Hard Disk Recovery

If you operate a technology blog or website than you know how hard it can be to constantly keep your site updated with the latest content. DTI Data Recovery is happy to announce that we have several content plans that can keep that content rolling in! The articles that our team of authors write are keyword heavy with high dollar phrases like “hard drive recovery“, “data recovery“, RAID Data Recovery“, “data recovery software” and “disaster recovery“. All of these keyword phrases bring in top prices with Google Adsence and Yahoo’s Search Marketing ads.

Having fresh well written content can do more than increase your sites ad revenue. Good content also helps increase traffic through search engine optimization as well as keeping your visitors on your site. DTI Data Recovery has many ways to help your website including content creation services that provide unique and quality content in return for inbound links. If your site is on topic and has Page Rank, we can write 300 to 400 word relevant content that will provide your site with high revenue keywords. All we require in return is inbound links to our site on pages that have relevant and on topic content.

Hard Drive RAID Data Recovery Feeds

If you have a blog, DTI Data Recovery can help you get your RSS feed noticed! We have several pages with high page rank in many different categories for technical and computer oriented websites. We can place your feed on our site and give it thousands of page view every day. Search engines credit RSS links much higher than reciprocal links. By placing DTI Data Recovery’s feed on your site, you have fresh and unique content updated daily. Reciprocal RSS feed display is the best way to share traffic and placement. Our content is not just limited to hard drive recovery. We offer hundreds of technical guides on data storage, backup, disaster recovery and other tutorials.

If you have a blog with a Technorati authority higher than 10 contact michael at dtidata.com to exchange links in our blogrolls. Blogroll links increase authority and have more weight than standard reciprocal linking.

For more information email michael at dtidata.com or call 727-251-2058.

Feel free to visit any of our hard drive recovery or RAID data recovery pages. Click here for more info on data recovery or clicking hard disk repair.

Data Recovery, Hard Drive Recovery, RAID data recovery

Technorati Tags: Data Recovery, Hard Drive Recovery, RAID data recovery

One of the very important questions I ask people when we are trying to do a raw file extraction on their drive is how long it has been since they defragged their hard drive. On most occasions they can’t remember.

The reason that it is important to defrag, is first of all it makes your computer run faster, second you will have less of a chance of a Windows crash, and lastly if for some reason you need to do data recovery on the hard drive you will have a higher recovery rate if you have recently defragged. The reason for this is that when we talk about a “Raw File Scan” what that means is a sector scanner that is looking for header files.

These programs all work generally in the same way, all files whether it be a JPG or a DOC have their own unique header files. File Recovery Programs like Digital Picture Recovery and software that Undelete Files scan down the drive looking for this header information. Now if your hard drive had been defragged when the program gets to the next header and ends the other file then it is likely that the file is all there, but if it had been a long time since the defrag then you run into a situation where we are only going to see part of a file because the rest of the file is strewn across the hard drive.

Please see the image below for an eyes on to the problem.

For more info visit our hard drive recovery or data recovery software pages. Learn How and Why To Defrag Your Hard Drive.

When your hard drive fails it is more than likely a physical problem. In most cases noise will accompany hard drive failure, clicking and scraping are common sounds that a hard drive will emit while it is failing. It is important to back up all your files if your hard drive is making any noises.

Hard Drive Recovery From A Failed Disk

When a hard drive fails, it needs to be repaired so the data can be transferred to stable media and the files can be recovered. Hard drive recovery is the process of repairing a failed hard drive. After the data is transferred, the data recovery process begins.

RAID 0 or No?

So recently I got myself a brand spankin’ new computer. Yahoo, right? I can finally play Vanguard with out lag. So, anyway it was set up with a RAID 0 a 64k stripe for speed since it is my gaming machine. The RAID contained two 80gig Maxtor SATA drives. Now when I set up the RAID I promised myself I would not put any data on it, for fear of failure. Well as the story goes one of the drives has failed, and I have family photos all over my desktop.

