My experience with Salvation Data's HDD-Seagate Product

[jono-ats]

Laura,

The info on the bad drive is:

Model: ST98823AS
S/N: 5PK2Y681
PN: 9W183-040
FW: 7.01
SITE: WU
DATE: 07155

And the donor is:

Model: ST98823AS
S/N: 5PK43H2K
PN: 9W183-040
FW: 7.01
SITE: WU
DATE: 07343

Checking my inventory, I have a model that is extremely close as a donor; I have not tried uploading the firmware for it yet.

Model: ST98823AS
S/N: 5PK2Y6BY
PN: 9W183-040
FW: 7.01
SITE: WU
DATE: O7154

In the meantime, per your recommendation, I purchased a new Gigabyte motherboard with an AMD CPU (no Intel here). Am I throwing good money after bad?

I have complained publicly on this forum that I do not have access to your support forums, MSN, etc. Why haven't you e-mailed me with the necessary information?

Before I bought the tool, I sent you the symptom and you told me that the tool would work for this problem. After I paid for the tool, you told me that the problem is "very hard." Now why didn't you tell me that at the beginning?

I am still awaiting your assistance, and my client is awaiting their data. However, I have to tell you that I am losing faith very rapidly in your company's products, ethics, and abilities. Please prove me wrong.

Thank you.

Jon

[coffeebean]

Hi jono-ats,

Maybe sometimes we can blame ourselves - just sometimes.

Humans are generally optimistic and grow up believing advertising and propaganda.

To sell some product the seller has also learnt to bullshit a little and mostly a lot.

Salvationdata and also aunty ACE they bullshit a lot - not just a little.

They claim they can fix "clicking" Seagate or even "clicking" Hitachi, .....

Well they can't fix clicking Seagate or especially clicking Hitachi in more than 98% of cases.

Clicking Seagate can be due to faulty pcb in about 5% of cases, (same with Hitachi)

Clicking Seagate and Hitachi is 95% due to heads, media problem.

Your Seagate FW version 7.01 is probably Apple drive - They failing like flies - wordwide.

Failure symptom - heads scratch media quite quickly - maybe media faulty or heads sprung
too tight, I don't know, but failure of this drive fw rev. is massive.

Solution in 90% or more cases is not possible, because once drive heads start breaking into
media, user will power drive up about 10 times - then they call techie who does the same,
then they decide to find cheapo DR "expert" who try some more - then they go to real expert,
who can charge them "inspection fee" or evaluation fee.

Also, Hitachi HTS tends to get media faults in SA and I don't think Laura or Bruce or whoever
can fix this problem.

So, you think ACE or Laura going to advertise like this :

Hey, we got some fantastic program to repair Seagate and Hitachi, cheap and dongled.
Hey, our program can't fix 95% or more of faults with these drives - Buy now before coffeebean
propaganda gets to you.

[jono-ats]

Coffeebean,

Well, you're right that I am naive -- I believe what people promise me far too often.

I'm well aware of the Seagate Momentus problems - we contacted Seagate well over a year ago and sent them (3) failed Apple branded Momentus drives for analysis, because we were seeing so many (sometimes as many as 5/day). Seagate "lost" the first two drives and told us that there was no problem -- that these drives were not failing more than expected. Based upon my experience, I beg to differ.

This particular Momentus did not report a head mask failure like most of the others. Occasionally we do recover data from failed or failing Momentus drives; in fact, I am recovering data from a 120 GB drive right now.

In the USA, there is an adopted set of laws called the Uniform Commercial Code. My understanding of one of the provisions (I am not a lawyer, this is just my layman's opinion) is that there is a warranty of merchantability of fitness for a particular use. In other words, if you bring a can into a grocery store, and ask the clerk for a can opener, and he gives one to you that does not work for that can, you have the right to a remedy because it failed the purpose that it was sold for.

I made sure to send Laura the log from the PC3000 and asked her if her tool would recover from this symptom and this drive. She said unequivocally YES, so I relied on her promise and bought the tool.

So far it hasn't worked, and their tech support has been DISMAL. They are making an enemy out of this client who started off in good faith, which they have not returned.

Well, anyway, they have my money, so they have the last laugh, I guess. But rest assured they will not get another dime from me, no matter what they produce.

There is a saying that an unhappy customer tells 10 people about their unhappy experience. Salvation should be warned: that will be a very conservative number in my case.

Jon

[acforensics]

Hi Jono,

I agree with you about email support - it sucks. But it may not be the correct medium for diagnoses of problems on a hard drive. I had your exact experience - sending an email and then waiting the next day only to get a cryptic email back as the answer. I do not do this any more. I ONLY use MSN messenger and I have increased my success with the tools tremendously, and the turn-around time. If you can afford the time, stay up until 9PM EST, which is when they open, and try Bruce on MSN messenger. Your work will go much more quickly and you will at least find out more quickly if the tool can help or not. Try this once and let us know how it goes.

