Why?

[fzabkar]

The thing that differentiates HDD repair is that I don't think people realise just how much is involved, how fine/small/fragile they are.. not many of the others have such small tolerance for a DIYer to fix it or kill it.

Plus, all the others have much detail out there provided by the vendors etc, but no service manuals exist until you start buying tools or shelling out the $$

The fact is that a technician will treat a PCB repair as a repair whereas the DR profession treats it as a "recovery". Ironically, the technician is more knowledgeable about such work, yet he charges on the basis of his time rather than on the value of the customer's data.

As for service manuals, which one do you want or need?

Here are some of my favourite repositories of service manuals and circuit diagrams:

http://elektrotanya.com/?q=keres
http://www.eserviceinfo.com/
http://www.jordansmanuals.com/Default.aspx?Brand=LG

[HaQue]

I guess there are small differences between a recovery and a repair, sometime physical, sometimes intent. Many times the disk is not "fixed" but DATA can be recovered.

I think the fee debate is very subjective, and I don't think I have any answers for that. I tend to see what someone is charging and decide if I want to pay it. I have no knowledge of their business so I tend to not get into it. I may be alarmed or happy at the amount but it is such a can of worms that I'm not up for that!

As for the service manuals links, thanks, they might come in handy. I used to vacuum up service manuals but never had the one I need at the time no matter how many I had.. so don't do it anymore.

I didn't see any hard disk drive manuals or flash drive service/repair manuals there in the quick look I had.. that is what I was referring to. Do Western digital/Seagate/Toshiba even produce them?

cheers.

[fzabkar]

I didn't see any hard disk drive manuals or flash drive service/repair manuals there in the quick look I had.. that is what I was referring to. Do Western digital/Seagate/Toshiba even produce them?

Yes, they do ... or at least they did in my day. Seagate was particularly good in this regard. Their Singapore office gave me any paper manual I wished for, free of charge. WD were always stingy.

Here is what was available around the 1980s:
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/

Control Data's documentation was very extensive:
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/cdc/discs/

For example, here is a drive that I used to work on:

http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ ... un1980.pdf
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ ... _Nov84.pdf
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ ... _Jul80.pdf

This company (Microcomputer Systems Corporation) made disc controllers:
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/msc/

Just look at the quality of the documentation (technical description, circuit diagrams, assembly code):
http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/ ... B_1980.pdf

Nowadays such information is leaked or stolen. Even a company's own front-line technical staff don't have access to it. AIUI, WD has a 300-page specification for its Vendor Specific Commands, so it's clear that internal documentation does exist. I have seen circuit diagrams for some relatively modern ATA drives, but these were not publicly released.

[HaQue]

Thanks franc, as I thought it is not available.

I received a full schematic for one of my first computers... but not relevant today. I don't count internal docs, but manuals the company put out for service people, or let out such as the Gregorys manuals for the auto industry. Seems the vendors are not interested in supporting repairs or DR.

[Keatah]

Back in the day WD sent me all the info one could ever want for their early caviar drives. Beautiful 200+ page technical manuals. With just a tiny bit more, you could build one from freshly mined ore.

[fzabkar]

@Keatah, would you consider scanning your WD manuals for posterity?

I'm in the process of doing just that for my library of technical manuals, documents, databooks and loose datasheets from that time. I must have a few hundred of them, so it's going to take me a while. It would be a shame to lose them forever.

[HaQue]

With all due respect to the more technically experienced, I understand how it used to be for manuals. I used to get almost any manual from a service in either NSW or QLD, I cant remember the name, but mostly TV and VCR manuals. they would send it and you send it back in a few days. You could be pretty confident it would have all necessary info for repair.

But what I am talking about is right now. Say I needed a tech manual for a 3TB WD. Where is the service manual that lists all the exact parts, the specs, and all the service specs and adjustments? There are none.


Looking back on the good times isn't helping the new intern trying to learn DR.

[fzabkar]

Say I needed a tech manual for a 3TB WD. Where is the service manual that lists all the exact parts, the specs, and all the service specs and adjustments? There are none.

I'm working on something along those lines ...

BTW, you were probably thinking of High Country Service Data.

[Keatah]

They're in a long line of manuals and 80's tech stuff to be scanned.

[HaQue]

Say I needed a tech manual for a 3TB WD. Where is the service manual that lists all the exact parts, the specs, and all the service specs and adjustments? There are none.

