Just thought id join in a little.
Having worked for a large worldwide datarecovery firm lol, from working there for good few years i didnt see any companies who offer datarecovery techniques be it cleanroom or basic procedures. But then again i did not look to hard as the company i used to work for created most of its own tools specifically for data recovery. So i know of no companys who offer training unless you work for them.
And i think i recall seeing someone mention that firmware was located on the platters? as far as im aware the firmware is located on the pcb. Thats not a dig at the person its just what i think is correct thats all. Having seen and carried out some hard drive recovery techniques im quite sure thats f/w is on the pcb. (not telling you how i know lol, theyll probably sue me lol). Platters are only for data storage. Again not a dig just thought id shed some light on the knowledge i gained while working for a data recovery company. 😀
Just thought id join in a little.
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And i think i recall seeing someone mention that firmware was located on the platters? as far as im aware the firmware is located on the pcb. Thats not a dig at the person its just what i think is correct thats all. Having seen and carried out some hard drive recovery techniques im quite sure thats f/w is on the pcb. (not telling you how i know lol, theyll probably sue me lol). Platters are only for data storage. Again not a dig just thought id shed some light on the knowledge i gained while working for a data recovery company. 😀
Basically you are right - firmware is not on the platters - but is usually located on the PCB. What the other person may have been referring to - is that with today's high density drives - certain codes and values required by the firmware to operate correctly are written to hidden data areas on the platter(s) that are not accessible by any normal techniques. The firmware can only work in conjuction with this code.
A number of devices have been developed that allow technicians to access, maintain and update these "system tracks". Documentation of this area on drives is completely manufacturer specific - and each individual model needs to be reverse engineered to understand the coding. The info on the tracks is written at the time of manufacture and is specific to that particular/individual drive and it's platters and data area - that is why the standard technique of swapping PCB's from an exact same model drive is not nearly as effective as in the past.
As for claims by Nikola or anyone else - read them carefully. The claim of 90% success without opening a drive can be very misleading. At best - with particular models of Maxtor drives - that have a specific type of failure (that may be common to that line) - system area work can lead to a successful recovery without opening the drive.