My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

salvationlaura wrote:Dear Jon,

I will solve the problem for you and send you an email. We are a little busy with the new website and I promise, we will provide our solution as soon as we can.

Regards

Laura

Hi Laura,

While I can appreciate the need to keep up one's website, please remember that I have a client who is waiting to get his data back.

Please try to be as thorough as possible in your e-mail, and give as many "what if" and "then" answers, as there is typically a delay of 24 hours or more between my asking and receiving an answer to each question.

Thank you very much.

Jon

From my experience as well, It's incredibly easy to crash. Doing simple things crashes the program, even without a drive connected. Just start the program, play around browsing windows and options for 5 minutes, and it will likely crash. I've never used any of my Salvation software tools to fix a drive, simply because I don't trust something that crashes like this. If nobody bothered fixing obvious bugs, how can you be sure the device isn't overwriting data instead of the SA? I've been told it's somehow my fault, because of the computer/motherboard/power supply I use, which is completely ridiculous. If a certain hardware setup is required, Salvation hasn't told me. If it was DOS-based software that was talking directly to the IDE chipset, I could be more forgiving. However, this is a simple Windows interface that is crashing.

I think the hardware is decent. If Salvation would just spend a little more effort on the software, and make sure it's stable, it could be a great product.

One of my computers runs all the Salvation tools perfectly. I think it is a matter of finding the right chipset. Salvation should have made this clear before selling the product but it does work. My other computers freeze like you mention.

thatdellguy wrote:One of my computers runs all the Salvation tools perfectly. I think it is a matter of finding the right chipset. Salvation should have made this clear before selling the product but it does work. My other computers freeze like you mention.

Care to share what works?

Thanks

I don't doubt it works on some computers. I suspect it works perfectly on Salvation's computers

However, it's their responsibility to make sure it works on at least a great number of computer, or specifically specify what computer(s) it will work on. If they were serious about fixing this, they would find out what computers don't work with their products, get those computers, duplicate the customer's setup, and make it work.

Unlike some other companies, I don't think Salvation is a scam. I suspect their products, in the right environment, work fine. From dealing with them, and from their other products, I think Salvation is a professional company. However, it's certainly not good for their image to have customers experience seriously buggy products. It's within their power to polish these products, and make them Pro-Quality.

Hi,Jon,

Before our technical support replying you offically , I would offer my thoughts for your problem:

1) check your power Supply for the Hard disk, we recommend customers to use exclusive Power supply; the unstable electric current will cause delay response to the USB console;

2) Check the USB power supply on your computer; Some mainboard didn't support good enought for USB device, as shahi said , you can change it on aGigabyte mianboard or another computer;

3) The anti-virus setting. Sometimes, it will kill our programs incorrectly; you can try to run the programs on a computer without a anti-virus;

4）Please try the Seagate on a non-Branded PC , with Gigabyte motherboard.

From some customers' expereicen:

Mose of the Branded PC are assembled using "INTEL ORIGINAL Motherboard". So, users face problem (Professionals). Professionals dislike to use AMI Bios (intel/Asus/or more...), AMI bios does not give users(professionals) extra forced/needed features. So, clone pc is the best choice in my sense.

in this case 3rd party branded motherboard best to figure out excluding intel/asus (ami bios). I prefer Gigabyte motherboard for professionals from my experience. Not only for HDDGURUS, but also other fields- networking/isp, web-developer, programmers etc...

If you need our quick reply, you can send the problem to technical team and CC me.

Best Regards

Laura

so, in my opinion, the service of salvationdata is well.

i saw their new website. it's good. i think it's a keep growthing company.

Koala, could you please confirm your designation in salvationdata??

salvationlaura wrote:Hi,Jon,

Before our technical support replying you offically , I would offer my thoughts for your problem:

1) check your power Supply for the Hard disk, we recommend customers to use exclusive Power supply; the unstable electric current will cause delay response to the USB console;

*** I typically buy Antec power supplies and over-rate them. This particular P/S has worked well with 3-4 3.5" drives, so I don't think supplying a 2.5" drive is a problem. Nonetheless, I shall heed your suggestion about using a separate supply.

2) Check the USB power supply on your computer; Some mainboard didn't support good enought for USB device, as shahi said , you can change it on aGigabyte mianboard or another computer;

3) The anti-virus setting. Sometimes, it will kill our programs incorrectly; you can try to run the programs on a computer without a anti-virus;

*** There is no anti-virus on this particular PC

4）Please try the Seagate on a non-Branded PC , with Gigabyte motherboard.