Also, no offense to Laura, but I would not ask her technical questions. She is probably passing them on to Bruce or Harvey, then passing their answers back to you - not a very efficient method. But she a great sales person!

my $0.02.

A

[jono-ats]

Acforensics,

Thank you for your good advice and for the kindness of your time.

I asked Bruce via e-mail what his MSN messenger ID was and got no answer.

I stayed up to 3:00 A.M. last night constructing a new PC with the Gigabyte logic board, etc. Per Bruce's instructions, I uploaded firmware from the nearly identical donor. Still -- no change, no fix. Big surprise!


Jon

[jono-ats]

SALVATION DATA = DAMNATION DATA

The end of the story. Bruce tells me by e-mail that "There's no other effectual way at present for data recovery then."

So I've spent about $500 on a tool that doesn't work as advertised or promised, plus a couple of hundred to build a special PC for it, plus heaven knows how much time. All for naught.

Thanks, Laura, for misleading me.

BUYERS BEWARE!!

Jon

[salvationlaura]

Hi, Jon,

Very sorry for the problem. I hope I can make up for it.

You can send the HD Doctor for Seagate back to us,then I can refund to you. or you can use it on other cases and let it pay off itself.

I always try my best to help my customers. However, perfectation is too hard to reach. As all the people in this industry know the truth, data recovery is a process of research and study of HDD. This problem is more complicated than I expected. It is not a simple APP ERR, it is APP ERR+F. I am not sure there is any solution or tool to this problem, I hope there will be some solution in the near future．

Jon, if you want to refund, please contact me.If you want to keep it,it is okay and our technical support team and I will offer our best services and support to you.

No matter what your decision is, I can understand and resepect it. I will appreciate your understanding of my work.


Best Regards

Laura

[salvationlaura]

BTW,

A kind reminding for all the players in the DR game:

You can not expect all the problems can be solved by our products. If the product can solve most of the problems, then it pay off itself.

However majority of problem can be solved by our products.

Regards

Laura

[rchadwick]

I always try my best to help my customers. However, perfectation is too hard to reach.

Laura

Perhaps attaining perfection is impossible. but it's a REALLY good goal. What you're saying sounds like your goal is much lower than perfection. If so, you're doing great. Don't try too hard. You'll just get run over by someone who does have high goals and standards. This isn't a problem you can 'low price' yourselves out of.

Even though I keep thinking I must be wrong, I'm coming to the conclusion that Salvation is entirely satisfied with their products as they are, and that all our pleas continue to fall on deaf ears. I've been waiting all this time for existing products to be fixed, and now I realize that was wasted time. That means I've got 3 worthless products. How can I recover my money from DR's, if I can't even use it? It seems you actually EXPECT your customers to do your R&D and troubleshooting for you. Did your technical staff determine that your products only work with Gigabyte motherboards, or did you simply take the word of a customer who happens to personally favor Gigabyte?

I've had these things about a year, and they have about a year's worth of dust on them. If you're willing to give refunds, can I return my Seagate, WD, and Maxtor tools? Will you offer everyone a refund?

[craig6928]

are these hard drive mac base or pc system based.

[shahij]

Tools are developed for more enhanced communication with you HDD. every tools have a highest feature to do expected job, someone could not play it well and someone utilize it to the highest. it depends on every individual.

if you only depends on the tool without knowledge, self-technique then you are expecting wrong, you have to utilize it with your highest effort.

[salvationlaura]

Hi all,

This is firmware 7.01. BIG problem with mostly comes from Mac PowerBook + Seagate SATA. the defect is caused by instability of read write head mechanism. The drive is already damaged itself. If Jono-ats has a clean room, he may open the drive and will see the scratch will be all over the upper side platter. If that is the case, there is no way of recovering the data inside.

To rchadwick,

I can understand your fury. However, I have to say, I am only a small (TINY) potato of SalvationDATA. I am just trying to do my duty. But there are many things beyond my control. I tried many times to make things a little different, sometimes successfully and sometimes in vain.

Anyhow, you said all those things and spoke out your mind because you knew we did care.

Thank you.

Best Regards

Laura

[rchadwick]

Nothing against you Laura. It appears it's your job to be a 'face' for Salvation. That means you get all the crap, while someone who really needs an ass kicking is relaxing somewhere in peace. I have nothing against you personally, but I do sincerely hope you manage to pass along the message to the right person in a way where they actually realize they would make a lot more money in sales, or at least not go out of business, if you polished your tools more. It's as if you ran 95% of a very long marathon, then, within view of the finish line, decided to just stop and sit down. It still boggles my mind.