In another article I had preached that RAID 0 is wonderful, and I still feel that way, just make sure you have a data drive in the machine. I only wrote this to show you all even someone who KNOWS better doesn’t back up, and makes what I feel was a silly mistake of not keeping the data in a safer place, so don’t feel bad if you make a mistake with your data, I do it all the time.

Fortunately I work for on of the best RAID Data Recovery companies, but if you don’t, then back up your data!

The first rule of RAID data recovery is “due no harm”.  In fact that is DTI’s rule on all types of hard drive recovery, from laptop disk repair to multi drive arrays. Work should never be performed directly on media that stored the data. Any type of actions on the original hard drives can cause more damage. Before any type of hard drive recovery takes place on a RAID array, DTI takes steps to insure that every precaution is put into place. We will not under any circumstances make the situation worse. When it comes to RAID data recovery we take the importance of your data very seriously.

RAID Data Recovery Variables And Hard Drive System Integrity

The first order of business when a RAID array arrives in our labs for data recovery, is to pull every possible bit of data from the hard drive to a clone disk or an image file. In order to accomplish the migration of every binary sector from all of the hard drive elements in the array, clean room hard drive recovery procedures may be necessary. DTI operates a class 100 clean room that is bio-metrically secured. We take the security of your data very seriously.

After any defective media has been recovered and imaged the data recovery of the RAID array can begin.

Once in the RAID data recovery lab, our engineers will determine the “on disk” structure of the stripe and parity if the array is in a RAID 5 configuration. In many cases a partial rebuild has taken place or hot spares have gone offline on multichannel storage bays adding more complex calculations which may require custom code to be written for the extraction of the data to be successful. DTI has on-site programmers that can create programs on demand for any type of new situation that arises. Over the last decade we have developed custom software and proprietary techniques to recover data and validate “on disk file structure” components to verify data integrity and expedite our RAID data recovery process.

When drives within the array are physically damaged DTI has the capabilities to perform hard drive recovery and prepare the data for the engineers to recover the files. Call Toll Free: 1-866-438-6932 if you have any questions.

A RAID system comprises of 2 or more hard disks that are combined to provide the storage capacity of both drives across 1 volume. The exception to this is RAID 1 which is a mirror. In other words the second drive is a duplicate of the first. If one of the drives in a RAID 1 fails then the other will retain the data. In most cases of RAID data recovery the problem is logical as opposed to physical.

RAID Data Recovery

The process of RAID data recovery involves several steps that depend on the type of RAID, and the type of failure. In this series of articles we are going to break down the different types of RAID data recovery scenarios and offer insight into why RAID’s fail as well as recommendations of which type of RAID is best for your situation.

As stated before the most common causes of RAID data recovery involve logical problems. These often happen when RAID hard drives go off line temporarily. Most times the hard drive lights are green, but when a drive goes off line it turns amber. This happens frequently in SATA RAID systems. SCSI back-planes also have a high occurrence of of amber drives. The problem is if a drive goes off line the RAID is operating in a degraded state.

When a RAID is running in a degraded state any further types of failure are fatal. The worse case scenario is that an engineer will see an amber drive and force a re-build. On a RAID 5 this can damage the parity and elevate the need for RAID data recovery.

Related Posts:

RAID data recovery services

DTI Data’s President and founder Dave Mohyla was quoted in CRN recently in their Margin Maker series. The article was about storage solutions and trends with Dave being quoted as an expert on storage recovery. The article is talking about how drive manufacturers are gearing up to provide users with add-on storage options.

Dave’s background makes him an ideal choice since he is the driving force behind DTI’s research and development department. Hard drive recovery is an ever changing industry and DTI has to stay on top of the storage solutions being provided so we can help our clients get their data back from failed hard drives.

One of the companies in the spotlight is Western Digital and their new 2 TB My Book. You can read my review in the Backup Solution Western Digital My Book post. DTI is an authorized data recovery company which can perform hard drive recovery on WD drives without voiding the warranty. You can see our name on the WD Partner page. We also offer a discount on all Western Digital Hard Drive Recovery.

Click here to read the full article. If you need hard drive recovery give DTI a call at 727-345-9665.

