Understanding RAID data recovery

Posted by Marius on 19 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: RAID 1-10

RAID data recovery is, of course, the act of recovering data from a RAID system. For those of you in the dark about what a RAID system is, I hope to shed a bit of light on the subject in this brief outline. I will also point you to a few sources for RAID data recovery that can help your issues with ease and recover your lost data in no time and with very little cost. All of this, of course, can be done at your greatest convenience but I’m willing to be that data recovery is no matter of convenience.

What is RAID?

RAID stands for “redundant array of independent disks” and is a computing system that uses multiple hard drives to share data or replicate it across the drive network. The benefits of using a RAID system include increased integrity of data, capacity, and fault-tolerance in comparison to other computer systems. The key component in the early days of RAID was to use older technology to combine into a system that would prove to be very valuable in terms of information technology.

The array would offer greater speed, reliability, capacity, and any combination of those and would end up being significantly less expensive than any of the newer hardware on the market because it coupled multiple devices that would have a greater advantage over the single newer devices. RAID, simply, combines multiple hard drives into one single unit.

Reliability of RAID

RAID is one of the most reliable systems of information technology that you can create because of the backup of having multiple machines storing the information. Having information replicated on multiple hard drives is advantageous because that information is copied and stored in more places than an average user would find. RAID data recovery, therefore, is something that most users knowledgeable of the RAID system can do but there are cases in which that is not possible.

RAID configurations are reliable but they also have a general language of data loss in case this should happen. A “failure rate” is the rate at which a hard drive is faster or slower than its adjacent hard drives. “Mean time to data loss or MTTDL” is the time in which there is data loss in a given array. “Mean time to recovery or MTTR”, of course, means the time in which recovery of lost data is possible. RAID systems are “failure tolerant” which means that they can automatically recover their lost data, most of the time. Needing a serious RAID data recovery, therefore, is almost always avoidable because of the very nature of the hardware.

RAID Data Recovery for Those Who Have Crashed, Burned… and Learned

Posted by Marius on 19 Mar 2008 | Tagged as: RAID 1-10

If you want to know about RAID data recovery, it means either one of two things. You’ve maybe crashed your hard drive – or are afraid it may soon crash – and are looking into storing data using RAID’s scheme (redundant arrays of inexpensive disks, “independent” sometimes used in place of “inexpensive”).

It could also mean that you’re trying to recover files from a damaged RAID. Since the RAID system uses multiple hard disks, you can suffer either partial or whole failure.

You’d think that your database would be safe after you’ve protected it with a RAID backup. But statistics show that of total data loss in any system, approximately 44% comes from hardware failure.

RAID Data Recovery - How Safe is Safe?

How safe is your data using RAID? If your RAID is a combination of several hard disks into one unit, then the simplest answer is your data is only as safe as your weakest disk. This is not to say that you won’t be able to recover your data.

Some RAID’s though are software-hard disk combos. In these hybrids, how safe your data is depends on how you distribute it.

Ask your vendor for a RAID data recovery failure rate. The failure rate of your disk array may be higher or lower than its component hard disks and will hinge on what kind of array you purchase.

RAID Data Recovery - Who Needs It?

RAID is generally found in server computers. The disks that make up the array are usually the same size, although some aren’t.

The rationale behind RAID is the need for bigger data storage. So you’d expect only corporate IT departments or storage intensive firms to use RAID, such as audio and video editing or animation companies.

But two factors are making RAID more popular:
- Many businesses, even small, home-based ones rise and fall on the strength of vital data.
- Technology has driven hard disk prices down, making RAID more widely available so that it’s built into more motherboard chipsets, ergo, into more advance PCs.

RAID Data Recovery - How Much?

If you’re data is crucial to your business it is probably best if you call in professionals to help you when disaster strikes. If you’re thinking of recycling your hard disk and trying to salvage data yourself by running cheap software (around £50 or less), be prepared to lose everything.

There’s one thing you shouldn’t do: Don’t attempt to use software that writes stuff to the damaged hardware. There’s a good chance you can make matters worse by overwriting data that you would have been able to recover otherwise.

