MRT-Pro, about to purchase, how does it measure up

[nitrious]

Hi,

I am about to purchase a MRT-Pro, but would first like to hear other users experiences and should i do this. Has the investment in the equipment yielded the results and return you were looking for ? Do jobs take longer, are there issues getting things done ? Is support for firmware or other things an issue ?

I realise MRT-Pro is a new product, and thus it is easy to say there are problems. It is also about MRTLabs approach to solving problems that counts as well. In addition there will also likely be a few bad experiences among the many good ones, this is also expected. Please let me know the good and the bad.

Since I am new to this field, the MRT-Pro with its lower cost and seemingly similar functionality is attractive as opposed to PC-3000 with its excellent track record but far higher cost, but not at the cost of fewer cases solved, and thus lesser income as a result. I'd rather spend more initially and get more cases solved, thus increasing customer happiness and reputation for the company.

Your responses are eagerly awaited,

Regards,

Wayne (Nitrious)

[data-medics]

You'll definitely be able to solve more cases with PC-3000, as it simply has a lot more features than anyone else. I'm not an MRT user, but from what I'm told it's decent tool. I've heard it's actually quite good for imaging unstable drives which is important. It can handle basic ROM reading/writing and basic firmware repairs. However it's lacking in some of the more advanced features.

If you need one tool that does it all PC-3000 is it. But, if you can't afford PC-3000 MRT might be a good alternative that can still handle most jobs.

I've actually been considering getting MRT just to take the load off my PC-3000 so I can dedicate it just for the harder cases.

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

You'll definitely be able to solve more cases with PC-3000, as it simply has a lot more features than anyone else. I'm not an MRT user, but from what I'm told it's decent tool. I've heard it's actually quite good for imaging unstable drives which is important. It can handle basic ROM reading/writing and basic firmware repairs. However it's lacking in some of the more advanced features.

If you need one tool that does it all PC-3000 is it. But, if you can't afford PC-3000 MRT might be a good alternative that can still handle most jobs.

I've actually been considering getting MRT just to take the load off my PC-3000 so I can dedicate it just for the harder cases.

Well,
For a Newbie " The MRT Pro " Is Not a good Choice Cos Without Manuals He Cannot and Will Not Understand The Tool And Its Various Utilities .If You Have PC 3000 And Need To Share The Load Its a Very Good Choice .For a Newbie I Would Suggest The DFL-DE/DFL-DDP Or DFL-SRP Imaging + File Extraction + Common Firmware Tool .I Gave a Live Demo To Wayne Today .He Was Sweet Enough To Call From South Africa

[digisupport]

If you are serious about recovery then skip MRT and wait until you can afford Ace gear.

[Dmitri]

PC-3000 with its excellent track record but far higher cost, but not at the cost of fewer cases solved, and thus lesser income as a result. I'd rather spend more initially and get more cases solved, thus increasing customer happiness and reputation for the company.

If your data recovery intentions are serious, then you have said everything yourself. Unless you put it on a shelf, PC-3000 will surely pay itself many times.

[nitrious]

Thanks for all your answers. Dolphin labs is very close to the price of the PC-3000, around 30% difference is not enough for me to move from PC-3000 if I'm going to pay real money for this and commit.

I'm in daily contact with MRT-Pro atm, mostly about getting their manuals sorted out. I've suggested they contact Anne Leflore to adapt the SD ones to MRT-Pro. If they give me the soft no, I'll contact Anne Leflore myself and suggest it directly. I'd pay for decent manuals for the MRT-PRO.

I don't pay much for intl. calls from my cell, even less from my office phone where I get interconnect prices

Amarbir was kind enough to show me via teamviewer how the MRT-Pro interface looks etc. Can be daunting without any kind of manual. He also took the time to answer my various questions on the business in general which I really appreciated, and gave excellent advise

I've decided I'm going for PC-3000 and Deepspar Imager in around 3 months. The overall cost will be double that of the Dolphin solution but I would have had to pay for them at some stage, why not do it now. This should solve 80-90% of the cases that come across my desk (if anyone could confirm this ?)

