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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 9th, 2017, 14:24 
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Joined: November 9th, 2017, 13:46
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Location: Montreal, Canada
Hi everyone!

I am new to the DR world as well and I'm very interested in learning more about data recovery, particularly Flash devices (chip-off/monolithic). I've already recovered data from several USB drives that had mechanical failures (connectors, traces etc). I guess the gurus will say that's not real DR but hey, the customers were happy!

HDD & SSD are also on the list but that will come later as I suspect Flash will be more than enough on my plate :D. I currently do micro-soldering repairs (hence my interest in Flash) on Apple products, including data recovery, but when it comes to iDevices, you have to fix them in order to be able to recover any data.

I'm curious on what folks here believe would be a good "first tool" for Flash DR. There's not much comparative info out there but from what I can gather:
    SoftCenter Flash Extractor is a go-to solution but the cost, especially the annual support subscription, seems high and the long-term support seems to be based on what mood the developer is in.
    RuSolut VNR looks like the most powerful tool but is probably "too much" for a beginner. The upfront cost and annual support fees seem like a good deal though, at least in comparison to SC-FE.
    PC-3000 Flash is backed by the industry leader but I don't see it being used much, at least from my superficial review of the limited information out there.
I guess eventually, most pro labs have most or even all three tools to cover as much ground as possible but I wonder if you could only have one to start, which would it be and why.

I will be buying a bunch of flash drives, loading them up with my data and practicing for quite a while before doing this on customer data. You gotta start somewhere!

Thanks!


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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 9th, 2017, 15:55 
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Joined: April 3rd, 2011, 0:19
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Most of the guys I know who are serious about flash recoveries have all of those tools because each has its own strengths and weaknesses and each will be able to handle some cases the other two can't.

Just be prepared that flash recovery is far more complex than you probably think it is. Even with years of doing HDD recovery professionally under my belt, I'm still pretty lost when it comes to flash. That's why I just dump the NANDs and have someone else do the hard part remotely.

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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 9th, 2017, 17:07 
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data-medics wrote:
Most of the guys I know who are serious about flash recoveries have all of those tools because each has its own strengths and weaknesses and each will be able to handle some cases the other two can't.

Just be prepared that flash recovery is far more complex than you probably think it is. Even with years of doing HDD recovery professionally under my belt, I'm still pretty lost when it comes to flash. That's why I just dump the NANDs and have someone else do the hard part remotely.


Thanks data-medics. Yeah, that's probably the approach I'll have to take as well at first. The drives with "mechanical" failures will be easier to do and I can outsource the tough ones until I feel ready myself (assuming that ever happens ;>).

I agree that eventually I'll need all three tools, still, I'd like to know which one is the best starting point in terms of ease-of-use (relatively speaking of course), and coverage of various controllers/NAND and support. I have to start with one...even if I had the cash, it wouldn't make sense to buy all three from the get-go.


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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 9th, 2017, 17:11 
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a great place to start, with $0 down is over at rusolut website. they have put out 2 VNR books which double as manuals for the tool, but is packed with the basics of Flash. You will not find any documentation superior to this, and will need to spend quite a bit of time studying it. go through both PDF's, and read all the case studies on the site. anything that doesn't make sense, well come back here and clarify until it does.

The cases in there I would call easy and straightforward cases, which is what's needed for manuals, but there is MUCH more intricacies in flash, almost to the point where every device is different.

If you want to start right now doing customer cases, get a reader such as Soft Center and outsource the dumps. get the outsourcee(outsourcer?) to explain how they recovered.

The VNR tool is the only one that allows you to research dumps in a meaningful way, and has the backup of people that know flash extremely well, and are working full steam developing their tool as number one focus.

IMHO, if you decide to wait doing customers until you have done enough of your own test cases... you never will do customers!

but stop 1 on the Flash highway is Rusolut.com


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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 9th, 2017, 18:23 
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HaQue wrote:
a great place to start, with $0 down is over at rusolut website. they have put out 2 VNR books which double as manuals for the tool, but is packed with the basics of Flash. You will not find any documentation superior to this, and will need to spend quite a bit of time studying it. go through both PDF's, and read all the case studies on the site. anything that doesn't make sense, well come back here and clarify until it does.

The cases in there I would call easy and straightforward cases, which is what's needed for manuals, but there is MUCH more intricacies in flash, almost to the point where every device is different.

If you want to start right now doing customer cases, get a reader such as Soft Center and outsource the dumps. get the outsourcee(outsourcer?) to explain how they recovered.