*** OK. But first, I want to be sure this device can fix my Seagate firmware problems. So far it has not, and I don't believe the reason why it has not is related to my choice of hardware at this point.

From some customers' expereicen:

Mose of the Branded PC are assembled using "INTEL ORIGINAL Motherboard". So, users face problem (Professionals). Professionals dislike to use AMI Bios (intel/Asus/or more...), AMI bios does not give users(professionals) extra forced/needed features. So, clone pc is the best choice in my sense.

in this case 3rd party branded motherboard best to figure out excluding intel/asus (ami bios). I prefer Gigabyte motherboard for professionals from my experience. Not only for HDDGURUS, but also other fields- networking/isp, web-developer, programmers etc...

If you need our quick reply, you can send the problem to technical team and CC me.

Best Regards

Laura

And yes please my dear koala, don't say like this time I am attacking YOU personally (As I have scored enough points as a bad guy in this forum -especically to spammers,advertisers and thugs). This is the thing you wrote in one of the other forum:

it's a very portable tool. now let me introduce it to you. we plan to launch it in next month. now we just call it Disk Compass provisionally. we want make a better name for it.

your advice would be very appreciated.

The disk probing device included in the Data Compass suite bypassing the disk-level problems such as multiple bad sectors, damaged surfaces, malfunctioning head assembly, or corrupted servo info, while in the meantime you can use the default software provided or define any other software you have been familiar with (R-studio, Winhex, any) to perform file recovery. Through the Data Compass, problem drives will become intact hard drives and ready for file recovery attempts..

§ With optimized algorithm and read protocol, Data Compass is able to retrieve bad sectors that are partially corrupted and cannot be cloned/ imaged by other tools available, preventing the read attempt from being stuck and unresponsive.

§ Auto soft reset, auto hard reset and power reset, total three kinds of methods to automatically resets/reboots drives that become unresponsive because of media scratch to continue imaging process, so you don't need to stand around watching and waiting for the entire system to be rebooted.

§ Bypassing BIOS or OS which prevents you from accessing corrupted data, the probing device gives you access to all available data, good and bad. Also you can define to read user data only or specific files.

§ Shadow Drive technology reduces the number of read operations and the intensity of the operations towards the source drive, which causes disk degradation.

§ Data Compass adopts UDMA100 transmit protocol to reduces the time it takes to image a disk with bad sectors, at least 30% faster then any other imaging tools available elsewhere.

§ Aiming at those Hitachi drives which have media defects in the SA (so far no tool in the world can fix this kind of problem), Data Compass can bypass the failure and access the user data area directly for data recovery.

§ Based on you need and the drive condition, you can define in the software the access mode of the Data Compass: You can optimize the read performance to image with care and intelligence, using as few passes as possible to get the most data; or you can optimize the read speed to image with fast skip to save time.

§ Stop and continue imaging as needed - configuration information together with the map of good/bad/unprocessed sectors are saved on the destination drive, so whenever you stop you will have the read permit to each imaged sector. Shadow Disk will also record each sector you successfully read from the source drive during the imaging process. There is no way you would lose what you've done.

The link to the forum is: http://forum.csebd.net/viewtopic.php?p=421#p421

May I politely ask, why it "You" who is launching the tool? Are you one of the developer, technichian,director,engineer or sales person in salvationdata? If you ain't, then how this is your tool you are planning to launch also you are responsible for even finalizing the title for the new tool. And if you are one of the person I stated above working for salvation, then.....

STOP KICKING OUR ASSES BY FAKE REVIEWS!

Koala is a nice person I talked before.
She is very much curious about latest developed technologies, can encourage others.
I like KOALA personally for her response, hard work, well communication.
She loves to talk , meet others. She appreceate others to do something always specials...

Thanks Shahi.

Then , HardDiskBu,
Firstly I’m not a SALE PERSON, and I really come into this field no more than 2 months. But I’m very interested in this field. Just as Shahi said I’m just very curious about latest developed technologies. When I came to this field first time, I had said the aim I come here is to learn. Do you see any articles I wrote to promote any products or critical any products in this forum? I just care how the products active. And I will judge them as objective as I can. Does this hurt you? Or do you think if one is working for a company then the one can’t be learning any more?

I respect every one in this forum no matter a guru or a new. I always appreciate the share of the experience in this forum.

Though one grain fills not the sack, it helps

thanks

Just wanted to post some of my experiences with SD tools in general, and in particular, the Seagate HD Doctor.

Generally, remove antivirus programs on the machine that uses HD Doctor tools. My AV program ALWAYS detects the USB driver DLL as a suspected virus. I agree with many of the comments about the interface being unclear and apparently "freezing". This happens if you do not follow the strict path that SD planned for the tool. If you do follow the path(which is not always well-documented), the tool works well.

