Liquid Damaged HTS721010A9E630 Data Recovery

September 20, 2022 by Aaron Hook

HTS721010A9E630 Hard Drive This recovery was on a liquid-damaged HTS721010A9E630 hard drive from HGST. It is a 2.5-inch budget drive frequently found in Laptops. HGST was acquired from Hitachi by Western Digital back in 2012, so these are Western Digital drives. Liquid Damage On PCB This particular drive came into us after the client had brought their liquid-damaged laptop to a repair shop for repair. The repair shop found that the hard drive was not responding on any of their computers, so they recommended the client take the drive to us for recovery. The data on the drive was especially important because the computer was used for QuickBooks. As any small business owner will tell you, QuickBooks files are very important. Data Recovery Steps For Liquid Damage I don’t see a lot of liquid-damaged drives, but the steps for recovery are usually pretty straightforward. The first step is to open the drive up in a clean room environment to see if any of the liquid entered the drive itself. As with most liquid-damaged cases where … Read more

WD10SMZM Western Digital Data Recovery Project

August 25, 2022 by Aaron Hook

This 1TB Western Digital external drive came in with a WD10SMZM model hard drive inside. It had already gone to Geek Squad as well as another computer repair shop. Geek Squad was not able to get any of the data off the drive, and the computer repair shop recommended us after they were also unsuccessful in getting back any data. These newer Western Digital external drives have a USB port built onto the PCB. This can cause some complications, so the first step was to swap out this PCB with an unlocked PCB. I did not have this particular model PCB in stock, so I had to wait for the part to arrive from China. Once the PCB arrives I swapped it out and started the process of testing the WD10SMZM drive. I did find some issues with firmware which I was able to clear, then continued with testing the hard drive’s heads. All heads tested good, so I continued with getting the drive ready for a full clone. Setting the firmware on the drive … Read more

The Importance of Knowledge in Data Recovery

July 27, 2022July 26, 2022 by Aaron Hook

In this post, I wanted to share a client’s story that, unfortunately, is not all that rare in this industry. There are a lot of computer repair shops and even some data recovery shops that don’t exactly know what they are doing when it comes to data recovery. They may have outdated knowledge or knowledge in a particular area, but if there are gaps in their knowledge and they don’t know it, the results can be disastrous. My brother-in-law referred one of his friends to me who had a hard drive full of photos and important work documents that had stopped working out of the blue. The drive had stopped showing up and he needed the data from the drive. The client had taken the entire computer into a computer repair shop to see if they could get it working again. The repair shop told him that the drive was bad and asked if he wanted data recovery services. He approved the data recovery process but was told a while later that the drive was … Read more

ST1000DM003 Seagate Hard Drive Recovery

June 13, 2022 by Aaron Hook

This Seagate hard drive recovery project had the model number ST1000DM003. It came in from a local customer that needed their user data recovered. The client had initially taken their dead drive to a computer repair shop to have it diagnosed, but the repair shop told them that the recovery process was beyond their capabilities. Seagate Hard Drive Recovery This particular repair shop used to recommend one of the big data recovery companies that required you to ship your drive out to their California lab and would give you a quote once it arrived. The quotes from these big companies generally start at around $800 and go up into the thousands. A drive like this one would usually receive a quote of about $1200 for the recovery process. I went out to his particular repair shop and told them about my at-home cleanroom environment, my PC-3000 by Ace Labs, and my 10+ years of experience as a data recovery technician. They decided to start referring people to me as I was local, and as an … Read more

Dead Hitachi Data Recovery -Files Wanted

June 10, 2022 by Aaron Hook

A customer called in to discuss their Hitachi data recovery as their hard drive had stopped working and was completely dead. The hard drive came from a laptop and stored important work documents that were not backed up anywhere else. The shop that the customer had brought the computer to for diagnosis had found that the issue was the hard drive and attempted to get the important files recovered. When the repair shop was unsuccessful in getting the data back, they recommended us to the client as a good recovery company. We have worked with this shop for the last year or so providing the best recovery services possible to their clients when they are not able to get the data back themselves. We have a few different options available to shops that would like to work with us, so please contact us if you are interested in working together! Dead Hitachi Data Recovery When the drive arrived I started with my standard visual diagnosis. In a case where the issue is reported to be … Read more