I'm working on something along those lines ...

BTW, you were probably thinking of High Country Service Data.

It certainly was High Country. really good operation, I spoke with a guy on the phone a few times trying to weasel out a Playstation one manual, but in the end he didn't quite fold.

I know my Flash Drive data is taking quite a bit of time, I was thinking that once I have all the DR related data and photos, chips etc, to record either a schematic or at least the values of all the discreets. But realistically IU doubt I'd find the time.

I can only imagine the work to do that kind of documentation for a HDD. I think if the vendors were to put out a manual, the resources it would take to actually make a manual would increase the cost of the drive. I know someone whose father makes manuals for devices. he gets a device and systematically documents every part, explosion diagrams, take-apart sequence etc. He is always playing around with new gadgets,.... but the actual work doing it is substantial.

[craig6928]

as we all know software recovery will more likely damage the information if its a physical failure

i think ontrack does there free software download

seen to many diy jobs

I think that is a gross overstatement. Simply using the wrong operation for recovery in whatever circumstance is what is the issue.

The absolute most important part of DATA Recovery is the diagnosis. It may be perfectly fine to run software recovery on 25 drives in succession. If the drive is not diagnosed properly, the rest is just guess work.

Yes there is probably a smaller percentage of drives that are not obviously screaming hardware damage, and when recovery is attempted without proper diagnosis, the drive dies.. and I would say this gives a sense of security to the DIY people, and possibly the other factor is that people shout their success and shield their failures.

The people that are absolutely not in a position to go to a DR Company may as well try DIY.. why not? But there is nothing wrong with seasoned Pro's telling them what the dangers are, and likely chances. On the flipside, we can often look at a situation and think it is all over, but it turns out to be an easy fix. The part that I see gets lost is that people forget that each drive is so complex that every possible issue on the spectrum could be the case, and we cant just have a bucket with 10 or 15 fixes, and pull one out each case and it will fit.

What I hope for is that every person that comes here for help would describe in detail what they tried, importantly WHY they tried it, what was the outcome, what they learned additionally in the process and not just for successes.

It would give a much better overall picture.

if the drive has got physical failure not someone who deleted there files

and you recovery it with software
its more likely going to damaged it as the software will try to correct the errors with the files

we have tested this and its correct.

[HaQue]

as we all know software recovery will more likely damage the information if its a physical failure

i think ontrack does there free software download

seen to many diy jobs

I think that is a gross overstatement. Simply using the wrong operation for recovery in whatever circumstance is what is the issue.

The absolute most important part of DATA Recovery is the diagnosis. It may be perfectly fine to run software recovery on 25 drives in succession. If the drive is not diagnosed properly, the rest is just guess work.

Yes there is probably a smaller percentage of drives that are not obviously screaming hardware damage, and when recovery is attempted without proper diagnosis, the drive dies.. and I would say this gives a sense of security to the DIY people, and possibly the other factor is that people shout their success and shield their failures.

The people that are absolutely not in a position to go to a DR Company may as well try DIY.. why not? But there is nothing wrong with seasoned Pro's telling them what the dangers are, and likely chances. On the flipside, we can often look at a situation and think it is all over, but it turns out to be an easy fix. The part that I see gets lost is that people forget that each drive is so complex that every possible issue on the spectrum could be the case, and we cant just have a bucket with 10 or 15 fixes, and pull one out each case and it will fit.

What I hope for is that every person that comes here for help would describe in detail what they tried, importantly WHY they tried it, what was the outcome, what they learned additionally in the process and not just for successes.

It would give a much better overall picture.

if the drive has got physical failure not someone who deleted there files

and you recovery it with software
its more likely going to damaged it as the software will try to correct the errors with the files

we have tested this and its correct.

So we agree then.. I think?

[safwan1967]

if software attempt by user or client it is ok at least we can agree..but in our country how they HDD is coming many times,opened HDD anywhere in public place or there bedroom office, there are telling us that , i am engineer i know data is there you just swap platter to any other chassis you can recover data..i do it myself many times..for this i don't have screw drivers..that's why i bring it to you.!!

[visz]

Unfortunately, too many people see the data recovery profession as greedy, mercenary vultures who do very little work for lots of money. Therefore, when a company makes free stuff available for download, they are engaging in what is known as "public relations". In this way they can then appear to be helpful without actually providing any real help at all. That's a win-win for them.

