Completely Dead Toshiba DT01ACA100 Case Study

May 16, 2022March 21, 2022 by Aaron Hook

Completely dead Toshiba drive 3.5 desktop drive

Anytime I hear that the most important data is Quickbooks and Excel files, I know I am dealing with a small business that really needs its data back! As a small business owner myself, I know exactly how important those business files are. Recreating them is usually possible, but the amount of time you invest in creating the files is overwhelming when you start thinking about having to create them all over again. I am pleased to be able to offer affordable data recovery services for small businesses. I also have a rush or priority service if you need your data back as quickly as possible. Dead Toshiba DT01ACA100 Recovery This Toshiba drive came in from a family that had multiple small businesses locally here in El Dorado, Kansas. And they needed that data back as soon as possible to be able to pick up where they left off when the drive just stopped working. Diagnosing the dead hard drive They reported that the Toshiba DT01ACA100 hard drive was completely dead. Once I had it … Read more

Speedy RAID Recovery for HP Enterprise SAS

May 16, 2022March 15, 2022 by Aaron Hook

4 HP drives from RAID being recovered by PC-3000

RAID recovery is one of my favorite types of recovery. The recovery process can be pretty difficult and time consuming, but solving the puzzle and getting the data back feels especially rewarding. I am pleased to be able to offer an affordable RAID recovery option nationwide. RAID 5 Recovery I was in Wichita doing a drive pickup and brought my boys with me to make a quick stop at Vintage Stock in Towne West Square. The boys love going through the vintage games for our NES, and I love going through the vintage records and cassettes! It really is a super fun place to stop by and hunt for something you want. Anyway, while I was getting a few vinyl records, I got a call regarding this 6 drive RAID that needed data recovery. The call came from a shop that sends clients to me when the RAID recovery is something beyond what they can handle. This SAS RAID was a RAID 5 with what was reported to be 1 drive not working properly out … Read more

Quick Western Digital WD5000LPCX Recovery

May 12, 2022March 10, 2022 by Aaron Hook

Western Digital laptop drive with bad sectors

Sometimes a problem as seemingly simple as “bad sectors” or “bad blocks” can cause a drive to work at all for a customer. This was the case with this WD5000LPCX Western Digital drive. The client reported that the drive just stopped working, and the computer repair shop that took a look at it let him know it needed data recovery as their shop computers would not mount it and their data recovery software would not recognize it. Affordable WD5000LPCX Recovery The client was looking for a professional but affordable data recovery service for their Western Digital drive and we fit the bill! We offer recovery for all types of hard drives including these WD5000LPCX Western Digital drives. Our recovery services are available nationwide, so if you are outside our local area you can still ship your device in for our recovery service. I started with an inspection as usual, but everything looked great hardware wise. The heads all tested good on the PC-3000 so I continued to get the hard drive all set up for … Read more

Seagate ST9500325AS Suddenly Stops Working

May 12, 2022March 7, 2022 by Aaron Hook

Seagate Momentus 500GB not working drive

This 500B Seagate ST9500325AS recovery project came from a local client that reported the drive just stopped working one day out of the blue. The hard drive was in a computer, so the whole computer just stopped booting fully. Recovering A Seagate Drive With Bad Heads The client took the computer into a computer repair shop and was told the issue was with the hard drive itself. The shop that looked at the drive did not have the tools and experience needed to recover the drive on their own, so they recommended the customer contact us for our affordable data recovery service. Ticking sound then spinning down When the client contacted us, they let us know the Seagate ST9500325AS drive was making a ticking sound, then spinning down. This is very classic on a Seagate of a bad head situation, so I was not surprised when I inspected the drive and found that head 0 and head 3 were both bad. Because this drive has 4 heads, I was able to use Head 1 and Head … Read more

Seagate Rosewood ST2000LM007 Recovery

May 12, 2022March 4, 2022 by Aaron Hook

Seagate Mobile 2TB Rosewood that is not showing up on computer

This Seagate Rosewood series drive was mailed to us by a customer that reported the drive was not showing up on their computer when they plugged it in. The Rosewood series drives are very popular and are found in the popular Seagate external drives. The most common models we see are the ST2000LM007 like this drive and the ST1000LM035. If you need affordable data recovery for your Rosewood drive, we can help! Seagate Rosewood Recovery Once the drive arrived, I started with an inspection of the ST2000LM007 2TB mobile HDD and everything looked good physically with the drive. When I plugged the drive into my PC-3000 recovery rig I heard it spin up and everything sounded good as well. I moved on to checking the firmware as this particular Rosewood series of Seagate drives seem to be prone to firmware issues. Patch and Unlock This is a Seagate Rosewood drive, so it is necessary to patch and unlock the terminal before having access to the firmware of the drive. When these drives first came out, … Read more

Badly scratched platters make recovery not successful

May 12, 2022March 1, 2022 by Aaron Hook

Toshiba with badly scratched platters, platter view.