The VNR tool is the only one that allows you to research dumps in a meaningful way, and has the backup of people that know flash extremely well, and are working full steam developing their tool as number one focus.

IMHO, if you decide to wait doing customers until you have done enough of your own test cases... you never will do customers!

but stop 1 on the Flash highway is Rusolut.com


Thanks HaQue. I have seen those manuals as I have been searching high and low for info. I skimmed through the first one but yes, I really need to dig deeper into it. Going back to your suggestion (dumping and outsourcing), if I were to buy the SC-FE reader and adapters only (no software), it would still cost ~1000$ whereas for ~2000$ with VNR, I could get the VNR software and a wide assortement of adapters (although only 2 have a socket). While more expensive, it would appear the VNR is better value.

One more thing, I notice that no one has mentioned PC3000 yet. They have a wide assortment of adapters and are the leader in HDD/SSD. Does anyone use this tool regularly?

Thanks again...this is really helpful. I'm willing to invest time and energy, I just want to avoid the error that HaQue details earlier in this thread.


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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 10th, 2017, 4:05 
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Joined: July 12th, 2010, 4:38
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ACE has released a new update yesterday.
http://www.acelaboratory.com/news/newsi ... itemid=219

I believe that a good thing that ACE also have is their Spider Board that might avoid a good time of soldering....
Don't you guys think the same?

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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 10th, 2017, 4:14 
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pclab wrote:
ACE has released a new update yesterday.
http://www.acelaboratory.com/news/newsi ... itemid=219

I believe that a good thing that ACE also have is their Spider Board that might avoid a good time of soldering....
Don't you guys think the same?



Well,
Update Is Good But My Chip Is Still Not Supported -> Micron 2c646456

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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 10th, 2017, 11:28 
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pclab wrote:
ACE has released a new update yesterday.
http://www.acelaboratory.com/news/newsi ... itemid=219

I believe that a good thing that ACE also have is their Spider Board that might avoid a good time of soldering....
Don't you guys think the same?


Hmm...the soldering is the part I look forward to :lol: Does that make me a masochist :? ?

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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 17th, 2017, 9:09 
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Joined: July 12th, 2010, 4:38
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Everyone has his own preferences. There are just few people who really like soldering and can do it. But if you like soldering, it is cool! Anyway if you have many cases, Spider Board will save your time on soldering and you will be able to solve more cases. It's the universal adapter for monoliths, so you wouldn't need special adapter for each monolith you deal with.

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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 17th, 2017, 11:22 
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pclab wrote:
Everyone has his own preferences. There are just few people who really like soldering and can do it. But if you like soldering, it is cool! Anyway if you have many cases, Spider Board will save your time on soldering and you will be able to solve more cases. It's the universal adapter for monoliths, so you wouldn't need special adapter for each monolith you deal with.


Plus ,
Now They Are Adding Pinout Finding Feature Slowly and Also It Can Act As SD Interface

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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 17th, 2017, 12:38 
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Amarbir[CDR-Labs] wrote:
pclab wrote:
Everyone has his own preferences. There are just few people who really like soldering and can do it. But if you like soldering, it is cool! Anyway if you have many cases, Spider Board will save your time on soldering and you will be able to solve more cases. It's the universal adapter for monoliths, so you wouldn't need special adapter for each monolith you deal with.


Plus ,
Now They Are Adding Pinout Finding Feature Slowly and Also It Can Act As SD Interface


@pclab @Amarbir Thanks for the feedback.

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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 20th, 2017, 13:45 
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BTW Minho ,
No One Says PC 3000 Flash is a Lousy Tool .Few Guys Do Brilliant Work With PC 3000 Flash Also Like Greydkang Etc .But Having All The Tools Gives You Nuclear Bomb Powers in NAND Flash Lol :mrgreen:

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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 20th, 2017, 22:29 
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Amarbir[CDR-Labs] wrote:
BTW Minho ,
No One Says PC 3000 Flash is a Lousy Tool .Few Guys Do Brilliant Work With PC 3000 Flash Also Like Greydkang Etc .But Having All The Tools Gives You Nuclear Bomb Powers in NAND Flash Lol :mrgreen:


Thanks Amarbir, I hope no one thought that I was implying one tool was worse than another. Yeah, I'd love to have all three but even if I could afford it (I can't :) ), it wouldn't make sense to have so many tools when I have so much to learn. Baby steps...baby steps.