That said, I personally would prefer to deal with a company that genuinely tried to provide tools and information that would enable me to recover my own data, within reasonable DIY limits. Of course the company could issue warnings and disclaimers, but the decision should always rest with the end user. People are offended by patronising, condescending attempts to withhold information, ostensibly to protect them from themselves. Instead they see such behaviour as disingenuous, especially when the Internet is full of stories of successful DIY recoveries, many involving very little effort at all.

There is only one way to stop this to be happening. We have to implement this as an professional board for DR engineers. As what architects,civil engineers ,doctors practised it ,we should do the same. When we have our own DRPB (Data recovery professional board),we can control things and we can put our profession to the new high levels.

[visz]

if software attempt by user or client it is ok at least we can agree..but in our country how they HDD is coming many times,opened HDD anywhere in public place or there bedroom office, there are telling us that , i am engineer i know data is there you just swap platter to any other chassis you can recover data..i do it myself many times..for this i don't have screw drivers..that's why i bring it to you.!!

If that's the case,we have to tell them what are the Dont's ans Do's politely.

[lcoughey]

Unfortunately, too many people see the data recovery profession as greedy, mercenary vultures who do very little work for lots of money. Therefore, when a company makes free stuff available for download, they are engaging in what is known as "public relations". In this way they can then appear to be helpful without actually providing any real help at all. That's a win-win for them.

That said, I personally would prefer to deal with a company that genuinely tried to provide tools and information that would enable me to recover my own data, within reasonable DIY limits. Of course the company could issue warnings and disclaimers, but the decision should always rest with the end user. People are offended by patronising, condescending attempts to withhold information, ostensibly to protect them from themselves. Instead they see such behaviour as disingenuous, especially when the Internet is full of stories of successful DIY recoveries, many involving very little effort at all.

There is only one way to stop this to be happening. We have to implement this as an professional board for DR engineers. As what architects,civil engineers ,doctors practised it ,we should do the same. When we have our own DRPB (Data recovery professional board),we can control things and we can put our profession to the new high levels.

This only works if data recovery were to be offered as a university degree at universities world wide where data recovery technicians can be trained at an equal level within an unbiased environment.

[visz]

Unfortunately, too many people see the data recovery profession as greedy, mercenary vultures who do very little work for lots of money. Therefore, when a company makes free stuff available for download, they are engaging in what is known as "public relations". In this way they can then appear to be helpful without actually providing any real help at all. That's a win-win for them.

That said, I personally would prefer to deal with a company that genuinely tried to provide tools and information that would enable me to recover my own data, within reasonable DIY limits. Of course the company could issue warnings and disclaimers, but the decision should always rest with the end user. People are offended by patronising, condescending attempts to withhold information, ostensibly to protect them from themselves. Instead they see such behaviour as disingenuous, especially when the Internet is full of stories of successful DIY recoveries, many involving very little effort at all.

There is only one way to stop this to be happening. We have to implement this as an professional board for DR engineers. As what architects,civil engineers ,doctors practised it ,we should do the same. When we have our own DRPB (Data recovery professional board),we can control things and we can put our profession to the new high levels.

This only works if data recovery were to be offered as a university degree at universities world wide where data recovery technicians can be trained at an equal level within an unbiased environment.

exactly,politicians must involved in order to bring this new field at universities. i dont think it is a problem. The challenges here are to prepare documentation related etc etc. But before doing that, we have to gather a very strong team;share ideas;share info's etc

[HaQue]

a start might be start offering Data Recovery as a side course to electronic engineering/computer engineering type courses.

[visz]

any person have tried to implement this in the past years?

[labtech]

Teaching a data recovery course at university would be a problem in my opinion as the ever changing of technology and more importantly solutions. Not to mention the ever growing number of exceptions to many of a drive's components, whether is electronics, firmware, mechanics, encryption schemes, file systems and relation to those failures and of course the user mistakes related loss of data. There are too many IFs to be able to truly make sense for a student. Maybe a fundamentals class similar in nature to an A+ for example.

Speaking of, had a case maybe a year or so ago where the instructor of such a class teaches students as part of the curriculum (I like to guess he designed) to open drives and tamper with them and so on. For this one case, it was a previously opened Seagate F3 3.5" drive - declined service.

Smh...