So stating that I'm a noob is an understatement. I've been in the IT industry for over 20 years and this Hard Drive Data Recovery is, from what I can see, for a talented individuals (of which I wish to become apart of that elite).

My first drive is the above, and I've purchased all the possible HD Doctors for XX Drives. So now I'm looking at the HD Doctor for the WD and I have absolutely no idea what I am looking at. On the hard drive itself it states that it is a Scorpio Black. Does that mean its a Black I?

I have also read through many forums and not succeeded in finding out how to use the HD Doctor and the manual from Salvation Data is again for those who speak a completely different language.

Symptoms of the drive are as follows:

1. The drive turns on and off.
2. The drive does Soft Boot and Hard Boot.
3. The drive turns on and continues to run with no clicking or any noises.
4. The drive runs at its normal temperature
5. I've pretty much pressed every button on HD Doctor (version 7 BTW) and either it says complete (but shows nothing new), or freezes the machine I'm using. I've even let it run for 2 days straight on a command and when coming back it's still not responding.So I force shut the HD Doctor program.

Now per button

I do not have the firmware for the hard drive. I spoke to WD and they said because it came from a Dell, contact Dell. I then contact Dell and am still awaiting for a response. So no firmware. There is a manual section which it has and from my scouring the Internet I know that there are 4 heads, the LBA is 625,142,448 but there is no trace of what the SPT is for this drive. One site stated that it is NA

STATUS: Ready

I have assumed that it is the Black series and tried the Load from HDD and response was: running, running, still running.. how long should this step take.. Surely not that long?.. 5 Minutes and I have to restart the HD Doctor program

I have Tried Manual and it wants a file (Which file, I do not know)... Probably the .RES file I asked Dell and WD for which they've got stashed in a secret vault somewhere.

Then there is the Manual Config.. Please see above information. I click Manual Load and nothing seems different. Onto the next button.

BACKUP FW.. My assumption is that if it ain't loaded, then how would I begin to back it up.. Onto the next button.
UPDATE FW.. No idea.. But again no FW, I can't find the Firmware so I'm pretty sure I can't update.
FW DEFECT SCAN..

Ticked the Pri and Sec, click scan and nothing happens.. (must be cause I don't have any Firmware Loaded..)
Ticked the Pri and Sec, click Auto Repair and again nothing happens.
Ticked the Pri and Sec, click Read/Write Test and the waiting game starts again. Is it writing a novel? a short summary? One Byte, two bits? There is click from the hard drive. A Second click from the hard drive. Result: 0Head Read-only, 1Head Read Only.
Ticked the Pri and Sec, Click Check All and nothing happens.
Donor FW Location?? Need the Firmware Again?

Onto next Button: SA Defect Scan

My favourite button as my life passes before my eyes on this one..

Tick 0 and Tick 1 and 0track under tracks. Then press the Track Scan Button
Results
Head 0 - Track 0 Error
same for Head 1

Same as above on this time click the Sector Scan Button
Result
No Device.

And so and and so forth.

Now I thank you for reading my post. And I thank you even more if you can tell me what I'm doing wrong. Is it the PCB or is it the Firmware? Probably the user? But please could someone give a dog a bone.

Many thanks.

1) are you going to recover data from it ?
2) is the drive yours or belongs to customer ?

I need to recover data from this drive and yes it is a customer drive.

We all had to start from the basics but learning on a customer drive is a big NO NO
You should practice & learn FIRST before doing it on a customers drive otherwise you will fail & put their data at risk.
If its something you dont know or cant do then you can always out source to someone who can.

If you want better manuals then contact poehere here on the forum, ps they will not be free
Think you need 10 posts to PM members member10524.html

Loki

Better manuals can't do anything in this situation.

And if random actions were already taken with the "tool" , maybe it's yet too late

Recklessness and impulsiveness might serve you well, in say -- kick-boxing -- but not at all in the field of data recovery.

Any tool that can be used to repair a drive also has the capability to brick it for good. While everyone has to start somewhere, a "pressing every button" approach is simply wrong.