For the record, I will be buying the SC Reader soon to start playing around with reading IC's off of known-good USB drives. I'll probably only get extraction software in the new year. That should give me some time to figure out which extraction tool to start with.

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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 10th, 2018, 6:50 
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Joined: September 19th, 2018, 16:42
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Well I am a perfect scenario of what is being discussed here. Newbie, who will hit the forums as I get stuck (which I will) and then some might treat it as spam or waste of time because they might think I have not done my homework. But sometimes you need to be guided to do the homework too. Just saying. Learning is a journey not the destination. Love your work team.


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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: November 13th, 2018, 5:25 
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Spildit, thanks for the link. It will take a while to get work and get to know how to work so let's see where it goes. Cheers.


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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: August 21st, 2019, 11:52 
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Joined: August 21st, 2019, 11:20
Posts: 9
Location: Charles City, IA
OK, hitting the semi-zombie post as my first post, but...
I've been working on computers for over 25 years. I've been recovering data for 15 of those years, but with limited access to hardware recovery tools, and no clean room.
It's amazing how many people try to recover data and wind up doing more harm than good, but it takes experience to know when NOT to try software recovery on a drive, and to instead send it to someone who has the hardware and/or clean room access to properly handle the situation. Unfortunately, experience is the only real teacher when it comes to recognizing a hard drive that can be recovered with software, and one that needs way more help than that.
Glad to see this post; I've been accused of not being a "real" data recovery professional because I don't have access to expensive hardware and/or a clean room. But 15 years with a 90% success rate, and having learned when not to attempt recovery with what I have available, I beg to differ.


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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: August 22nd, 2019, 8:33 
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wyrrmzr wrote:
But 15 years with a 90% success rate,

the 90% you're talking about includes what you outsource ?
wyrrmzr wrote:
so I don't have to send drives out, or at least not as often.

and whatt about the other 10% ?
is it what you've done more damage than ist already is ?

wyrrmzr wrote:
but it takes experience to know when NOT to try software recovery on a drive, and to instead send it to someone who has the hardware and/or clean room access to properly handle the situation.


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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: August 22nd, 2019, 15:20 
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HaspHL wrote:
wyrrmzr wrote:
But 15 years with a 90% success rate,

the 90% you're talking about includes what you outsource ?
No, my success rate has been not counting drives I've had to outsource. But that's because I tend to know when not to mess with a drive; parking heads is one of the symptoms I'm all too familiar with, and of course there are obviously other sounds and symptoms where you simply have to tell the customer it's not feasible without sending it to a clean room, or at least someone who has hardware to deal with it.

wyrrmzr wrote:
so I don't have to send drives out, or at least not as often.

and whatt about the other 10% ?
is it what you've done more damage than ist already is ?

Fortunately, no. Well, when I first started, I'll have to admit that there were some drives that I tried to recover, but may have made worse. I think many, if not most of us, have been there. I'll also have to admit some sheer dumb luck when I first started. But I've picked up pretty quickly on what is recoverable with my resources, and when I have to tell my customers it's beyond me, but I can make recommendations. Some customers have insisted I try anyway, because they didn't consider their data to be worth $1500. But I really just cringe in those cases, and make sure the customer knows there's very little chance that it will turn out well. Sometimes it's even good to have the customer sign a waiver if they're that adamant about being cheap.

wyrrmzr wrote:
but it takes experience to know when NOT to try software recovery on a drive, and to instead send it to someone who has the hardware and/or clean room access to properly handle the situation.


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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: August 22nd, 2019, 22:08 
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I should probably provide some of my history, as it's likely different from most.
I started in data recovery when I was hired on as a tech for a fairly large municipality (3000 users, as I recall). They decided that they needed people who knew forensics and data recovery, and sent a handful of us to classes. Of course, important data was already being automatically backed up, but their hope was that we could get the less important stuff back faster, and with less complaining from our end users.
So, I started out by recovering the small stuff; if I failed, it wasn't a big problem. They just wanted to see someone at least try to get back more than just their emails and important documents; we tried to give them back their computers looking like nothing had ever happened. Even their screen savers and backgrounds were still intact if we did well!
From there, I expanded as much as I could, despite the fact that the local powers that be wouldn't buy write blockers, much less hardware dedicated to data recovery.


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 Post subject: Re: Newbies VS Pros
PostPosted: December 3rd, 2019, 20:03 
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I am a newbie and I am here to learn more from the pro the primary reason why I signed up.


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