FALSE BELIEFS ABOUT DATA RECOVERY

Losing data on your hard drive is fortunately not something that happens every day. For this reason, the majority of persons are unaware of the problem of data recovery, and sometimes their expectations are very different from reality.

Some false beliefs about the operation of hard drives are not of much help in the mission of rescuing lost information. In this series of articles we try to clarify some doubts that we encounter every day in the data recovery service.

"It isn't a mechanical failure because the disc didn't fall to the bottom."

Disks that have suffered a fall usually have mechanical failures; but that does not imply that all mechanical failures are caused by falls. Sometimes, the disks are bad from the factory and some internal part begins to fail until it ends up causing a mechanical failure that leaves the disk unusable. There are discs that with only one or two weeks of use fail mechanically. There can also be other situations, like voltage spikes, which find yourself causing mechanical failures.

"Nothing happens to the album, it just doesn't work."

We understand what users mean when they present their failed disk to us like this: the disk did not suffer any power drop or surge, it was not formatted, etc. But when a record doesn't work, it's because something's wrong!

While not as conspicuous as a record that makes clicking or knocking noise, or smells of burning, those other "nothing wrong" failures are also going to require specialized tools and many hours of work on the part of data recovery lab experts, sometimes even more than with other types of failures.

But if it is a very small pen drive, it has to be easier to recover and cheaper.

Pen drives or USB memories work with flash memory, which is a more modern technology than the magnetic plates of hard drives and requires different tools and processes. In many cases, it's a more complicated process than that of hard drives. The ease or difficulty will depend on the technology to be used for data recovery, rather than size.

"Pieces? I don't need the disk to be fixed, I just want the data."

Although at we have a large stock of spare parts, it is increasingly common, due to the number of new models that come onto the market that we have to acquire specific parts for some recovery, most of the time abroad. In fact, replacement parts not only have to be from a hard drive of the same model, but they must have the same part number to be identical.

These parts are necessary to put the drive into operation in a controlled situation that requires the use of specialized machinery and software. That is, the parts are to get access to the data, not to repair the disk. Once the data is recovered, it will be dumped onto a new disk.

"For that cost I buy a replacement disk drive."

Without a doubt, buying a new disk is an inexpensive, quick and simple solution… but the problem is that the new disk will not contain the lost data.

Data recovery services have high costs because they do not consist of replacing one disk with another: to maintain a laboratory it is necessary to acquire machinery and software licenses that have a high cost, and every one of this has got to be updated continuously (every day they seem new devices, operating systems, bugs and viruses that didn't exist before, etc.).

In addition, technicians and engineers have to be constantly training and the courses they have to receive, many of them abroad, also have a cost.

"That's just swapping one plate for an additional and that is it."

Replacing a platter with a new one or putting the old platter on a new disk will not solve the problem. And of course, there can be many other failures that do not consist of a failure of the plates.

"I opened it, but closed it again right away."

The hard drive is extremely sensitive to moisture and dust. Any particle imperceptible to the naked eye can damage the surface of the dishes. So for a very short time the dishes have been exposed to air, the damage can be irreparable.

If it is necessary to open the disk, it must be done in a special cabinet, called a "clean room", built according to very strict technical standards and which offers maximum security for your hard disk in the process of recovering data, isolating it from dust and other harmful particles, and controlling at all times the temperature, pressure and humidity to which it is subjected.

There are also occasions when the disk would not have needed opening, because the failure did not require it; however, having been opened requires working with it in the clean room and, in some cases, a failure that would have been recoverable becomes irrecoverable due to mishandling "home".

"So expensive? If that's connecting it to a machine and that's it! "

The machines and software used in our laboratory are very advanced but they are not autonomous; they have to be managed by a group of technicians and engineers who are the ones who make the decisions that lead to the recovery of the data.

Each data recovery case requires a different approach. Logical damage is not recovered in the same way as physical damage, and in most cases the disc will go through several hands and various tools in order to be recovered. Our staff also invest many hours in R&D, to solve new faults or to access devices that have just appeared on the market.

"It worked yesterday."

In some cases the disks are giving warnings that they are beginning to fail: they start to slow down, give error messages, take time to be recognized by the computer, start making noises, etc. But that the disk has not given any warnings does not imply that the failure is trivial, it can be equally serious and require a complex process for its recovery.