Erratic thought territory :
In fact I *might* just buy the MRT-Pro to play around with for the next 3 months on my own HDD's I have lying around. Then get Scott Moulton and Anne Leflores books anyway even if its for a different tool, the problems and reasons behind them remain the same imo. and try the various methodologies out. Haven't quite decided on this tbh.

[fzabkar]

In fact I *might* just buy the MRT-Pro to play around with for the next 3 months on my own HDD's I have lying around. Then get Scott Moulton and Anne Leflores books ...

Which of Scott Moulton's books are you referring to? I used my PayPal gift voucher to buy one of his "books", but my money could have been better spent at McDonalds. The book essentially consisted of PowerPoint slides in point form and contained very little useful information. In fact most of the information could be found in Wikipedia or in any number of online tutorials. There was nothing that delved into the inner workings of HDDs or their firmware.

As for Anne Leflore's books, I have yet to find out whether they are any more than mere Chinglish-to-English translations of SalvationData manuals, in which case you could probably get by with the originals.

[nitrious]

Hmm.. thanks for the heads up, I will certainly go into the purchases cautiously.

Scott Moltons ebooks are cheap enough to be a write off if not useful.

Anne's book indexes available for view seem to be in-depth. The price is a little scary.

http://www.datarecoverytools.co.uk/stor ... covery.pdf

Any other books or sources of info that might be useful ?

[guru]

This thread always made me giggle a little, mostly because of my artwork

From a few years ago> viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18621

[fzabkar]

Hmm.. thanks for the heads up, I will certainly go into the purchases cautiously.

Scott Moltons ebooks are cheap enough to be a write off if not useful.

Anne's book indexes available for view seem to be in-depth. The price is a little scary.

http://www.datarecoverytools.co.uk/stor ... covery.pdf

Any other books or sources of info that might be useful ?

I would read SalvationData's manuals and then compare them against Anne Leflore's index. In fact ISTR that she herself said (in this forum?) that the manuals are only applicable to SalvationData's tools.

As for Scott Moulton's ebooks, IMO they're misrepresented. If you make the mistake of buying them, I think you'll agree that they're not books at all. In fact I felt cheated. BTW, I bought the digital paperback version. For some strange reason the digital hardback version cost more. :P

Here is my favourite resource for file system information (MBR, GPT, boot records):
http://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/mbr/index.html

[guru]

http://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/mbr/index.html

Thanks

[nitrious]

Thank you for the advise and suggestions so far

MRT-Pro did respond to my email, complete email contents as received :

"Thank you very much for your suggestions. We really appreciate it.
To be honest, the complete manual is what we lack of at present. But yes, we are thinking of making the new manual and we will keep updating tutorials, videos and so on.
For users who have experience in data recovery field, using our product should not be a problem. But for new users, it will need time to master.

About the cost for support, the support from Email, Skype or QQ are totally free. About remote assistance, for very complicated cases, seldom times, it may cost 50$ provided the case is solved in remote assistance. Customers only need to pay only when the problem is resolved. It means no repair or recovery, no pay. But up to now, we nearly don't charge any for our customers."

Of interest there's a new MRT-PRO hardware board does x64 and has extra features. http://us.mrtlab.com/download/

Dolphin has made their device to sort out the most common firmware problems per HDD family (they listed them), perhaps I should ask MRT-Pro for details of how their tools fixes these issues, with procedures.

This would at least bring parity between the toolsets imo. It just shouldn't be this hard to get a company to produce docs.

@Spildit I don't think I should be doing client head swaps immediately as a new entrant to the industry. PCB repair is certainly something I'll comfortable to do from the beginning. Head swaps are something I'll practice on my own drives until I'm satisfied with my performance. This may be a few months though. Thank you for advise though, most appreciated.

[pcimage]

I've decided I'm going for PC-3000 and Deepspar Imager in around 3 months. The overall cost will be double that of the Dolphin solution but I would have had to pay for them at some stage, why not do it now. This should solve 80-90% of the cases that come across my desk (if anyone could confirm this ?)

