|
Data Recovery
Data Recovery Case Histories I have started to document some of the data recovery jobs we've been working on (both successes and failures). I will start going back and adding previous jobs as time allows (maybe something interesting to do while I'm sitting on the phone). This list is by no means comprehensive, as we get three to four jobs on some days and I'm not going to mention each one. I'd also encourage Angie's List members to see some comments that have been left there about our data recovery successes.
8/25/2009:
Still falling behind. We've had gobs of interesting projects
come through. We've recently recovered a Dell RAID box for the
Wisconsin Air National Guard, rescuing their MS SQL databases.
The unit had eleven drives across two arrays. The Dell RAID
card required new BBU's (Battery Back Up). After the batteries
had been replaced, the RAID card would no longer mount either
array. Further complicating matters was the fact that one drive
was dead, and had been for a while. When I started piecing
things together, I discovered that one of the remaining drives had a
pretty strange looking front-end. After a couple of days I was
able to piece things together enough to rescue all their critical
data. Cost, approx. $600 (that project would have cost $3000 if
sent to any national recovery outfit). 5/27/2009: Apologies for not keeping this more up to date. The beginning of this year was one recovery after another, and I'm only now beginning to catch my breath. I've had what seems like non-stop Western Digital drives (internal and external) marching in. I've also been doing quite a few laptop drives, including some recent 500-GB units (a 500-GB 2.5-inch drive, now there is a brilliant idea). I'm please to report that I've been successful on about 80% of the drives I've seen, which is pretty darn good. I'll try to start adding some cases soon. 12/11/2008: Gerald K. A 320-GB hard drive from a Western Digital MyBook. The customer first took the drive to Milwaukee PC, but they were unable to recover the data. I examined the drive and identified two problems that I was able to correct and am now successfully pulling data from the drive. Approx. cost, $300. I have had a number of drives brought to me that were first taken to Milwaukee PC. I think I have been able to successfully recover every single hard drive that Milwaukee PC said they were unable to recover. 12/8/2008: Eric E. In-process. This is ANOTHER Lacie Big Disk Ethernet drive w/ two 500-GB drives. Actually, the customer just brought the drives, no enclosure. He said the Lacie unit stopped working, and that he contacted Lacie technical support. They sent a replacement power supply, but one of the drives was just clicking when he powered it up w/ the new power supply. I have fixed the drive and I'm imaging it now (going slow). His 80-GB of data looks to be in tact, and a nearly full recovery should be possible for approx. $700. I should mention that $700 sounds like a lot, but just for fun I got some quotes from other recovery houses. Gillware in Madison quoted $1300 (with 2-3 week turnaround where I'll be done in less than a week), and DriveSavers quoted approx. $4000 (yes, FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS) if successful, and $200 if NOT! 12/6/2008: David F. This machine came in with a clicking hard drive. I was able to swap some bad parts and perform a complete recovery. Seeing as RAM is at an all time low, I talked the customer into a couple of extra gigs and their PC runs like a new machine! Total cost, including recovery, new drive, and extra RAM approx. $351. 12/4/2008: Patty L. Two external USB drives, both Maxtor. Was given our name by a customer in the isle at Best Buy (BTW, this is the second time I've heard that a customer at Best Buy is handing out our name). The older drive had obvious rotational scoring, where the contents have literally been scratched off the media. The other drive, a 500GB, suffered a surge to the PCB. I was able to correct that and recover the data, however, the customer said she didn't need the contents, it was just a backup drive. Which leads me to the following point: If you don't need your data, just recycle the drive (or get it replaced if still under warranty). I can repair many drives, but do you really want to trust your data to a repaired drive? I'm happy to recovery your data, but after I've done so, the drive should be replaced. 11/26/2008: Mark P. Customer had difficulty booting their notebook. They took it to Best Buy for help. Best Buy immediately diagnosed a bad hard drive and said they needed to send the drive out for expensive data recovery. Mark apparently got our name from a friend and brought the drive here, instead. I diagnosed a logic problem on the drive, and was able to fully recover all data. As of this writing, we are waiting for a replacement drive from WD (the drive was under warranty). Once it arrives, I will restore my backup to the new drive, and we can get the customer on their way with their notebook. 