Hard Drive Not Showing Up After Power Damage

May 12, 2022December 16, 2021 by Aaron Hook

PCB view of burned pins on Seagate Drive

The hard drive not showing up issue can be caused by many different things. The most common issues are ones with bad sectors, failed heads if the drive was dropped, or issues with partition corruption. Anytime a drive stops working right after some sort of power issue (like a power surge), I would suspect the PCB board to have issues. Seagate Hard Drive Not Showing Up This particular Seagate ST2000DM001 2TB Desktop Drive came from a shop that offers some data recovery services, but mainly focuses on computer repair. Their client had reported the drive no longer would be recognized by any computer, and the shop verified this was the case by attaching it to their test machines. The drive wouldn’t even spin up or make any noise when turned on. The shop that looked at the drive initially recommended the customer contact us regarding data recovery as they had important files on the drive that had not been backed up. In the past, this shop had recommended one of the larger data recovery companies … Read more

Important Western Digital Hard Drive Making Noise

May 12, 2022December 7, 2021 by Aaron Hook

Western Digital drive that spins up, makes noise, then spins back down

The hard drive making noise was a Western Digital WD3200AAKS model that came to us from a lawyer in Goddard whose secretary’s computer stopped working. They reported the computer stopped working but they could hear some clicking noises coming from the machine when they tried to boot it up. The drive was the main drive inside the computer and held important data as well as the operating system and programs the firm needed to run smoothly. Recovering a hard drive making noise The symptom was reported as the hard drive making weird noises and not showing up on any computer. This drive did indeed go to a computer repair shop before us, and that shop told the client the drive would likely need a lab recovery due to the clicking noises it was making. Most computer repair shops will listen to a drive like this and automatically think it has an internal problem of some kind. It sounds like a motor issue, heads issue, or some other major issue requiring a platter swap or similar. … Read more

Toshiba DT01ACA200 Hard Drive Not Working After Power Outage

May 12, 2022December 3, 2021 by Aaron Hook

2TB Toshiba Desktop Drive that stopped working after power outage

This 2TB Toshiba drive came from a local small business that creates custom T-Shirts. The drive had stopped responding after a power outage that occurred at the business location. The power outage was caused by a power surge in the area. Power Outage Failures For those keeping track at home, this was a Toshiba DT01ACA200 model drive. I generally find Toshiba 3.5” drives like this one to be fairly robust. With a power outage leading up to the drive failure, it was almost certain that the Printed Circuit Board (PCB) would be the issue with the drive. While a power surge can cause other damage to a hard drive (think head pre-amp or similar), the most common issue by far is an electrical failure on the PCB itself. Hard drive not working recovery The small business owner had brought this Toshiba hard drive to a computer repair shop in Wichita, who verified there was an issue with the hard drive and recommended that she call us directly for affordable data recovery services. While some computer … Read more

Better USB Data Recovery – SATA Board Swap

May 19, 2022June 28, 2021 by Aaron Hook

USB Data Recovery with SATA Tools In 2003 SATA was introduced. Since then, almost all drives have had a SATA interface. Most data recovery tools are designed to connect through the SATA connector, and every step of the recovery process usually involves plugging the hard drive you are trying to recover by utilizing the SATA connector. Now, quite a few of the major drive manufacturers are starting to build their hard drives with the USB port built into the drive. So instead of having an adapter in the external hard drive enclosure that adapts the SATA interface to USB, they now have a USB port built into the drive with no SATA connector present. When these USB data recovery projects come in, it is best to first swap the USB PCB for a SATA PCB, then continue with the recovery process. Toshiba MQ01UBD100 USB Data Recovery This Toshiba drive came in from a client who needed data from a drive that just stopped showing up on their computer. The drive arrived inside its external enclosure, … Read more