PC-3000 is a FIRMWARE tool and the majority of problems that i see related to hard drives are Heads/pre-amp related.

If you buy PC-3000 with DE you don't need to buy DDI4 at the same time, as DE is a good cloning/imaging tool as well and will do the job.

You would still need to cover PCB fix and Head Swap and that you can't do just with a PC-3000.

Yes, you're right Pc3k is a firmware tool, but it's so much more.

I agree, very few problems we receive are purely firmware issues "fixable" by pc3k.

But, we use our (many) pc3k systems to recover data in conjunction with data extractor. For example reading Toshiba drives with bad g-list (and not repairable due to damage to SA) via a software translator, or Hitachi ARM drives after head swap which won't load PSHT or RDMT properly with non-native heads by loading the appropriate modules into RAM (plus other trickery) plus umpteen other neat "tricks".

I'm actually thinking of buying an MRT to see if it's good enough to do some tasks to free up a Pc3k and also to compare the two if anyone's interested?

[nitrious]

That would be really great, and something that's missing imo. A direct comparison between the two!! My expectation is that not all the PC-3000 functionality will be available, but that a lot will be. Would you be able to make notes ?

The real question will then be one of ROI,

Scenario 1 : what would be the income loss be in using MRT-Pro only, no PC-3000 available, due to potentially fewer cases solved. What would that loss add up over say a month/year. Would there be a loss ?

Scenario 2 : income generation by freeing up a pc-3000 with it for more mundane tasks. One could potentially also use a DDI in this role as well with similar outlay to the MRT-Pro.

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

As for Anne Leflore's books, I have yet to find out whether they are any more than mere Chinglish-to-English translations of SalvationData manuals, in which case you could probably get by with the originals.

Well,
You have no idea what you are taking about .Dont act like guru jee all the time " Guru this is not directed to you guru jee means a very learned person who other looks upto " . Sometimes when you open your month learn to first actually experience it .Do me a favour personally she has the Maxtor Manual Free For people like you go ask her and then compare it with the salvation data manual available .The seagate ,western digital etc manuals are even better .In The last 2 years you and spildit have been spending your full time in learning about Data recovery personally and now everyone who comes online you keep lecturing .

@ Spildit ,
Let Me Get a Little Free at night i will definately like to reply to this message - > viewtopic.php?t=31164&f=3&start=0#p216463 .Professionalism Does Not Mean [ The Master of The Subject ] . I Have Personally experienced so many thing about MRT Pro in the last few days that my head spins by the end of the day .I am glad its over now will post my experiences .Might be its helpful to few people

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

That would be really great, and something that's missing imo. A direct comparison between the two!! My expectation is that not all the PC-3000 functionality will be available, but that a lot will be. Would you be able to make notes ?

The real question will then be one of ROI,

Scenario 1 : what would be the income loss be in using MRT-Pro only, no PC-3000 available, due to potentially fewer cases solved. What would that loss add up over say a month/year. Would there be a loss ?

Scenario 2 : income generation by freeing up a pc-3000 with it for more mundane tasks. One could potentially also use a DDI in this role as well with similar outlay to the MRT-Pro.

I've used both PC-3000 UDMA and MRT tool and i would say that not only MRT tool lacks some of the PC-3000 functions, as virtual disk to mount a drive attached to the card port on windows, etc ... aldo if you never used a firmware tool on your life you will not learn how to use one with MRT and the chances that it will end up on a shelf un-used and that you quit the idea of data recovery at firmware level are higher without the support and manuals of a tool like PC-3000 UDMA, unless you can somehow get copies (pirated) of Ace manuals.

Maybe you should start by cheaper tools like WDR, WDMarvell, etc ... just to get an idea of what a firmware tool is and what is possible to do with one, and only if you undrestand tha move on to an expensive tool.

In other hand if you buy the on-line version of MRT and if you figure out at the end that data recovery at the firmware level is not for you the investment loss will be very low, as the price of a single payment is way lower then to go ahead and by blindly a pc-3000 unit...