Only use data recovery software if you really know what you’re doing. If not, call a pro. But check that you aren’t going to pay for any evaluation charges if all you have is a regular IDE hard disk. Most firms only charge evaluation for complicated RAID’s or network servers.

Here’s what you should expect to pay:

* RAID, SCSI = as much as £15,000 depending on how your storage is configured.

Hard drives we recover

Posted by Marius on 24 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: The type of Hard Drive models we can recover.

136799-001 BB0911CA0 BD0186349B
BD018635CC BD01864552 BD03685A24
BD03695A27 C2235 C5281-39050
DDYST09170 DDYS-T09170 DDY-T18350
DPSS-318350 HB00931B93 IC25N020ATCS04-0
MAN3184MP MAP3147NC MAP3367NC
ML530 ST3120022A ST318406LW

Hard drives we recover

Posted by Marius on 24 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: The type of Hard Drive models we can recover.

DK23AA
DK227A-50
DK227A-50
DK23AA-10
DK23AA-12
DK23AA-60
DK23BA-10
DK23BA-20
DK23BA-60
DK23CA-10
DK23CA-15F
DK23BA-60
DK23CA-30F
DK23DA
DK23DA-20F
DK23DA-30F
DK23EA-30
DK23EA-40
DK23EA-60
dk23fa-40
DK23FB-40
dk32dj-36mc
DSCM-11000
HDS722512VLAT20
HDS722512VLAT80
HDS722516VLAT20
HDS722516VLSA80
HDS722525VLAT80
HDS722540VLAT20
HDS722580VLAT20
HDS724040KLAT80
HDS728040PLAT20
HDS728080PLAT20
HDS78080PLAT20
HTC424020F7AT00
HTS42030M9AT00
HTS424040M9AT00
HTS428040F9AT00
HTS428060F9AT00
HTS541060G9AT00
HTS541080G9AT00
HTS548040M9AT00
HTS548040M9ATOO
HTS548040M9T00
HTS548080M9AT00
HTS548080M9ATOO
HTS726060M9AT00
HTS72606M9AT00
IC25L040ATCS04-0
IC25N020ATCS04-0
IC25N020ATMR04-0
IC25N030ATMR04-0
IC25N040ATCS04-0
IC25N040ATCS05-0
IC25N040ATMR04-0
IC25N040ATMR04-4
IC25N060ATMR04-0
IC25N060ATMR04-4
IC25N080 ATMRO4-0
IC25N080ATMR04-0
IC25NO20ATCS04-0
IC25NO30ATCS04-0
IC35l060AVV207-0
IC35L090AVV207-0
IC35L120AVV207
IC35L120AVV207-0
IC35L120AVV207-1
ICS25N020ATCS04-0
MHS2030AT

Data recovery firm sounds Mac hard drive damage alert

Posted by Marius on 24 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: Physical recoveries

MVI Data Recovery has challenged Apple to come clean about what it claims is a “critical manufacturing flaw” affecting some hard drives used in MacBook laptops and desktops like the Mac Mini - an issue that could result in data loss.

MVI Data’s customers have sent in a much higher numbers of failed Seagate 2.5in SATA drives made in China and loaded with firmware version 7.01 than of any other current hard drive model. We’re getting 20-30 times more failed drives of this kind than others.

The drives of this kind sent to MVI Data for data recovery exhibited the same damage: the read/write heads have failed mechanically causing them to gouge deep scratches in the delicate data-storing surface of the disk platters. In almost all cases, this renders the drive useless.

And the drives in question all came from Apple machines. MVI Data only gets the drives, not the host computers, so we can’t specify exactly which Macs they came from, but since they’re all 2.5in models, that suggests not only laptops like the MacBook and MacBook Pro, but also potentially desktop Macs that use laptop-oriented components, like the Mac Mini.

 

 

 

 

 

We blame the problem what the described as “poor quality control in Chinese hard drive factories” - an issue we maintain affects other hard drive makers in addition to Seagate. We also warn all hard drive buyers to avoid HDDs manufactured in China.