11/19/2008: Craig S. Yet another customer with yet another bad notebook drive. When reading this drive, it would simply go busy (refuse to respond further). As a result, the machine wouldn't boot, and the filesystem was fairly corrupted. Customer found us via Angie's List. Total cost to fully recover their bad drive to a new drive (including cost of new drive), and repair the filesystem, was $269. Plus they had the $10 Angie's List coupon. 11/18/2008: Edward F. Visiting from Hawaii. He realized his hard drive had crashed before returning to Milwaukee to visit his family for the holidays. Found us via google and brought us his notebook. I diagnosed a drive with rapidly developing bad sectors, and a firmware problem that preventing the drive from dealing with them correctly. I corrected the firmware problem, and got everything off the drive before it was too late. Total cost for a complete recovery (including new hard drive), $335. 11/11/08: Mike H. Apple notebook w/ a bad drive (bad heads). Apple store suggested sending it to a place in Madison that quoted approx. $700 just to do the recovery. I was able to provide a complete recovery for $350, which INCLUDED a new drive. When I was done, Mike was able to boot his machine with his new drive as I was able to preserve the OS, applications, and all his data. 11/10/08: Hunzinger Construction. This was a Lacie Big Disk Ethernet drive w/ two 500-GB drives. The power supply died, and took out the controller and one drive. Customer said there was only approx. 3-GB work of data on the drive. I was able to recover just a little over 3GB of data. But wait, it gets better. The customer called and said some stuff was still missing. I ended up chasing down one of the world's foremost experts on the XFS filesystem for some assistance. It was clear that were was a helluva lot more than 3-GB of data on the drive. Try about 10x that. But the filesystem was corrupt. It took nearly a month, from start to finish. But I was able to provide a full and complete recovery, for approx. $900. 10/16/2008: O&Z. Notebook presenting w/ bad drive, won't boot, just makes funny noises. A nearly full recovery, to a new drive, was possible. Total cost (including new drive), $279. 10/15/2008: Pamela R. USB flash drive with a broken USB connector. The force that broke the connector also lifted a trace from the board. I was able to jump the broken trace and otherwise fix the existing connector. Now, I have to admit that it was the ugliest hack job I've done in a long, long time. But I guess all that matters is that I was able to recover her data and copy it to a DVD. Approx. cost, $100. 10/2/2008: Jean A. This was a Maxtor 300-GB drive belonging to a photographer. The last backup was early 2008, so there were many files that were not backed up. The drive had first been taken to an Illinois outfit for recovery, but that outfit was unsuccessful. I was able to determine the compound problem and recover almost all of the files. Approx. cost, $200. 10/1/2008: Logan S. USB flash drive with a broken USB connector. After I fixed the USB connector, I had to correct the underlying filesystems problems which are probably what led the customer to repeated remove and reinsert the drive in an effort to get it working. All the files were recovered. Approx. cost, $50. 9/15/2008: Nancy S. This notebook wouldn't boot due to its quickly deteriorating hard drive. I was able to image most of it, and replace the Windows systems files that were not recoverable by using the original Windows CD. Approx. cost w/ replacement hard drive, $250. 9/5/2008: Judy B. Dell desktop machine with two hard drives. The 2nd drive was full of documents and photos, and was no longer being recognized. I removed the drive, addressed some logic problems, and recovered the data to DVD. Approx. cost, $200. 8/29/2008: Jeff P. Sony Vaio notebook hard drive w/ bad heads. Due to the very poor condition of the head stack, a successful recovery would require a replacement head stack. The cost would be $200 to $300, and the customer didn't want to spend that much. 8/19/2008: Ed W. Hitachi hard drive from a notebook (I think ThinkPad). I was able to recover approx. 80% of their data. Took several days. Approx. cost, $300. 8/2/2008: Luis S. Head plow on a Tohisba notebook drive. The client was most concerned about his address book (3000+ addresses, in 100+ groups). I was able to recover the address book as well as approx. 