For the sake of people with pictures of their children's births, important financial data, masters theses, etc. please don't undertake another "recovery" until you first understand how drives and the repair tools work, and have adopted a reasonable and careful set of best practices, and have practiced and succeeded with other broken hard drives.

_________________
http://www.datasaversllc.com

It's like all other virgins, it's not many times your trying to press the button, it's how smoth you are on the way there.
As all others have said to you, do NOT practice on clients drives...buy a lot of broken ones and try to repair, diagnose until you feel secure of what you're doing.

_________________
Rescue IT Datarecovery service Sweden
Rescue IT Dataräddning Göteborg AB
http://www.rescue-it.se

I'm afraid it's already too late for this poor fella's data...

_________________
http://www.northwind.gr
SandForce SSD Recovery
Ransomware Reverse Engineering - NoMoreRansom! partners

Ok.. Point taken .. Gets lots of broken drives and practice the art. I am still a little confused though. If I am trying out other drives then I'm still going to be hitting and missing still with solutions that I just happen to stumble across. So lastly I want to know if there is a step by step flowchart or something that helps make a process of good practice to start with?

Some best practices can be generalized, e.g:

1. Clone a bad drive when possible and recover from the clone, not the bad drive;
2. Make sure you have made a correct diagnosis before attempting "surgery";
3. Always make sure you have a back-up step, so if you make a mis-step, you can return to the prior step;
4. Always open drives in a clean room environment;
5. Treat your client's data as if it was your own;
6. Be careful about leaving stuff unattended;
7. Use secure practices for wiping drives and for ensuring no cross-contamination of data;
8. Use the appropriate tool for the job
9. etc.

As far as step-by-step for drive recovery, there are profound differences among drive manufacturers and even among different families of the same manufacturer. There is a HUGE amount of nitty-gritty detail to learn. It's a very steep curve if you are on your own; much less so if you are shown the ropes.

In addition, you should possess software, SMT repair, multimeter and scope use, etc.

It's not like selling lemonade.

Jono

_________________
http://www.datasaversllc.com

A one day lesson or reading a few posts on this forum would easily tell you which family (via SD tools) that drive belongs to. That's pretty messed up if your working on a customer's drive.

_________________
Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

When I was in the same boat I almost bought the Salvation tools, but thankfully went with ACE instead. However, I, and probably others too, started without any dedicated tools per say. Multimeter, dd_rescue and a lots of reading are a good starting point.

If you want to do this professionally it will be a few years of research, reading and practice before you are proficient. Also, have you done market research in your area of SA to have a look at competition etc?

And really, don't practice on client drives. It's not fair for a client to hand over, in good faith, their previous data for it to go from a state of 'recoverable' to gone forever. Get scrap drives and practice on those.

_________________
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town

I have a different opinion about SD tools : they DO HAVE limits, but when you know THOSE LIMITS and what to do, you can use them FOR WHAT THEY DO, and they do it fine and with no frills.But in my case I have the background on my side, so I wouldn't apply random "options" or click buttons. You can eventually discover that one thing doesn't work at all on SD, but I would NEVER "try" or "guess" or "discover" things on live data drive.

Sadly, I have the feeling that too many people think that DR is a chicken that lay golden eggs and they can start from zero with the cheapest stuff on the market, maybe with an intention to upgrade to something else with the income... who knows.

The result is more or less destruction of data (but don't worry, the vast majority of drives store only porn, warez and unimportant stuff - who has REALLY important data doesn't look for "el cheapo" solutions) that could be recovered by other means.
The fact that when there's something to spend and the solution is not readily available (or fed) on the internet, "data is not worth.... I AM JUST DOING IT TO LEARN... " and other bullshit.

Not my problem, anyway.

I totally agree.

They say it takes around 10,000 hours to master something, I have worked more than double this in DR labs, yet there is still so much more to learn. For the op of this thread to take on complicated DR cases, with NO experience in DR, from desperate customers who entrust their critical information to you is irresponsible and morally wrong. In the case of failure, is customer told that the recovery was attempted by somebody with no experience or skills relating to the recovery? Is the customer reimbursed the cost of parts or other costs they may have been charged? Does the customer get financially compensated when a more reputable company charges a diagnostic charge because media is previously opened and contaminated?