“We believe that any sizeable manufacturer would by this stage be aware of such a problem and issue a product recall notice, or an offer to have the drive exchanged for a suitable alternative at their own expense.”

Users who find they have such a drive, should back up their data and consider replacing it with “an alternative drive, or a retail-version Seagate drive”.

Mac OS X’s System Profiler utility provides a way to identify the make and type of HDD installed in a Mac, but not directly its place of origin.

Update System Profiler also shows the HDD’s firmware: under the Serial ATA section, look up the Revision entry - that’s the firmware version.

Apple and Seagate did not respond to our requests for comment.

A discussion thread on Apple’s support site highlights a number of MacBook users who have experienced what appear to be hard drive failures. However, only five cases explicitly identify the failed drive as a Seagate model, and of these none can be stated categorically to be the product of Chinese factories.

Some of the failures are attributable - indirectly - to Mac OS X’s Safe Sleep feature. This copies the contents of a laptop’s memory to the hard drive whenever the computer is put to sleep.

Related stories

     
     

To be fair to Apple, it does warn users not to move the machine until this process is complete - at which point the light on the lid catch begins to pulsate - but it’s easy for users to grab their laptops and go as soon as the lid’s down.

Unfortunately, at that point, the drive’s heads may by busily moving back and forth across the platters, and any movement risks the two physically touching, with the potential of data loss and even disc damage of this kind . This is true of all hard disks, as proponents of solid-state storage like to point out.

Mac users can disable Safe Sleep by following Mac OS X Hints’ procedure here. However, doing so risks losing data from memory should the laptop’s power supply be cut.

Hard Drive Models we recover.

Posted by Marius on 18 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: The type of Hard Drive models we can recover.

fujitsu2.bmp

M1638TAU M264T M2714TAM
M2952SYU M2954QAU MAB3091SC
MAH3182MP MAJ3182MP MAM3184MP
MAM3367MC MAN3367MC map3367np
MHH2048AT MHM2060AT MHM2100AT
MHM2200AT MHN2100AT MHN2200AT
MHN2300AT MHR2020AT MHR2030AT
mhr2040at MHS2030AT MHS203AT
MHS2040AT MHS2060AT MHT2020AT
MHT20260AT PL MHT2030AT MHT2040AH
MHT2040AH PL MHT2040AT mht2060ah
MHT2060AT MHT2060BH MHT206BH
MHT2080AT MHT2080BH MPA3043AT
MPB3064AT MPC3043AT MPC3064AT
MPD3043at MPD3064AT MPE3084AL-EL
MPE3102AT MPE3136AH MPE3173AE
MPE3273AT MPF3102AH MPF3102AT
MPF3102AT-P3 MPF3204AH MPF3204AT
MPG3102AH MPG3102AT MPG3204AH
MPG3204AT MPG3204AT-TC MPG320AT
MPG3307AH-EF MPG3307AT MPG3409AH
MPG3409AT nap3735nc

What is the difference between a regular desktop PC hard disk and a Consumer Electronics (CE) drive?

Posted by Marius on 09 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: General

Consumer Electronics (CE) hard disks are specifically manufactured for the PVR market. CE drives are not generally available in retail stores, and can only be purchased through authorized resellers, such as XtendedPlay.