75% of his E-Mail, and the bulk of his documents. I E-Mailed the customer's address book (customer in San Juan, Puerto Rico) and will ship a DVD of the rest of the data on Monday. Approx. cost, $200. 7/30/2008: Jason S. One of the most extreme examples of filesystem corruption I have ever seen. It was as if some Trojan horse purposely scrambled the hard drive. After almost giving up three times, I finally recognized a pattern to the madness and I am able to reconstruct the data. Approx. cost, $200-$250 (I'm not done yet, still working on this one as I type). 7/26/2008: Ingrid P. This Travelstar notebook drive from an Apple Powerbook G4 suffered a bad case of head plow. Even with extensive work, one surface remained unreadable. Once the media is scratched, there is no going back. Nonetheless, we were able to recover the data from the other surfaces and provide the customer with a considerable amount of there data, for which they were grateful. Approx. cost, $400 (including parts). I know this seems expensive but national firms would have easily charged $1500 to $2000 for this work and it took me quite a long time to get her data. 7/23/2008: Megan S. This isn't the first Seagate notebook drive that I've seen that seems to suffer from spontaneous media failure. Most all of the drive was easily readable, except for what I needed most. I was able to reconstruct most of the user's data, but not all of it. Approx. cost for data recovery portion, $200. 7/16/2008: M & CO. This was a Samsung notebook drive in an IBM Thinkpad. It wouldn't give me the time of day. I finally determined that, in addition to some media problems, it had some thermal problems. I was able to transfer everything to a new drive and return the notebook to the customer as if nothing had happened. Approx. cost, $275 (including price of new drive). 7/11/2008: Bill H. Customer complained that the notebook was running extremely hot where the hard drive was located, had been running slowly, and now wouldn't boot. I was able to recover the data to another drive, fix some underlying filesystem issues, and return the machine to the customer as if nothing had happened. Approx. cost, $275 (including price of new hard drive). 7/8/2008: Katie R. Customer complained that her notebook gave her "delayed write failure" messages in the lower right-hand (system tray) corner. Then, she got a blue screen. When she tried to reboot, all she got was a black screen. I was able to apply a temporary fix to the drive that worked long enough to image it to a new drive. Approx. cost, $150. 7/2/2008: JT&A. Hard drive was having serious head problems. Sometimes it wasn't even able to come ready (so the machine didn't detect a hard drive at all). Other times it would disappear in the middle of using it. I used every trick in my book to nurse that head and transfer the data. A little Windows clean-up when I was done and we had a perfect image of her bad drive. Approx. cost, $300. 6/28/2008: Kim D. Notebook wouldn't start. Removed the hard drive and found that I could not initially mount it in my data recovery rig. After experimenting a while, I discovered the problem and was able to recover the data to two DVD's for approx. $100. 6/23/2008: Ellen H. Customer brought me a Gateway notebook with a broken DC jack. Concerned about their data, I suggested removing the hard drive to an external USB enclosure they could connect to another PC. Upon doing that, I discovered that the drive was not recognized when connected to any of my machines here. The customer left their drive here and I was able to recover their filesystem and backup their important data to DVD. Approx. cost, $100. 6/20/2008: Judith F. This customer brought me a drive on 1/30/08 with a stuck spindle. While I was unable to recover that drive due to media damage, they did realize that much of the critical data was once on a Thinkpad that was reformatted/reloaded some time ago. They brought me the notebook and I was able to reconstruct the previous filesystem and recover much of their data. Approx. cost, $200. 6/18/2008: H.C. This major construction firm brought me a notebook that had been completely formatted and reloaded by the IT department. The user then reported that they had locally stored documents that didn't exist anywhere else, and weren't backed up. I was able to reconstruct the previous filesystem and recover the folder that contained the documents. Approx. cost, $200. 6/18/2008: Kris P. External hard drive wouldn't spin. The drive's PCB has some crispy sections. After some rework with a soldering iron, I was able to recover 100% of this drive. However, I did have to order a couple of components (didn't want to use any of the similar drives I had because they may make good donors in the future). Approx. cost, $250 (including parts).