Okay. To answer a few of the comments.

South Africa has about 3 recognised data recovery labs. They charge people the absolute earth for data recovery, whereas I would like to offer something affordable where there is access to these solutions for the everyday person.

I have practised on a few drives. But this is the first one I am actually going to make a small return on my investment. In fact out of all the responses from the elite users of this forum, only one has offered actual advice on reading and what material one can read up on, or some clue as to what to do.

So thanks Nick for that input. The rest of the responses has been an obsessive response to using client data. Can we not rather focus on putting something more useful on this forum with regards to data recovery eg.

Well the first step is the firmware, or the PCB is shot, or there is a seizure on the spindle etc.

With regards to spending 10,000 hour on becoming a pro, hell I have just been retrenched and this is something I have to get a handle on as this is what I invested my package in, because I know given the correct feedback I can master it.

So how about it guys. Can we focus on give tips on using hd doctor or shall we obsess on the patient drive. If I stuff it up, then I will buy the client a new hard drive. The contents that I am trying to recover is a few excel spreadsheet which have already been rewritten for the client by myself free of charge in good faith. Therefore the client stands to loose nothing on this project.

You should better sign up on SD forum being a user of their products, and where 'probably' you'll find people in your situation or alike who can guide you. This one has a completely different target.
P.s. In my opinion, despite the good intentions, your 'commercial' idea won't work.

SD is far from an investment. More like a doorstop.

_________________
Buy your friends Toshiba\Hitachi and your enemies Seagate.

Disagree. I 'recognise' a lot more than just 3 professional labs:

- Tecleo
- Imperative
- Intratec (many branches)
- Data Detect
- SouthBit (my company)
- CSSI (many branches)
- and then lots of smaller ones or others I have forgotten.

Where you are in the country will dictate many things such as how much you'll need to charge to be competitive, marketing strategy, volume of potential work, etc etc.

A recovery is JHB is (or should), by nature, be more expensive than a recovery in Cape Town. Just plain economics. In order to do a proper job you need to have the required skill, experience and tools, the latter alone will cost you a few hundred thousand Rand if you want to do things properly. This isn't something one can just jump into, it does most certainly require an immense investment in terms of your time, dedication and finances.

I still think that spending a while going through the forum, reading articles and other sources of information, and practicing on loads of scrap drives is a good idea if you think this is perhaps something you may want to do. I've seen a lot of 'data recovery' people start up, wreck customer drives and then disappear - not pretty.

_________________
Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.
Data Recovery Cape Town

Well, that's why there's so much used SD stuff on the market.

How is there a return on your investment if you have manually rewritten the only data your client needs??



The entire Data Recovery industry is based on the safety of clients data, which in this case you do not seem to hold any value to. And this forum is full of useful information. Maybe if this was a dummy drive you were working on and not a real case the responses would be more suited to what you want.

When you offer a professional recovery service, nothing is more frustrating than the clients who chose the cheaper option first bringing drives that have been butchered by people with good intentions but no experience.

Originally you said this:



What do you mean drive turns "on and off" ? If spindle stops after powering then you could have mechanical issues, or serious damage to SA module such as Zone table.

You then say drive turns on and continues to run. This could indicate some level of damage to the firmware. these two points seem contradictory of each other.



WD are NOT referring to the firmware of the HDD. The firmware you are relating to is stored at hidden sectors and is specific to each physical drive and you will get no commercial support for this from dell or WD.



If you cannot backup FW, or dont know how, then you need to absolutely stop before you make irreversible changes.



This is irresponsible and dangerous. Maybe there is some problem preventing SA access, I hope so. But pressing every button could have serious consequences. There are many aspects of the SA that need to be maintained, that are adaptive to the specific drive, there are defect tables, overlays and translator to consider. Did you attempt anything with the ROM? the ROM also consists of adaptive information that cannot be changed.

There is too much to consider, and too much to explain to you here. This is why we must stress that you need to practice on dummy jobs, lots of them. Without the experience you need, you are putting the data at risk.

If you want to continue offering recovery services, offer logical recovery services only, or outsource the difficult jobs until you get a handle on them yourself.