Consumer Electronics drives have a few key differences from normal desktop drives that make them far superior to desktop PC drives for PVR usage:
• Better streaming video performance - ensuring that you always get a great picture. CE drives are optimized for streaming to avoid the stutters and jerkiness that can be caused by repeated error checking that occurs on regular desktop PC drives. Hard disk drives designed for PC applications are optimized for data integrity through enhanced error detection and correction routines. These error correction ‘features’ on PC drives cause the data flow to be paused until an error is corrected, which causes jerky playback of video and audio.
• Minimized operational noise - whisper quiet operation. CE drives use customized firmware algorithms referred to as the silentseek actuator profile. The silent-seek actuator profile slows the trajectory of the seek pattern, which results in quiet seek operations and lower power consumption. The CE drives supplied by XtendedPlay also use the quietest type of motor available: fourth-generation fluid dynamic bearing (FDB) technology. This results in whisper-quiet operating acoustics of 2.4 bels - at the threshold of human hearing.
• Reduced power consumption - protecting your PVR. CE hard disks are specifically designed to reduce electrical power consumption. PVR’s are particularly sensitive to the amount of power used by the hard disk. The power supply electronics in a PVR have often been designed to operate near their limit and the addition of a larger hard disk can put extra strain on the power supply. Installing a regular PC hard disk can cause the life of the PVR power supply to be dramatically reduced.
• Reduced heat dissipation - keeping it cool. CE drives are designed to reduce heat to a minimum. The enclosure of a PVR has been designed to deal with the amount of heat generated by the original hard disk drive. Larger capacity PC drives often create much more heat than the standard PVR drive and can cause reliability problems.

Most common queries by clients and problems with Hard drives.

Posted by Marius on 09 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: General

“I want to recover excel file from a defunct hard drive”.

“This is my auxiliary drive with ALL family data Seemingly Hard disk head fault. PC boots fine. Win XP runs slowly, identifies hardware but does not read any formatted data or active partition”.

“Freecom portable external Usb hard drive 400Gb capacity - had wrong adaptor plugged into it - will not work - took to local computer repairer - they could not get it to be detected by any PCs they had - data is very important as it contains many photos and research material”.

“Hard drive spinning but inaccessible, HD trashing, damaged disk”.

“I have a Thecus nas which holds about 1.5tb of music data / photos etc on a raid 5 system. ( 5 x discs 500gb each ) . Unfortunately one of the discs which was a western digital failed and I replaced the disc and the raid rebuilt no problem. Disc 5 was faulty but discs 1,2,3, and 4 were perfectly ok. However after a day’s use it has completely gone. It may have had system file done on it as it said it was read only but all folders and data seem to have disappeared. I know the discs aren’t faulty and the data should be intact as nothing should have been written to them. All discs can be labelled as 1 to 5”.

“I require data recovery performed on a replaced hard drive unit if it is possible. it failed to function and so was replaced, however there is important info on there that I need asap”.

“A very old MFM hard drive Seagate ST-251 has a FAT 16/Dos compatible format on it. Spins ok but unable to get data off it. Very flaky sometimes my old DOS system can read it but not able to copy data off it. 4 partitions on it”.

“On power up laptop fails to recognise the hard disc and fails to boot up. clunking sound can be heard”.

“I have a Powerbook G4 which crashed on upgrade to 10 OS X 10.4.11. It now won’t boot nor can I mount the drive in target disc mode. I’d like a quote on recovery”.

“Maxtor 200GB external Firewire HD - dropped from desk - no longer recognised by windows. Could you help?”.

“I have broken my Usb stick, the pins have come away for the board and I have all my final year data on it in need your help ASAP if you can”.

“My external hard drive is not being recognised by my laptop, how much for data recovery please? I have a 250 gb Packard Bell save and store 3500..external hard drive..I really need to get my family photos/movies….your help appreciated”.

“Can recover data from Maxdata 120GB HDD?. The discs are not rotating. Can you recover the data?. How do you delivered recovered data?”.

“Hard Disk engines can’t run and has pressure on it so the engine axis has bended No damage on the hard disk media. I need to recover a file from the hard disk The file size is between 4-6 MB”.

“Can I please have a cost to recover from a damaged hard drive from a dropped personal laptop. It’s a Fujitsu MHV2080AT, made 2006—05”.

“My computer is a Dell and my hard drive has got an error and we can’t get access to get all my information. We are based in Edinburgh, can you let me know what your charges are and if you would be able to recover the items and how long this usually takes?”.

“I have Maxtor 120GB HDD which is not working. The disc is not spinning (maybe the motor). Can you recover the data? If you can recover the data how do you send it back to me.”