6/18/2008:
Marc A. The client complained to their consultant (NOT ME)
that their computer (an HP) was slowing down. The consultant
told them to turn it off and let it "rest." It
improved for a time, but then performance deteriorated again.
The consultant collected the machine and removed a virus from
it. Soon after delivering it, though, the client noticed it was
slowing down again. Once again, the consultant collected the
machine, only to now find that the hard drive was no longer
recognized. Furthermore, the backup disks the client was making
were of the wrong data. 5/15/2008: Mike F. 2.5 drive. This drive had bad heads, and the customer didn't have the $2000 to send it to someone to swap a good stack in. I had a suitable donor, and was able to recover the customer's data. Cost was high (over $350), but a fraction of other quotes he received in-state and from the national firms. 5/12/2008: Josh S. This drive fell hard during operation. Spindle is frozen. I have been unable to unfreeze the spindle. This is a fairly common problem. Hard drives can actually absorb substantial shock when they aren't spinning. Once they are spinning, however, they can't handle much jarring at all. 5/9/2008: Gary G. Customer needed auto-saved Word document recovered. Every time they tried doing so in Word their PC crashed. I was able to use our SOS tool to remotely recover the document for them, and fix a couple of other issues, too. Approx. cost, $75. 5/5/2008: Ed. H. Firmware issues prevented this drive from coming ready. I used a trick I perfected to make an image of the drive and correct a few problems with the resulting copy. Cost approx. $200 + cost of new drive. 4/23/2008: J.W. Believe it or not, I'm still playing with this one. Customer wants data, but doesn't want to spend more than $100-$200. Drive has multiple problems. If I can eventually find a good donor for cheap (free), perhaps I'll take a shot at it for him. 4/14/2008: Jane H. What a PITA drive. I quoted $100 cause I thought it would be much easier, then the drive made my life miserable for about a week and a half. I was finally able to recover everything they actually needed. Held the job to the promised $100. 4/9/2008: Connie P. Drive had a broken armature, resulting in scratched media. No recovery possible. 4/4/2008: CWC: Drive had obvious media damage (when you open a drive that is making funny noise, and find powder on the inside, it isn't a good thing). 4/2/2008: Paul W. Machine wouldn't POST (Power On Self Test). Had a bad power supply. Motherboard also had bad caps. Hard drive also had quite a few bad sectors. We were able to recover the data needed to DVD for approx. $100. 4/1/2008: Jim A. Backup data from non-booting drive to DVD. $54. Customer purchased new computer and really only needed stuff from My Documents. 3/14/2008: Michael M. Machine would boot sometimes. Other times it pretended the hard drive wasn't present. Still other times it would blue screen. Took several attempts to image drive, and still had to perform a registry recovery when we were done. Approx. cost $200 + cost of new drive. 3/13/2008: BD. Notebook drive with firmware failure. Important accounting data. Drive not recognized properly by BIOS. We were able to correct the firmware issues, but then there were quite a few bad sectors. So we imaged the drive over the course of a couple of days and copied the data to a customer-supplied external drive. Cost approx. $200. 3/10/2008: Donald M. Notebook drive, wouldn't boot. Blue screened. Imaging didn't work until we played with some firmware settings on the drive so it would give us a break. Cost approx. $200 + cost of new drive. 3/1/2008: Leslie S. Gobs and gobs of bad sectors. We recovered this drive for $200 + cost of a new 320-GB hard drive. 2/29/2008: Bill G. Drive wouldn't boot and half the time it wouldn't come ready. When it would come ready, it would work for a few minutes and then start clicking. We were able to image it in multiple, slow passes. Cost $100 + cost of new drive. 