At Blizzard Data Recovery we sometimes get asked “What is a re-certified hard drive?” According to Seagate if you return a defective drive they “may replace your product with a product that was previously used, repaired and tested to meet Seagate specifications”. In our experience the replacement drive the customer receives will often have a […]
Tales from the Blizzard Data Recovery Lab
Technical advice for data recovery, tips for data preservation, and general wisdom from a team who has been recovering data and working on computers and other electronic hardware for decades.
How To Find a Seagate Donor Drive
Dec 19, 2016The following is information we have gathered to help find compatible hard drives for Seagate head swap data recovery cases. None of this information is guaranteed to help data recovery professionals find a matching Seagate donor drive. This is just information that we have gathered from other resources and then refined from our own experience. […]
WD 6GB AC26400 Recovery
Nov 18, 2016This weeks special case was a 6GB Western Digital EIDE hard disk drive. That’s right! That was not a typo, six gigabytes of storage in one desktop hard drive that was manufactured in 1999. The data was distributed across two platters but only used 3 heads. This hard drive was making some very unusual screeching […]
I Opened My Hard Drive – Now What?
Nov 06, 2016Even if you have opened your hard drive we might still be able to recover your data. If you experienced a hard drive failure and started searching for solutions like: How do I fix a failed hard drive? How to recover lost photos Dead hard disk drive repair Can I fix my own HDD? How […]
A Week in the Data Recovery Shop
Sep 13, 2016In a typical week for some data recovery shops you’ll get standard recovery jobs where drives or files are not accessible to the end user, or maybe an easy, dropped drive case where there is no platter damage and you just need to swap out the head stack assembly. You might also get 1 or […]
Hard Drive Read and Write Heads
Sep 05, 2016Photos of hard drive heads and information about the transition to 4k sectors.
WD10JPVX-75JC3T0 – Case Study
Jun 26, 2016The case of the dropped WD10JPVX-75JC3T0. Hard drives that are dropped while they are in use can present some of the most complex data recovery jobs. This was one of those jobs.
WDWD5000LPVX Head Replacement
Mar 17, 2015This is what it looks like inside a Western Digital WD5000LPVX-11V0TT0. As you can see they don’t look very complicated. The heads are pretty durable compared to some other brands and models.
Seagate 3.5 inch Ramp Set from HDD Surgery
Dec 27, 2014Seagate 3.5″ ramp set made by HDD-Surgery. When precision matters for data recovery success.