This is another post in our Tech Series for new data recovery professionals. Modern Western Digital portable USB hard drives use an integrated USB PCB rather than a USB to SATA adapter, so it may seem obvious to attempt recovery of these drives over USB, however, it’s not recommended to attempt hard drive recovery over […]
When data recovery professionals are selecting a matching Seagate drive for parts, it’s important for them to get a good match so the heads can read and write to the drive. In a previous post, I listed some common rules for identifying a Seagate donor drive. This post is specific to the Seagate Rosewood family […]
The single most common failure for USB flash drives is a broken USB connector. Accidents happen easily; the drive is plugged in the side of your computer and somebody bumps into it, or your toddler knocks your laptop off the table, or you forget about it and shove the laptop in your bag without taking […]
At Blizzard Data Recovery, we occasionally get emails, phone calls, and comments on blog posts asking about failed hard drive PCBs (printed circuit boards). One of the most common things we hear is the user swapped the PCB with a donor PCB from an exact same model and the drive still doesn’t work. The reason […]
Each year, we see new hard disk drive models released and each year, we see the firmware get more complicated or the drive security increased by the manufacturer. Two of the most common portable drives we see by Western Digital are the 2TB Charger and the 4-5TB Spyglass models. Both drive families already presented specific […]
We recently completed data recovery for a customer with a 32GB Lexar Jump Drive which had taken an impact while plugged into a USB port, and, as is the case with many of these Lexar flash drives, the impact flexed the circuit board enough to lift the controller (Silicon Motion SM3267L AB) and tear solder […]
In the past few years, there has been a spike in new data recovery labs opening up across the USA and other countries. When researching topics on data recovery forums, it looks like a number of computer repair shop owners are looking for a new business, and data recovery is enticing. Let’s be clear: PC […]
In this post we provide you with some useful insight to help determine what model Western Digital drive might be Inside: a particular model of enclosure. We have included pictures of the shell to help you identify these drives quicker when searching for a matching donor. If you have done some research you have probably […]
It’s a common misconception that a large percentage of hard drive data recovery cases involve removing platters. The truth is platter swapping is only necessary in a low percentage of recovery cases for most data recovery labs. For mechanical failures, the most common reason for in-lab recovery service is removal and inspection of the read/write […]