Also, I'm in the eastern united states, so I simply plan to ask my questions over MSN messenger at night to Bruce or Harvey since they start their day at 9AM china time, 9PM my time. These guys are GREAT. They know a good deal about most models of drives. If they cannot help, they will log onto your computer using remotely and you can actually watch them run the controls an learn. Free training!

In particular with Seagate HD Doctor, you must always begin with terminal mode to get the logs. One thing I do not like about some SD tools is they start up immediately when the program is launched. They SHOULD start when you click the ON button.

These are some of my comments/experiences. In summary, the products are not intuitive, but work well when the correct path is followed. And the technical support is some of the best I have ever experienced.

A

PS: I have no investment in SD nor do I sell for them or anything like that.

I suspect you're probably right about the 'Correct Path' approach. When I've developed menu interfaces, I know what is SUPPOSED to happen, and I follow the correct 'Path'. Knowing this, I often give the program to someone who doesn't have a clue what's going on, and let them play with it. That way, I can verify there aren't any weird bugs. After unwrapping Salvation's products, the first thing I did was 'Play'. For me, it's an effective way to learn new software, and also to evaluate it. Salvation failed miserably, to the point I wouldn't think of using it for a recovery. Perhaps, if I learn to carefully tiptoe around the bugs, it might be an effective tool. I'm not going to learn to tiptoe. Salvation is either going to learn how to properly debug their software, or I'm not going to use it.

If Salvation was the only game in town, maybe we'd have to swallow our pride, and learn to jump through the hoops. However, Salvation isn't even the top player, and never will be with unstable, barely usable tools.

It might sound like I'm bad-mouthing Salvation, but this is really aimed at THEM. I sincerely hope they find and fix the basic, obvious bugs in their products. Also, I hope they start doing research themselves on the problems with their own products, and not rely on, and then spread, advice from it's customers.

The problem is not in my computer, but in your code.

I appreciate the contributions on this topic - thanks to all.

I don't care how nice Koala is. The fact that she hasn't identified herself as an employee or agent of Salvation Data is simply dishonest. Then to post something in favor of her own company when pretending to be someone else is extremely unprofessional. If I had known this is the way that they do business, I wouldn't have bought the tool from them in the first place.

Days have passed without any answers or tech support help from them. In order to access their support forum, you have to be given "proof of purchase" by your salesperson. Is this explained in the manual? No. Has Laura provided me with the "proof of purchase"? No. IT SHOULD BE AUTOMATIC WHEN YOU RECEIVED THE LICENSE KEY. But I had to contact them by e-mail to receive that; their "Automatic" key generating system didn't work for me.

Acforensics, I respect the fact that you feel that they have given you excellent tech support, and I appreciate the advice about MSN messenger. Here's all of the tech support I've received from Bruce, via e-mail:

1. Do you need data or not? (Would I really go through all of this effort if I didn't? What are data recovery companies SUPPOSED to do with data recovery tools?)

2. Please write back the APP mod to have a try,if no original one,you can use a matching donor one to try and tell me the result. The matching conditions are : same model.same FW version and at least the first 3 digits of SN same.

Does this look like world-class tech support to you?

Salvation needs a new director and managment and leadership. People who the best in retail, product quality and design, exports and other important business aspects.

At the moment salvation lacks in all areas. Maybe its how business is done in china, it certainly not how successful businesses are run in other countries.

bnice wrote:Salvation needs a new director and managment and leadership. People who the best in retail, product quality and design, exports and other important business aspects.

At the moment salvation lacks in all areas. Maybe its how business is done in china, it certainly not how successful businesses are run in other countries.

Well yes, but their pricing is so low, it probably makes it difficult to get proper people responsible for everything...

Jono - I would appreciate another review of that product in about 6-12 months a whole lot; just to see if there is any improvement, as right now it seems like that product is still a big joke.

Oh well, I guess Atola is next and hopefully that will bring some needed competition to the PC-3000.

jono-ats wrote:
2. Please write back the APP mod to have a try,if no original one,you can use a matching donor one to try and tell me the result. The matching conditions are : same model.same FW version and at least the first 3 digits of SN same.

Does this look like world-class tech support to you?

Hi, Jon,

Could you please tell us your Seagate Model number, FW version and SN, we can help you find the matching APP mod for you?

