I got this drive in late last week that was warped like crazy. You set it down flat and one corner of the drive case bent up about a 1/4 inch or so. I don't mean just the cover, I mean the entire drive was bent really bad. It was also scorched a little on the outside, but nothing too serious. You could tell it had quite a bit of smoke exposure. Come to find out, it had been in a plane crash. The drive came out of a laptop that was on board with one of the passengers. No one survived.

I just got this weird feeling when I was working on it. I don't know, I guess just knowing where it came from and looking at the damage it was hard to imagine the the forces involved.

My first thought looking at the drive was that the platters were probably bent. Anyway, it was a 250gb Hitachi, and I didn't have an exact match here, but I had a close match on the drive case. Close enough that I knew the platters would fit properly, and I could at least rotate them and see if there were any obvious problems.

There was no smoke or fire damage inside, and everything looked surprisingly good. I moved the platters, and they did fit. Spun them and didn't see any wobble at all. I knew none of this really meant anything, but I was just looking for the obvious. I removed the heads and checked them under a microscope. The heads appeared ok, but I doubted they would work. Since they didn't appear to be damaged I felt it was worth a shot to just see if the drive would work at all by chance. The magnets from the original drive didn't fit the case I was using. They were the kind that slip under the top magnet at the screw holes. So I used the magnets from the parts drive instead, since I knew they would fit. Lo and behold the drive powered up and was able to image. Only head 2 gave me any read issues, but I imaged Head 0 and 1 flawlessly and then went back and imaged head 2 over the user data sectors. To be honest, I was saying a little prayer the whole way through, because I knew this was for the victim's father and I was just hoping it would work for him.

Anyone else have any strange jobs like this?

That is fairly creepy, and I would imagine a lot of pressure to get it right considering the circumstances.
I've seen my fair share of dodgy material on the drive itself (as we all have) but nothing like you mentioned. It's entertaining when a good looking female client comes to collect her data, after you've just seen her naked by opening random contents to check her recovered folder and file structures

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Data Recovery Cape Town

Yeah, I think we've all seen that kind of stuff.

Very often people tell us that the drive they are bringing in for recovery has pictures of deceased relatives, children, etc. I don't know about others, but I really feel pressured to make them whole. Sometimes it's actually stressful & sad.

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Had a lady who's husband passed away and her laptop drive crash within the same week. I don't think I've ever been more stressed trying to recover someones data. Of course all of their wedding pics, etc. were just on this laptop.

Yep, I've had that as well. A couple of years ago a gentleman called me and after discussing the situation with his drive, he started to break down in tears over the phone. Come to find out, his young daughter had been murdered recently and all of his pictures of her from the last 2 years were on that drive. I have NEVER in my life had so much self-imposed pressure on me as I did then. I was on pins and needles after swapping the heads on it, and then I think I bit my nails down to the nub while it was imaging. I just kept pacing around. Every little "click" just made my heart sink. When it finished I actually teared up out of relief and happiness for this guy. It was definitely a highlight I will never forget.

What Jono said. One in particular sticks out. A woman had a drive die in a laptop. Pictures of the family and most important - her mother who was at that time dying of cancer. While i was getting a donor drive for her, her mother died. Pressure is not an adequate term to explain how i felt while working on it.

We had a recovery one time, we were working closely with a gentleman, the focus of the recovery was years of family photos. The recovery finished over the weekend so we called to go over the recovered data. We got on the phone with his wife, she was on the way to his funeral as he had passed over the weekend, very sad for sure.

I have Maxtor 80 Gig, that belongs to a school Principal Lady that passed away from an aneurysm. the Mother Brought it to a friend, who brought it to me, it has all the usual pictures / memories that were never backed up ,...... still looking for a donor. i know the motor spins because i tested it with a compatible, but not matched PCB .... so far we all are waiting


but yeah i know what you mean about the self impose vibe on these situations,.

While nowhere as creepy but it was kinda fun....Just finished recovering photos from a clients drive that had been dropped and had scratched its platters. Pictures of his wife and he... and even the ex girlfriend. Had him come by the shop and 'select the pictures recovered he wanted' to the transport drive. I kind of smile when I see his wife . Havent mentioned that I saw him too.... Creepy.....

Couldnt imagine how hard that would have been to do for you (let alone anyone in the same position), but I am so glad that you were able to do a good deed for that devestated father. That is a beautiful thing you did for him...not the same as giving back his daughter...but something definitely to cherish.

Usually recoveries are "impersonal" except if "some" details are given... Files are files and data is data, something differs if it is corporate data or personal data and if there are matters of security / urgency / legal / etc.
Also, as for privacy, I would not talk so openly and in details about specific case like this, but it's my opinion

Business and other aspects of life are as personal or as impersonal as you care to make them.

I'm always interested to know what is on client's drive. Sometimes knowing there is mission-critical data on a drive affects the decision tree -- some DR procedures have inherent risk (e.g. platter swaps). On the other hand, we try to screen out anyone that might have illegal content.

What do others do about "illegal" content, and where do you feel that your responsibilities lie in regards to the customer, potential victims, the constabulary, and society at large? I don't think anyone with integrity would accept a drive for recovery if there was a likelihood of assisting a criminal enterprise, child pornographer, etc. But this sort of thing can be discovered when checking the recovered files for integrity.

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Partially disagree.

One thing is decide what is the best and safest strategy for recovering data, another is unnecessary intrusion on data. Pre-screening of customer is always useful.
My opinion was about the case/s presented in this thread, where there are too many details posted, just my 2 cent.

I am siding with BlackST on this one. From the diagnostic process alone, I find it better to form your own opinion at first. Sometimes little details of what you have been told can bias your opinion and send you hunting down the wrong path. From the contents of the data perspective, I see no value in understanding the source. In most cases I really don't want to know. We have a service manager and call center to deal with the specifics of the customer requests. the techs rarely ever talk to the client.

We have a very sound relationship with the local police departments(State and local).They are actually our main (70% or more) source of work. When questionable material is found it is immediately handed over to the local police. They handle it from there. Client confidence??? in this type of situation there is none.

I wonder what are the boundaries between "regular" and "questionable" material.

To be strictly observant, even porn and warez and downloaded MP3s / VIDEOS are questionable, but this should mean you have to spend a lot of your time handing over to the local police

Seriously, maybe there are local/national regulations that vary from place to place. Would be interesting to know what the law says about on various places.

Our place only reports one thing, that that is one specific situation involving children. And that is if we happen to stumble on it while verifying the clients data, we don't go snooping. We could care less about piracy and such.

I think a lot of people would be horrified if they thought their personal files were being looked through by the people they trust to recover their lost data. I'm sure it must be the norm to test a few files but not to snoop through every folder looking at every photograph.

Speaking as someone who has used a data recovery service in the past, I think the content of this thread doesn't fill the average customer with confidence.

Right !