Not to mention the cost of learning data recovery software tools, etc. You've got plenty to start, if you're just starting.

[dmoldovan]

Thank you all for all this input.
It is clear to me now what the equipments are.
(in my previous post I was asking just about DR "kits" like those made by AceLaboratories or SalvationData. That was the meaning of my question in that post.

Any other info is greatly appreciated. (As allways)


Dan

[shahij]

They were the first. Only after many years Salvation appeared. PC-3000 is the most professional, all others are just amateur toys.

I completely disagree.
Seagate Drives came in the world more than 50 years ago, and Samsung few years ago. Does it mean SAMSUNG are Fake n Seagate Great?
Canon has been developing Camera for more than 100 years, And Sony started few years ago, does it mean, SONY camera's are amateur toys and Canon is only Professional?

PC-3000 IS GREAT AS IT DOES HAVE ALL BRANDED SUPPORT FEATURES AND IF YOU SAY WHERE SD HAVE ONLY 4 DRIVES SUPPORT, IT DOES NOT MEAN SD ARE NOT PROFESSIONAL. AS A PROFESSIONAL I SAY, PC3000 N SD BOTH ARE GREAT TOOLS BUT SOMETIMES ONE TOOL DOES HAVE BETTER FEATURES AND ANOTHER DOES NOT HAVE, AND ITS APPLICABLE FOR BOTH TOOLS PC3000 AND SD.

P.S: I STATED ALREADY, "YOU ARE THE DRIVER OF TECHNOLOGY, TECHNOLOGY JUST ENABLES YOU"

[rchadwick]

I would argue that Salvation's software 'tools' are toys, not because of their age, but because they are simplified, not as capable as PC3000, and personally I can't keep them from crashing for more than 15 minutes. Professional tools don't crash like that. Maybe you have better results, or you don't mind the crashing, but personally I'd put Salvation's tools FIRMLY in the toy category. I've had mine (Seagate, Maxtor, and WD) over a year, and they haven't got much better. The application, on a new install of Windows with no AV, on all the computers I tried it on, can be made to crash in the first minute. The most basic of error checking, what EVERY good programmer implements, is still lacking after all this time. Support may be good, but support can't help make the product any better. Lifetime updates are great, but it's probably because they knew their products were unfinished, and it would take a lifetime of updates to make them usable. I'm still waiting for that day.

[shahij]

I don't get a lot of crashes as u say. Yet, sometimes it crashes, but not effective as stated. I did not get in trouble ever rather then success. Working great for me. Why does it happen with you, I don't know. Why don't u try to take a resolve from SD stuffs?

[wiseleo]

I submitted a long list of suggestions to SalvationData. #1 of them? Indicate that the software is executing a command, grey out the interface, indicate which command it is, for how long it has been running, and provide an "Abort" button. The software appears to crash, but is in fact is stuck in execution. It has crashed on me, but that's after I attempted to abort a command.

[rchadwick]

Good suggestion. One I made was that the default startup state is for the drive to be unpowered, and I power it up when I'm ready. Don't even know if they implemented that. As for tech support, if everything worked fine, and I had problems with one thing, perhaps they could help. Frankly, I don't trust the products. Not with a customer's drive. Some of the freezes I encountered, the drive might have been doing something. Maybe it was what it was supposed to be doing. Maybe it was doing a low level format. Who can tell? I don't mind beta testing, but they have to fix the obvious bugs first. Once I can click around for 5 minutes without anything crashing, Then I'll look to actually using it on a junk drive. Maybe if you are careful what you click on, and follow a specific path, it won't crash as much. There's no way I'm going to bother doing that, when the programmers can't take 5 minutes to let a secretary or somebody click on things, find out it crashes at the drop of a hat, and fix it. If they don't want to test and fix it, I don't want to use it.

No, not professional. Not even as good as shareware. I wouldn't even call it Beta quality.

[HeadCrash]

One of the biggest problem with Salvationdata engineers is they are not listening to customer's complain and suggestions.

The idea and core of the software is excellent, but the way they integrate all the functions, GUI, user friendliness are real shocking. They do not follow rules accordance to software engineering and GUI as standards, they design as they pleases and never no beta testing. (Their beta testing is within themselves)

I would say the people behind the keyboard is smart but dumb ass. Smart in a way he created a nice piece of device, but unfortunately ignoring customer's requests.

Smart people i must admit but not necessary smart in marketing their products and ideas.

I agreed with Wiseleo and Rchadwick.

[dmoldovan]

Does this happen even with the latest updates of salvation's software ?


Dan

[thatdellguy]

SalvationData Annoyances:

1. Automatic update that pops up whenever software is run. (have to click it off every time)
2. Need to resize the software window. (have to resize the window every time)
3. Software does not follow a set in stone folder name in the program files directory. (i have 5 folders in program files)
4. Splash screen panda is annoying. (more or less of a delay before you can use the software)
5. No abort button to end current process. (software will hang on a command)
6. Drive powers on when software starts. (have to use external power source every time)
7. Some buttons are a mystery to me as to what they actually do. (button is not mentioned in the manual)
8. No ability to "select all" when looking at a module. (very frustrating when you need to select a large block of bad sectors)
9. Salvation box will power drive for a second and then turn off. (have to use external power source)
10. Error messages when starting software. (point procedure errors)
11. Computer will not start if usb is connected to the box. (extremely annoying)
12. Button/Controls layout is confusing. (layout is not optimized)
13. Some buttons still have ????? as a label. (click and prey!)
14. No ability to transfer data thru the usb connection. (i guess this would kill DC)
15. The buttons are labeled with the wrong terminology. (use the same button names as pc3000, its not against the law)

[dmoldovan]

@thatdellguy (or @"anybody_else" kind enough to detaliate)

OK,
I got that, but how does pc3000udma operate compared to what you just mentioned earlier ?

Dan