[shahij]

I got few articles regarding the HDD.

follow the links.
http://www.macnn.com/articles/07/11/27/ ... ok.drives/

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=430433

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07 ... rives.html

[jono-ats]

Hi all,

This is firmware 7.01. BIG problem with mostly comes from Mac PowerBook + Seagate SATA. the defect is caused by instability of read write head mechanism. The drive is already damaged itself. If Jono-ats has a clean room, he may open the drive and will see the scratch will be all over the upper side platter. If that is the case, there is no way of recovering the data inside.
Laura

The fact is that this drive has not crashed. It does not click or show the other typical symptoms. If you query it in terminal mode, it will return data. It is a Seagate drive with a firmware problem -- which your tools are supposed to fix.

Don't blame me or the drive this time . . . .

[salvationlaura]

The fact is that this drive has not crashed. It does not click or show the other typical symptoms. If you query it in terminal mode, it will return data. It is a Seagate drive with a firmware problem -- which your tools are supposed to fix.

Don't blame me or the drive this time . . . .

Hi,

Jon. How could you figure it out there is only " Firmware Corruption" without take a look at the platters inside?

Here is the diagnosis report you send it to me:

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Interface task reset

4096k x 16 buffer detected

MERC2 - 1_Disk 0.02 05-08-06 15:10

Head Mask 07,01 - Switch to full int.

Spin Ready

Dwell Cyl - 084F/0715/0794

ERR Read App Code


F>Pgm=00 Trk=00000105(00000105[001C77]).0(0).054(054) Zn=FF Err=A3 ErCt=0000 Hlth=0000 CHlth=0000 Ready LBA=00000000

F>

Age=00 Type=00 MxCyl=0000052E MxHd=31A MxSct=2000 BSz=003B TCode=00000000

F>
......

"Head Mask 07,01， LBA=00000000 ", look, even the head stack is faulty and can not read properly, how could you know it is only the firmware problem? The HDA fauty, maybe it is not complete dead but not operating properly.

FW 7.01 does not click because it is not only just an ordinary "firmware corruption' ,it also suffers several damaged heads (dirty, weak, unstable" and also sometimes scratch on platter surface .

Not all head crash will cause clicking sound.

Head stuck on the surface WILL cause clicking,head crash only on several sectors WILL NOT always gets clicking sounds

Drive will recalibrate will never reach DRDY DSC--readiness, they will always stays busy.

Okay, I think I have done something beyond my duty.

BTW, sorry for my misleading,Jona-ats. Any thing more I can do for you? I hope we can learn from this case, you, I and everyone who concern the thread.

Regards

Laura

[jono-ats]

Laura,

The Head Mask 07,01 message occurs in terminal mode even with a good drive.

As it turned out, using the PC3000, with the help of Yarek from DeepSpar, and the kind intervention of Dobre from this forum, I was able to load the loader and begin the recovery process, knowing that it may or may not be successful overall. Since there were some sporadic, single-sector errors at the beginning of the drive, I am imaging from the rear to the front. So far it is going well.

It is much easier to see how the process is going along (or not) with the PC3000. The interface is a lot more helpful, and it gives useful error messages.

FYI, I tried two Gigabyte logic boards. Neither would work with MTP, which is a big problem for me. One of them gave a warning that the BIOS is AHCP incompatible. Your tool didn't crash with these boards. But I felt that their shortcomings outweighed their usefulness, and I returned them both.

Laura, thank you for your help, and for going above your duty. And yes, there is one more thing you can do for me. I shall contact you via private e-mail to discuss.

Thanks & best regards,

Jon

[jono-ats]

It just keeps getting better . . . .

I thought it would be interesting to try the Salvation Doctors F> repair of drives, which allegedly restores drives with bad sectors & other errata.

I dug up an old 40 GB drive and check it. There were no apparent firmware errors, but there were a lot of bad sectors. It started up fine with the PC3000.

I hooked it up to the Seagate Doctor and followed the instructions in the 4 page FAQ manual for F> repair. After several hours had passed (with interesting but inscrutable Seagate terminal messages) the drive stopped and said it needed to be formatted.

I uploaded the ATA module according to the instructions, and exited the program. I repowered the drive, and it remained busy. I tried to read the data from the hard drive, and it reported 1000 LBAs and never came ready. What was broken was made worse.

I guess it's my fault because I followed their instruction manual, when I should have known what to do all along, right??

[jono-ats]

PS: I was able to recover 56 GB of data from the bad 80 Momentus using the PC3000. I could have recovered a little more, but I interrupted the process and could not get it to resume. Nonetheless, I consider it a success.

Laura: When will I hear from you?

Jon

[salvationlaura]

Jono-ats,

I already replied you, please check your PM.

BTW, can you open the files of the 56Gb? are there really some scratches on the platter ? It is really astonishing, could you please share this process of your success with us? I believe alot people want to share your experience urgently.

Good Luck!

Regards

Laura