Well Wayne ,
Why Not Try What Spildit is Saying To Start With .first start Logical Work and Perfect It ,Then move to firmware and pcb/repairs .To start with in mission no 2 try freeware type of firmware tools .why are you jumping so fast .Data recovery is done with collecting experience

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

I've decided I'm going for PC-3000 and Deepspar Imager in around 3 months. The overall cost will be double that of the Dolphin solution but I would have had to pay for them at some stage, why not do it now. This should solve 80-90% of the cases that come across my desk (if anyone could confirm this ?)

PC-3000 is a FIRMWARE tool and the majority of problems that i see related to hard drives are Heads/pre-amp related.

If you buy PC-3000 with DE you don't need to buy DDI4 at the same time, as DE is a good cloning/imaging tool as well and will do the job.

You would still need to cover PCB fix and Head Swap and that you can't do just with a PC-3000.

Yes, you're right Pc3k is a firmware tool, but it's so much more.

I agree, very few problems we receive are purely firmware issues "fixable" by pc3k.

But, we use our (many) pc3k systems to recover data in conjunction with data extractor. For example reading Toshiba drives with bad g-list (and not repairable due to damage to SA) via a software translator, or Hitachi ARM drives after head swap which won't load PSHT or RDMT properly with non-native heads by loading the appropriate modules into RAM (plus other trickery) plus umpteen other neat "tricks".

I'm actually thinking of buying an MRT to see if it's good enough to do some tasks to free up a Pc3k and also to compare the two if anyone's interested?

Sean ,
If you Like to Get a Experience With It i Can Arrange a Teamviewer Session .You can try all the tricks you like on as many drives and families ,Just pm me or call me

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

Thanks for all your answers. Dolphin labs is very close to the price of the PC-3000, around 30% difference is not enough for me to move from PC-3000 if I'm going to pay real money for this and commit.

Well ,
How did you come to this conclusion .They Have Two SRP at the moment - > http://www.dolphindatalab.com/product/d ... xtraction/ And -> http://www.dolphindatalab.com/product/d ... equipment/

[Amarbir[CDR-Labs]]

@ Spildit ,
Let Me Get a Little Free at night i will definately like to reply to this message - > viewtopic.php?t=31164&f=3&start=0#p216463 .Professionalism Does Not Mean [ The Master of The Subject ] . I Have Personally experienced so many thing about MRT Pro in the last few days that my head spins by the end of the day .I am glad its over now will post my experiences .Might be its helpful to few people

Sure !!! Please do share your experiences and findings !

I will be looking forward to it. The more people share the better !

Also if you have some time to spare read my guide that i've just finished on Seagate U6 SS. You can even follow it without any paid tools (except for a TTL adaptor) and you might learn something ....

As you can see my research it's not just about editing passwords with hex editor ...

http://www.hddoracle.com/viewtopic.php?f=83&t=1246

Nice ,
I will surely read it

[nitrious]

Amarbir, good advise as always.

Dolphin sent me a quote of $5200 its quite high, high enough for me to rather pay the little extra and get the PC-3000.

I will then assemble the best logical recovery tools, and practice. Any suggestions for software/solutions for logical recovery are welcome. I have R-Studio, anything else I should look out for ?

I have also started to download the software Spildit seems to enjoy using to try out his suggestion. Some of it is just plain impossible to find though, mostly the china union stuff. I'm worried to a smaller extent about using the lower end stuff as I expect it to be flaky at best or produce poor results. I don't really want to be learning techniques on software I doubt I'd ever use on clients HDD's. Sediv and WDMarvell excepted. The china union stuff is now totally unsupported, I may even have to crack a demo version to try the china union stuff, guess how much faith I put in software I have to do that to

I do feel that DR is a very involved difficult business and occasionally wonder if i'm going to be able to do it well in spite of my quite in depth IT related skill-set, hence my focus on DR knowledge and superior tools to get me up to speed and producing viable results.

So far I've seen my skills are very well tuned to DR in general, in addition my intelligence is very good which helps. I still worry however, there is so much to know, so much at stake. Each HDD a puzzle with ever increasing complexity as manufactures put more and more tech into their products to keep up with consumer demand and data protection laws.