Every once in a while we get a drive sent in that we are not able to recover. This drive came to us from a client who had let a relative take a look at the drive and try to recover it. It is hard to say how exactly the scratched platters occurred (it might have occurred the moment the drive failed, or it could have occurred while the relative attempted a recovery), but the result of the platter damage is that the data could not be recovered. The pictures below show the drive, as well as the drive opened up. You can see where the surface of the platters are scratched. They should be like a mirror with no imperfections at all. You can think of this situation as having a DVD or CD that is badly scratched. The DVD or CD player will not be able to start reading the disk at all and will just eject it after a few seconds of trying. If your drive stops working and is making any … Read more

Beeping Seagate Rosewood Drive Recovery

May 12, 2022February 25, 2022 by Aaron Hook

Mobile Seagate HDD 2TB Drive that was accidentally formatted

This 2TB ST2000LM007 Seagate Rosewood drive was reported as making a beeping sound when plugged in. The beeping Seagate came to us from a client in El Dorado, KS, who is a professional photographer. The most common requests for important data are photos and work documents. In this case, the professional photos on the drive checked off both the photo and business document boxes! As a small business owner, I understand how important it is to get your business data back safe and sound (and sometimes quickly). Beeping Seagate Recovery While El Dorado isn’t too far away from our Kansas based recovery lab, the client opted to mail in the drive for recovery rather than make the drive. The carrier made quick work of delivering the drive and I started by opening the drive up to check the heads in my cleanroom environment. We get drives from all over the country through our mail-in program, so if you are too far away to drop off, don’t worry! We can help. Heads stuck on platter As … Read more

Recovering Photos from Accidentally Formatted External Drive

May 12, 2022February 22, 2022 by Aaron Hook

External Toshiba that was accidentally formatted

During one of my pickups in Wichita, I received a call from a client that had an accidentally formatted external hard drive that they needed photos (and some important documents) recovered from. Photo recovery is the number one type of data that I see needing to be recovered from accidentally formatted drives. Because of this, I have invested in some pretty great recovery software that allows me to offer deleted and format recovery services. I do have special pricing for accidental formatting or deleted data recovery. The price for this service is less than my Standard data recovery service. Formatted External Recovery The client told me they were trying to create a boot drive for their computer on the external drive and didn’t realize that formatting the drive would cause all the data to be deleted. They had hoped to just add the operating system to the hard drive while leaving all the data on the drive intact but had accidentally formatted the drive which erased all the data present. The external drive was not … Read more

Beeping Western Digital Recovery

May 12, 2022February 19, 2022 by Aaron Hook

I have quite a few blog posts about beeping hard drives needing recovery, and most of the time the beeping ends up being caused by the drive heads stuck on the platters. Sometimes the issue with a beeping drive is something else, but the majority of the time it does end up being heads that are stuck on the platter. Beeping Drive Recovery In a lot of these beeping hard drive cases, I am able to safely lift the stuck heads off the platters and move them over to the ramp, inspect them for damage under a microscope, then use the undamaged heads to recover the drive successfully. In some of the cases, I inspect the heads and find they are damaged, replace the head stack with a donor head stack, then recover the data successfully. DIY recovery for beeping drive If you go online to YouTube or other forums, you will see articles with people saying to just take apart your drive and move the heads off the platters, then turn it back on … Read more

Dead Seagate ST9500325AS Bad Heads Recovery

May 12, 2022February 16, 2022 by Aaron Hook

500GB Seagate Mobile Drive with 1 bad head

This Seagate ST9500325AS 500GB drive used to be a popular model that you would find in a lot of Windows-based laptops. This particular hard drive came in from a customer that said their drive just stopped working suddenly, and now no computer would recognize it at all. The customer even tried bringing it into a computer repair shop to see if they could get the drive to mount and recover some of his important data. Seagate ST9500325AS Recovery The shop they brought this ST9500325AS hard drive to said they could not access anything on the drive at all. The drive wasn’t making abnormal noises, but their data recovery equipment would just not recognize the hard drive at all. The shop recommended that they send the hard drive to us for recovery as we have had good success recovering drives for them in the past at an affordable rate. If you have brought your computer to a computer repair shop or even a recovery shop and have been told your drive is not recoverable or will … Read more