Hard drive recovery is one part of the overall process of data recovery. Data recovery involves many steps that vary depending upon the actual circumstances of the hard drive failure. When the disk is physically damaged it will need to be repaired. This stage is referred to as hard drive recovery

Hard Drive Recovery Techniques: The Clean Room

When performing hard drive recovery, it is absolutely imperative that the repair take place in a clean room. Static discharge and dust can have adverse effects on both the heads and the platters. The picture below shows the parts we are talking about:

Depending upon the cause of the initial hard drive failure, the engineers will repair the electronics or hardware.

Hard Drive Recovery Technique: Head Replacement

One of the most common hard drive recovery scenarios involves a clicking hard drive you can hear an example here. The clicking is most likely a head failure. The repair of the heads usually entails replacing them from a good hard drive of the same exact model. Once the heads have been replaced, the engineers move on to reading the disks and moving the data off to stable media.

These are just a couple of techniques the engineers at DTI Data use when doing hard drive recovery. Feel free to call us Call Toll Free: 1-866-438-6932 or fill out an online quote form for immediate support.

Overheating is a serious problem for people, cars and especially computers and hard drives. In my post Speed Kills With Hard Drives Its Heat, I talk about how heat can be very bad for hard drives. Today we are going to look at the world outside of the computer. You would be amazed at how many hard drive recovery cases we get that are heat related. It doesn’t matter if its a laptop hard drive, desktop, external or a mini drive, they are all susceptible to heat.

Heat Related Hard Drive Recovery

With a desktop computer you can add fans inside the box as well as right on the hard drive itself. You have no such luxury with laptop computers. The thing to do with a notebook is to keep the air flowing around it. Don’t use it while it is laying on a bed for example. There are laptop fans that you can buy for your desk if you have a dedicated workstation for your notebook. With the powerful options now available in laptops more and more people are using them as their primary computers, even companies. If a notebook is your main machine, keep it cool and avoid overheating.

For those of us that need the computing power that you can only get from a desktop, we do have options for keeping the system cool. Most new computers have advanced cooling options and these are just as important as duel core processors and gigs of RAM. Spend the extra dough and get as much cooling as you can when you configure your new computer.

The picture below is a typical computer cabinet desk combo. While it looks good and keep everything organized, it is a computer killer.

By squeezing your computer into a tight space you are stopping any air flow. Computers, like people need to breathe and stay cool. If you are looking at computer desks or furniture, make sure your computer has plenty of breathing room and air flow.  Heat is a major cause of hard drive recovery, so do everything you can to keep your drive and computer cool.

Novell NWFS and system markers

File recovery for Novell can be at best rewarding, at worst tedious, however, the file system and its components lends itself to a more robust data recovery theater.

One of the first things that are necessary is to make sure that the file system is in alignment and the system entries are intact.   For every NWFS partition you will find the following components.

 1. A beginning of partition marker         “Nw_PaRtItIon”.          Offset 0

2. A backup of the partition table.                                             Offset 1

3. First HotFix marker                          “HotFix00″                   Offset 32

4. First Mirror marker                           “Mirror00″                   Offset 33

5. Second HotFix marker                     “HotFix00″                   Offset 64

6. Second Mirror marker                      “Mirror00″                   Offset 65

7. Third HotFix marker                        ”HotFix00″                   Offset 96

8. Third Mirror marker                         “Mirror00″                   Offset 97

9. Fourth HotFix marker                       “HotFix00″                   Offset 128

10. Fourth Mirror marker                     “Mirror00″                   Offset 129

11. Volume Definition Table                  “Netware Volumes”      Offset (32 + size of Hotfix)

 Using WinHex as your sector editor it is a simple task to see if these components are where they are supposed to be.  If they are then the next step is to find the Directory Entry Table (DET).   The DET is like a MFT for NTFS in as much as it holds the placement of every file in the system.  Unlike the MFT, there are multiple copies of the DET and therefore a higher chance of recovery exists.

NWFS is not used very much anymore.  Novell went to NSS in its 6.x series of OS, and NWFS went by the wayside.  It’s too bad since MWFS is fast, and easy to recover from.