Physical Data Recovery Tools

Hi Eddie,

I notice from your website that you are a "Certified Data Recovery Specialist". I've not come across any certification for DR yet, could you enlighten me as to how to obtain it ?

Thanks,

Azrael

Hi Eddie,

I wondered if you have experience with other physical recovery tools. Can you compare how these tools compar ein price and in function to tools such as the ones available from DeepSpar and YEC?

As you can see in the classifieds section, I am in the market for such a set of tools. The two that I found most readily were DeepSpar and YEC. I will definately be checking into the ones from HDRC.

Thanks!

If I may throw in my 2 cents (pence)

http//www.retrodata.co.uk/platter-extraction-system.php

We've made very substantial changes to the original prototype, which is what is being described on the web page.

The disadvantage of our system - the cost, which will be in the region of £3,950 - yet to be finalised.

The advantage - it will work on any 3.5" hard drive currently produced with up to five platters, although can be adapted (via the addition of interchangeable modules) to handle up to 8 or even more platters, as are sometimes found on some older SCSI drives.

It is laser-guided (that is the sort of precision that is needed with this operation - with all due respect, a perspex box doesn't provide quite the rigidity needed, and perspex - as with many plastics - has a canny ability to attract dust.)

Shipping is expected late June 2008, and full details will be made public shortly beforehand.

We are also working on a precision head-extraction tool that is completely different from the HRC offering.

I don't like to knock the competition - HRC do have some innovative products - but beware that flexibility and precision are inherent prerequisites for this sort of work.

Duncan Clarke
Retrodata / Retrodata Scientific

Just had a look at the website mentioned. They pretend that

Magic NTFS will recover your data if the hard drive's partition table, boot record, FAT/MFT or root directory are lost or damaged

I'm wondering how they can do that. What about fragemented files ? If the MFT entry of a file is lost how could a fragmented file be recovered ?

It seems to me that the seriousness of such a statement is at least questionable.

>>Magic NTFS will recover your data if the hard drive's partition table, boot record, FAT/MFT or root directory are lost or damaged

>I'm wondering how they can do that.

Well…. it's *Magic* NTFS

Just had a look at the website mentioned. They pretend that

Magic NTFS will recover your data if the hard drive's partition table, boot record, FAT/MFT or root directory are lost or damaged

I'm wondering how they can do that. What about fragemented files ? If the MFT entry of a file is lost how could a fragmented file be recovered ?

It seems to me that the seriousness of such a statement is at least questionable.

This program (and thousands of others like it) *are* actually able to recover data from such drives by searching for file signatures.

Granted, if the file is fragmented, you will likely have a problem with it, but in my experience, this generally provides a fairly good recovery, albeit at the loss of file- and folder-names…

Duncan

"Certified Data Recovery Specialist"

http//www.webmaster-talk.com/graphics-forum/84617-help-needed-designing-professional-circular-logo.html

Not a bad qualification for $35!

Ah, i'm only joking, i've no reason to believe it's not a legitimate qualification, but I'd love to hear where he got it, I'm in the industry quite some time and I've never come across it…

Looking forward to seeing your tools Duncan.

"Certified Data Recovery Specialist"

http//www.webmaster-talk.com/graphics-forum/84617-help-needed-designing-professional-circular-logo.html

Not a bad qualification for $35!

Ah, i'm only joking, i've no reason to believe it's not a legitimate qualification, but I'd love to hear where he got it, I'm in the industry quite some time and I've never come across it…

Looking forward to seeing your tools Duncan.

Nice Spot!

(nice advert he posted too!)

Hi Eddie,

I notice from your website that you are a "Certified Data Recovery Specialist". I've not come across any certification for DR yet, could you enlighten me as to how to obtain it ?

Thanks,

Azrael

"Certified Data Recovery Specialist"

http//www.webmaster-talk.com/graphics-forum/84617-help-needed-designing-professional-circular-logo.html

Not a bad qualification for $35!

Ah, i'm only joking, i've no reason to believe it's not a legitimate qualification, but I'd love to hear where he got it, I'm in the industry quite some time and I've never come across it…

Looking forward to seeing your tools Duncan.

Nice Spot!

(nice advert he posted too!)

Where did I get the qualification? Well at the time I too struggled to find anything but eventually did, the only certification I could locate was the Unistal Data Recovery Specialist Course - Certification after completion therefore 'Certified' -)
Things are different now as there are various options for Certification available. The course I mention is 99.5% logical!

There was a company offering training within a short distance of my parents offering training, they however did not reply to emails or phone calls. I needed to learn read write head alignment.

So with the help of certain companies and a lot of research along with my experience recovering data and defending the servers against attacks whilst employed by a UK insurance company I built my skill set. It helped that we had a contractor repairing hard drives willing to share info too wink

The fun part now is that as I am working in partnership with various companies therefore others won't accept me for other certifications ?
———————
$35 for the Cert not quite it was however only $275 though
$35 for the graphic yes absolutely, the sketch I had drawn was well have you seen a stick man, imagine a stick eagle lol

Yes I do now work in partnership with the other recovery companies mentioned in these posts, my so called 'ad' was at the time a genuine own view. But my other half saw it as an ad too so what can I say?

This program (and thousands of others like it) *are* actually able to recover data from such drives by searching for file signatures.

Granted, if the file is fragmented, you will likely have a problem with it, but in my experience, this generally provides a fairly good recovery, albeit at the loss of file- and folder-names…

Duncan

As I tend to spend most of my time with Forensic Tools I haven't used the other softwares being mentioned here for logical recovery. I'm drawn to agree with Duncan and his answer but having not tried this particular software cannot answer this question specifically.

Duncan your tool sounds awesome, 5 platters this would be an excellent solution for the SCSI headaches I get! Look forward to reading more on your product and feel free to keep me informed of updates.

Hi Eddie,

I wondered if you have experience with other physical recovery tools. Can you compare how these tools compar ein price and in function to tools such as the ones available from DeepSpar and YEC?

As you can see in the classifieds section, I am in the market for such a set of tools. The two that I found most readily were DeepSpar and YEC. I will definately be checking into the ones from HDRC.

Thanks!

I have to say that the Deepspar is at the moment the 'Elite' when it comes to cloning hard drives, however the YEC products have the Atola Insight added to their collection. The Atola Insight will if it lives up to it's name be the ultimate elite tool for anyone in DR or Computer Forensics. So anyone looking for a serious tool I would recommend waiting until the Atola unit is ready for sale and has feedback to back it up.