“We have a 500GB LaCie d2 HD U2&F4&F8 EXTR II 7200rpm 8MB EK.
We’ve sent it back to LaCie and they’ve said:
Occasional blue flashing light from the unit. No sound (by way of HD noise). Does not mount on desktop and is not visible using Disk Utility. Have tried replacement cables and using all the different interfaces- USB, Firewire 400 - no difference. Bought 27/11/06. Controller replaced. Drive tested with HDTunes. Interface Board ports flashed and tested (all ports) Power tested (on/Off), LED, button, fan checked Quick bad block test Quick format (Prod format tool, made on all disks)”.

“Hi, I have an ‘un-mountable boot volume’ blue screen error on my Dell Inspiron laptop when I boot up. I have visited the Microsoft page from another computer and doing its suggestions for this error, but without joy. I have also tried booting it from the CD drive via BIOS. This machine was on its way out as it was a work laptop that I have since upgraded, but need to extract data from it - in particular, over 5000 iTunes that took ages to upload!! I would really appreciate your help, with a prompt response (I’m losing sleep over this!) and quote.”

“I need my data recovering off a 40GB 2.5″ IDE laptop hard drive. I have been led to believe the hard drive will not start up and therefore I need a specialist to recover my data.”

“Raid 5 - 4 disk array. Perc 4di controller. Controller not recognizing 2 drives. First was not recognising 1, now 2. Do you think you could help?”

“The Logic Board in my ImacG5 has broken. I need to access some Iphotos, I-movies and word and excel files as I forgot to back them up. Apples local repair centre tried to recover but has failed. Are you able to provide this service with a drop off in Edinburgh.”

“I’d like to get a quote for recovering data from an 80GB laptop hard drive damaged in a water spill. Many thanks.”

I accidentally reformatted C drive when reinstalled Windows XP. I thought I had lost all of the data and photos stored. I loaded some software and reconnected the internet connection and used a couple of times. I have since heard that data can sometimes be recovered after reformatting but that the Laptop should not be used as it overwrites files. I am looking to recover a series of family holiday photos. Do you think it will still be possible?”

“Hard drive is seen in BIOS but cannot see data in windows. How much will it cost to recover my pictures folder?”

“I have a hard drive form a dell Inspiron 1501 laptop, my laptop stopped working and I got the Hard drive replaced by dell who gave me 7 days to recover my data of the old hard drive and send back. How long do you take?”

“Dropped HDD caddy whilst unit was running.”

“Samsung hard drive has failed. Unable to recovery data through various means I have tried.”

“120gb Data from a Seagate hard drive that has crashed during a Mac OS Leopard installation (error - invalid nodes) un mountable.”

“WD USB disk WD1200B008-RNU will not spin up - starts to spin, 10 clicks, spins down again. Contains personal photos and music, not business data.”

“Samsung HD400LD Data disk failure (clicks then stops).”

“Got a Seagate 500 GB Barracuda 7200.9 SATA Internal Hard Drive ST3500641AS.
with repetitive clicking noise. If I use it as internal, machine does not boot (freezes) and as external (USB), HDD starts doing ~1sec repetitive clicking.”

“I have a IDE hard drive that I’ve lost some data while I was trying to merge 2 partitions, I haven’t written to that partition since it happen, I’ve tried a number of programs but they tend not to recover as it was with all files in the correct folders, I trying to recover size on disk 14.9 GB, 80,692 files & 15,591 in folders, have you got a program that I can purchase that will recover my files.”

“I have a Hitachi 80GB Internal IDE HDD. It dropped on the floor and no longer operates. I believe the needle nose is also damaged which is preventing data from being read. I have opened it up in an attempt to swap the disc into another HDD casing but didn’t have any luck.”

“My internal laptop Hard disk just crashed. It said “Un-mountable”. I just want to recover several pictures from it (1 GB)”

“Seagate barracuda 320gb reading head broken needs a HDA transplant?.”

“WD 80Gb, not readable, searching light displays and freezes system.”

“My system is not detecting my hard drive.”

“Our computer crashed and we had to have the hard drive replaced. We have the old hard drive and we would like to try to have the data recovered specially the accounts.”

