RAID Levels for the Thecus N4100Posted by Marius on 03 Jun 2009 | Tagged as: RAID 1-10
RAID Levels The Thecus N4100+ supports standard RAID levels 0, 1, 5, and JBOD. You choose • Your requirements for performance The following is a description of each RAID level: Protect your System from E-Crime!Posted by Marius on 24 Apr 2009 | Tagged as: General Virus Attacks. These are only too easy to pick up from the internet. Change your Windows settings so that you can see the true file extensions. Never click on a file that ends in .exe or .pif or .vbs as these are files that launch programs and do not open any file attachments from people you don’t know. Ensure you have adequate virus and spyware protection and that it is updated automatically. DO NOT store data in any default directories (eg My Documents) – this is the first place a virus will seek out. Use the scan facility regularly and heal any infected files. Rename directories logically and store them under the root and on a separate partition. Partitioning gives enormous advantages in file recovery and should be considered an essential precaution; however avoid installing separate operating systems on those partitions. Diagnosing Hard Drive ProblemsPosted by Marius on 24 Apr 2009 | Tagged as: General In this article we examine typical symptoms of hard drive failure and possible causes. What are the signs to look out for? While there are few sure-fire signs of impending disk failure there are some warning signals that give us the hint. Watch out for: disappearing files, very long wait while accessing files, files/folders whose contents appear to be strangely scrambled; reoccurring error messages while moving/copying/ deleting/creating files, and strange but frequent crashes of your OS. LaCie External Rugged Drives….Not so Rugged!Posted by Marius on 23 Apr 2009 | Tagged as: Physical recoveries  lacie external hard drive data recovery failed LaCie External Rugged Drives Been working on a Lacie external rugged hard drive this week and am a bit concerned why they call or claim to be more reliable then other external hard drives. Yes, with it’s fancy little rubber sleeve it’s meant to keep the drive alive if it get’s dropped. The problem here is that the drive was dropped and this has caused the spindle motor to seize, another common fault we see on drives. Looking at the external casing, one can obviously see that the hard drive inside has not ventilation or cooling system, so I can imagine how hot the drive can get. Heat is the biggest killer of hard disk drives. My Book is Not Being Seen by WindowsPosted by Marius on 16 Apr 2009 | Tagged as: General
OK, so the most popular external drives on the market have to be the My Book and The Passport. I get a ton of calls every week about them, and I don’t believe it is because it is not a good product but more because they are being SO widely used. So lets start with the main problem I get called about which is that Windows is not seeing the drive at all when it is plugged in. The customer does not even receive the BONG noise that a USB drive has been hooked up. Now in most cases the device seems to still be getting power. WD external hard drives growing up!Posted by Marius on 15 Apr 2009 | Tagged as: General  western digital external hard drives WESTERN Digital has upgraded its My Book Studio Edition, My Book Home Edition and My Book Essential Edition 2TB external hard drives, and the My Book Mac Edition 2TB drive series of external hard drive to 2TB of storage. The new external hard drives will cost around £375 and are available to consumers now. External Lacie Big Disk Dropped.Posted by Marius on 08 Apr 2009 | Tagged as: Physical recoveries
My post today is about another very common problem we get in our lab, external storage being dropped or bumped whilst being accessed. Here is the scenario, A Apple Mac user editing videos for a very important new client. He is very happy with the work he has done straight onto his LaCie external hard drive that he has on his desk corner. He decides to go and make a coffee, which he needs after hours of work, not noticing that the power cable is stuck under the wheel of his chair he pushes backwards and in horror, the external hard drive comes crashing to the concrete floor. Early Diagnostics and warning signsPosted by Marius on 19 Mar 2009 | Tagged as: Hard Drive evaluation Early Diagnostics and warning signs How do we know that a hard drive is having problems and could fail soon? Is it possible to diagnose a failing drive or data recovery before its too late? Hard Drive Physical ComponentsPosted by Marius on 19 Mar 2009 | Tagged as: Physical recoveries Hard Drive Physical Components The hard drive itself consists of two main parts. As these parts are physical they can be subject to failure. The PCB is made from different components, each chip, resistor, fuse etc all have their own tasks and duties. Later in the week we will discuss the PCB more in depth. At this stage you should be aware that as this is the electronic circuitry of the hard drive it is subject to electrical failures. Clean Room ContaminationPosted by Marius on 19 Mar 2009 | Tagged as: General Clean Room Contamination Contamination occurs when the work area or the hard drive you have opened becomes soiled. There are some small contaminants of 10nm called film contaminants which can kill a micro circuit. These issues won’t affect us as we are not manufacturing microchips, we are doing data recovery. However contaminants this size can still affect our work. Most HEPA filters will remove particles of 0.5 microns or above. Really in a perfect world we would remove every particle. Researchers have found that the worst contaminants in our clean rooms are as follows: | ||||||||||||||||||