2/25/2008: Kate S. Customer was installing IPOD when machine went into standby. When the machine was restarted, the hard drive would not initialize. We were able to get the drive going and copied the data to a new drive. Did the Windows updates, installed the Apple software, and all was good. Approx. cost $200 + new hard drive. 2/21/2008: M&C. Substantial corruption of the filesystem. Made backup of drive, then tested it. Drive was okay, so ran CHKDSK on it. Put system32 back where it goes and fixed a couple more odds and ends, and the drive booted right up. Approx. cost, $100. 2/13/2008: CR. Drive would work for between 1-5 minutes at a time. Corrected problem and copied data to new drive. Cost was $100 + new drive. 2/5/2008: Judy H. Non-booting drive would start clicking when attempted were made to image it. Found that by reducing read rate and reading the drive backwards it was able to image. Cost $200 + new drive. 2/4/2008: Rollie H. Recovered data from drive with massive bad sectors. Copied data to new drive, fixed Windows so it would boot, fix a couple of corrupted applications, and performed a couple of other tune-ups. Cost was $200 + cost of new hard drive. 1/16/08: Edward P. Front-end damage to this drive and bad sectors required extensive (and patient) kick-starts. Data was recovered and sent via DVD. Took 4EVER. Approx. cost $200. 1/9/2008: Stephanie P. Success. Notebook with non-booting drive. Recovered data to new drive. Then swapped a restore-point image in for the unrecoverable registry data. Then did a Windows XP repair-install to fix the Windows files that I couldn't get. All the user data was recovered. Approx. cost, $200 + cost of replacement hard drive. 1/7/2008: Jim S. Failure. This customer had sent the drive to OnTrack before bringing it to us. OnTrack quoted $1600 to recover the data from this portable USB hard drive. Unfortunately, the drive doesn't even spin for me. I'd dig into it more but I have no idea what OnTrack may have done. National firms charge $1500 to $2500. If you aren't going to be willing to pay that, you're much better off giving your drive to a guy like me first. 1/7/2008: Kate J. Success. Approx. 80-GB (lots of photos and music). Approx. cost $200. Massive corruption to the front-end of the drive. 1/7/2008: Juanita C. Success. Approx. 100-GB (lots of photos and videos). Approx. cost $200. Drive had numerous firmware zone problems which cause it to disappear when you read certain sectors. Made pulling an image lots of fun, but it worked in the end. 1/3/08: Judith F. This drive took a tumble when spinning. When it arrived the spindle was locked and while I was able to get it spinning again, it wouldn't come ready. Nothing I tried would allow me to get the data. But the customer had another machine that I was able to reconstruct the previous filesystem on, so heroic efforts were not applied. 12/27/07: Mark S. Success. This one was interesting. USB hard drive. The customer had formatted the drive (accidentally) while reloading his O/S. He called me Thursday (12/27) and explained what had happened. I advised him to bring it in. Later in the day he called and said he had taken the drive elsewhere and they were unable to recover the data, and wanted to know if I'd be able to do anything beyond what the other shop had tried (they tried a fairly simple software solution). I explained that I have written much of my own software and have well over $10k in specialized equipment, and that I can probably get his data. So, he brings the drive and a couple days later I have pretty much all his data. This one was more expensive ($300) because of the volume of data and because the drive was corrupted before he even reformatted it (and there was quite a bit of extra work to straighten it all out). |
|
4606 North
Wilson Drive, Shorewood, WI 53211 Milwaukee computer repair, Shorewood computer repair, 53211 computer repair, 53217 computer repair, 53092 computer repair, Milwaukee computer service, Shorewood computer service, 53211 computer service, 53217 computer service, 53092 computer service, Milwaukee data recovery, Shorewood data recovery, 53211 data recovery, 53217 data recovery, 53092 data recovery. |