“My 500gb Seagate HD can’t be accessed via my desktop. When I use the disk utility the drive can be recognised but OSX cant repair or mount.”

“CMOS does not register drive. Laptop will not recognise HDD. HDD is a Seagate Momentus 40GB Model:ST94011A. Approx. 9GB left of free space. The only information I want to recover are Photos.”

“I performed a system recovery on my compaq Presario following possible virus problems and machine running slowly. Complete restore performed from DVD. All data files first backed up to second drive (this one!) mostly in RAR format. During the restore the machine seemed to partition and BOTH hard drives (the original and the backup) and copied the windows operating system files to the original drive. What I have left is a 120Gb drive (original drive) with an NTFS partition of 108.35Gb and a FAT32 partition of 3.43GB. The 320GB backup drive now has an NTFS partition of 13.67GB, a FAT32 partition of 3.42GB and an unallocated space of 280.98GB. The drive was previously a single NTFS partition.
The data I need recovering is in RAR format split into 12 volumes of approx 4.7Gb each. There are many other files on the disk and these would be nice to recover, however most of these are just copies of installation files.
Please tell me you can help…”

“I’m after a quote if possible for recovery of an internal Maxtor 40Gb hard drive. Up until yesterday the drive was functioning as normal, then started making a strange noise similar to a corrupt cd trying to load, like spinning in bursts ( or trying to) . Basically I have a lot of print / web work as well as some music production files I’d rather not lose. Would it be possible to get a rough quote of the sort of cost I would be looking at to have the files recovered ( if they can be) and returned on DVD.”

“My hard drive won’t spin at all, it just gets very hot real fast. How much would it cost to recover my data? It is a 200gig Maxtor HDD.”

“Diagnosis results have shown that the read write heads have failed. The disk has been opened and no visible platter damage can be seen as a result of this failure.”

“PC power supply failed and now HDD is not recognised in BIOS of replacement PC. Irreplaceable photo’s of kids when they were babies is required to be recovered from the C:/ partition of Maxtor 40GB HDD.”

“Western Digital Caviar SE SATA hard drive on my home PC has died with a Blue Screen “Un mountable Boot Volume” error. Possibly caused by a power outage, but had been running slow for some time. Runs XP Home edition. 250Gb drive with masses of family photos, docs, music etc. Ran chkdsk to no avail.”

“Controller card on hard drive has burned out and hard drive will not spin up.”

“60gb Hard drive on a dell laptop using windows XP, local computer shop can spin the drive but not retrieve anything. got the blue screen of death and would not boot up thereafter. Need my documents, my pictures, my music, outlook files.”

24-36 Hour Turn around Times.

Posted by Marius on 31 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Physical recoveries

Here at MVI Data Recovery UK, we aim to recovery your valuable data as quick and effortlessly as possible, but for the more time pushed data loss scenarios, we can book a emergency procedure that can see us recover your data in less than 36 hours. This is especially useful with RAID Servers as the data on these storage mediums are often the most critical.

Call us for a quick quote and to get that data back in less than 36 Hours!

IBM Deskstar Click of Death….What clicks of death?

Posted by Marius on 25 Oct 2007 | Tagged as: Physical recoveries

Here at MVI Data Recovery we have put so much R&D into the famous and most well known hard dive’s for mechanical failures, the IBM Deskstar IC35L0 series. These hard drives will be working fine one day, then suddenly start emitting a horrible clicking noise, known as the “click of death”. We have named these drives “DeathStars” for their ability to just fail at the worst times. If clients hear this click, the best advice is to shut down the system and give us a call for a free evaluation. It is very important to shut down the system as this will prevent complete data loss. If the system gets booted up and switched off continuously, it puts immense stress on the read/write heads inside the case mounting of the hard disk. These read heads will eventually ware away and scorn the platters; this contains all the valuable data. This data will be gone forever!
We have made thousands of successful recoveries from the IBM Deskstar series, so your drives and data can be trusted to MVI Data Recovery.

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