I only got the info you sent to us but no FW version included:

Selected family......................... : Momentus (Mercury)
Selected model.......................... : ST9808211A
Model by ID............................. : <HDD ID NOT READ>
Detection of HDD COM port baud rate..... : 9600

The tech support man can not help you fix the APP ERR problem, they just give one solution. It is you who have to do all the work . It is not easy to solve this kind problem , especially it is your first Seagate case.

After finding the matching app module, you can ask our technical support to remote assistance via internet. As I said before, it is a difficult task, but we should try our best and expecting the best results.

Regards

Laura

bnice wrote:Salvation needs a new director and managment and leadership. People who the best in retail, product quality and design, exports and other important business aspects.

At the moment salvation lacks in all areas. Maybe its how business is done in china, it certainly not how successful businesses are run in other countries.

That's the exact thing perhaps.
The problem is not about the products, not about the quality, even not about the technical support. The problem is the company's very own "policy" and "bussiness strategy". The directors of the company seems to be only drooling for the quick money. This could be easily figure out even by their staff and resellers selection.
First, they have almost 15+ sales managers (Hell! What are 15 peoples are supposed to sell?) but only 2 persons on technical support and a SINGLE person responsible for software designing and R&D for the products. Now this equation could be easily understood. They have appointed a lot of peoples to sell, but are not willing to improve the fundamentals of their product. They don't even provide any sort of direct interaction with the research engineer to the customers. Although, you can find plenty of persons if you want to buy, but could not get even a single, if you need to talk serious about their any of the product. And all of this happens because they do only CHEAP MONEY SUCKING.

Second, simply have a glance over their selection staff members. They have peoples for sale like laura (The one key solution), Koala (Feels ashamed in telling that she is from salvation), Susan (Always Confused), Selina(What the HECK she knows?) & Judge Judy(No comments! you know it all). And, no need to appreciate the technical support persons. Everybody know their skills very well. A newbie in data recovery..ok, let's forget newbie, even those money suckers computer shoppe owners (We do it all sort of persons -new/old computers,dealing,computers on rent,repairing,softwares,installation,tv repairing,dvd player repairing) knows hard drives better then those. The fact is, they are from the background, nothing to do with HDD's or DR. They are simply some unemployed guys, who had done some sorta computer course and now they are running the support system for the world class firm in DR!!

The only person which is (Sorry, was) alteast a bit above from the worse (more precise, average) was the Bruce. Atleast better then these DUMBASSES. He seemed to be knowing hard drives a bit. But but but.......if salvation keeps persons like this and give them the paying they want, won't it be the doom's day? How the heck they can keep good persons. It's totally opposite of their policy. They are determined to make bad products handled by worst person. How can they play with their company's internal philosophy? So they kicked him and started appointing these jokers.
Anyways, but as an exception, I found only a SINGLE guy serious, and could be called "True person deserving" the status. Pat. This guy Pat Lin is the only person in the company I found, does not contains any "Foolishness". Also, determined to improve the products sincerely. But the problem is, the directors have made him almost unavailable for the customers. It's almost like to hoist the flag on the everest to meet this guy. There is no contact info about him on their website, even if you somehow managed to get his contact info, it's almost impossible to meet him (don't know because of his shedule or it is the "Director's cut").
How I know the accurate about the all salvationers because I have had conversations with all of 'em personally. I am having their products from the first version, and being in touch with all the persons who came by and passed away too.

Regarding their persons selection skill, one more thing should be mentioned. Their selection of their "resellers". Peoples consider (and expect) a reseller to be a part of the company. Whatever he does, reflects the image of the company. But what are these Nadir's and Gaurav's supposed to be? It is very well know to all the senior members here that how nadir screwed this forum by spamming and how badly he got banned. Their indian reseller Gaurav also keeps shitting here and there, and what was the last thing he did, is also well know to all of us. It seems, they simply distribute their resellership to any tom dick and harry, who wants to. No matter, who the person is, no matter, what's his image in the world DR communtiy and no matter even, what the fuck he is harming the salvationdata. All they want is quick money.

Whew, That's it for now. Though I had in my mind, by due to the lack of time, I am not going to discuss about their products now. Will do it later someday. Because commenting on their bussiness model took this much words and space, so reviewing their products is going to take a hell lot of content within.
And, I have no personal fights with salvation or anybody. Nor do I related any competetor firm anyhow. All I want to improve them by showing them the mirror. Because I am also one of the (unfortunately) customer of their product series. The bady thing may be, I say it loud and clear whatever I want to say. Wheather it is good or bad, I just can't resist without saying (as long as it is truth). Though, I literally hate to work on their products, but wish, someday they will be improved.

Salvationers, don't bite my finger. Look at where I am pointing.

My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

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Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

Re: My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

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