Data Recovery Article

[maximus]

Some time ago (maybe a year or so, maybe more) I remember seeing that someone had a good data recovery article on their website that they posted the link to, and said anyone could use the information to put on their own site. It was a good article with information about what to do and not to do, and explained the basics of data recovery to the end user. It was a good article for someone to read before they attempted to try DIY data recovery. Does anyone know where that is? I seem to have not saved it, thinking I could find it easily again

[Lardman]

Was it one of the triage guides ? https://www.recoveryforce.com/how-to-triage-a-hard-drive-guide-for-technicians/ recoveryforce's is pretty comprehensive.

[maximus]

That might be it, and it would explain why I didn't save anything, because I figured I should have been able to find it again. I do remember a post somewhere, maybe on his forum, that mentioned it was okay to modify and use. I have not found that post yet.

[lcoughey]

I don't recall giving permission anywhere to modify and reuse. You are always welcome to link to it.

[northwind]

you probably mean this one:
https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=40542

[maximus]

you probably mean this one:
https://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=40542

Yes, I do think that post is what I was referring to. Now I remember it was about not opening the drive. I think my idea back then was to use that (with permission) on my website, to try to help people from doing stupid things that would make worse or ruin the recovery.

[maximus]

I would just like to add that the reason I was asking is that I remember seeing that post and thinking I would like to add things like that to my website. Things that could potentially help keep someone from making the situation worse, and also help clarify the capabilities of DIY along with how to know when to seek professional recovery. Yes, I would always like to sell more of the pro version of HDDSuperClone, but I don't want uninformed idiots buying it (or even using the free version) thinking it can perform miracles. I think part of my idea for the site is to have as much of an unbiased DIY help section as possible. That doesn't mean I can't also have another (smaller?) section to help promote the pro version

[Lardman]

Ever the optimist

That type of user will always try youtube first, open up a drive put grubby paw prints everywhere and then close it up after realising there's nothing they can fix. I should think we all have a "don't open it" webpage, normally found too late.

The trouble with DIY cloning is normally there's no real way to know if you're killing the drive before it's too late - just a thought, could you actively monitor smart health whilst cloning and abort cloning if needed. How you could cope with people who are expecting it to copy from dead heads though is beyond me.

[maximus]

Ever the optimist

That type of user will always try youtube first, open up a drive put grubby paw prints everywhere and then close it up after realising there's nothing they can fix. I should think we all have a "don't open it" webpage, normally found too late.

The trouble with DIY cloning is normally there's no real way to know if you're killing the drive before it's too late - just a thought, could you actively monitor smart health whilst cloning and abort cloning if needed. How you could cope with people who are expecting it to copy from dead heads though is beyond me.

And that is why I have not done such a DIY help section. The ROI is about absolute zero. But HDDSuperClone gets mentioned more and more often, so I feel more of an obligation to at least attempt to address some things.

[lcoughey]

The trouble with DIY cloning is normally there's no real way to know if you're killing the drive before it's too late - just a thought, could you actively monitor smart health whilst cloning and abort cloning if needed. How you could cope with people who are expecting it to copy from dead heads though is beyond me.

The problem is that one of the selling points for hddsuperclone is the ability to figure out the head pattern and work around a dead head and bad zones, in general. I think that it might just make more sense to post a warning for free users (assuming that paid users already know better), that any use of the software without a proper physical inspection of the hard drive could lead to a fatal head crash.

[maximus]

Ever the optimist
That type of user will always try youtube first, open up a drive put grubby paw prints everywhere and then close it up after realising there's nothing they can fix. I should think we all have a "don't open it" webpage, normally found too late.

I haven't watched any of those videos, but what about making a video or two that start out with how to do these things, and then a few seconds in just go to something like smashing the drive with a hammer, and then quickly explain that is what will happen when they open the drive, and then some explanation of why. The same few videos could be posted with many different titles, which would also hopefully show up in the same searches. I would only be willing to put a few on the hddsuperclone.com youtube channel as I don't want to pollute that site too much, but I still have sdcomputing.com which is a google site, and google kind of pissed me off with that site, and I would be willing to create a youtube channel to do that using that site. Thoughts?

[maximus]

The trouble with DIY cloning is normally there's no real way to know if you're killing the drive before it's too late - just a thought, could you actively monitor smart health whilst cloning and abort cloning if needed. How you could cope with people who are expecting it to copy from dead heads though is beyond me.

The problem is that one of the selling points for hddsuperclone is the ability to figure out the head pattern and work around a dead head and bad zones, in general. I think that it might just make more sense to post a warning for free users (assuming that paid users already know better), that any use of the software without a proper physical inspection of the hard drive could lead to a fatal head crash.

That is a good point, and is in part why I want to include some information about possible consequences. I just recently had a user ask if the paid version would help, and when asking for more information about their case, it became clear that they did not know enough about what they were doing to understand what was happening. If the drive had any chance of DIY recovery, they very likely killed that chance by hammering it by changing settings like one would do trying to run ddrescue (according to all the information available about different ddrescue commands).