Recovering a scratched platter (or is it game over?)

[Jon1962]

I have a Seagate DM series HDD which has a small scratch on the outer edge. Is it still possible for a recovery company to recover the data? Appreciate any input here..Thank you in advance

 

[R_1]

without the pixiedust, there is nothing to restore. Pixiedust as it has been called is the magnetic material (basically iron powder) that stores the data. if the magnetic material is gone there is no magnetic field to recover.

HDI or Head to Disk Interfaces are typically game over.

 

[Jon1962]

Dear R_1, yes I do understand that scratch on the magnetic materials is game over. What about those surfaces that are fine (e.g no scratch)

 

[R_1]

you would need to replace the heads. the heads in the unit are now dead. the drive will need to be rebuilt.
the outer edge is where the longest contiguous tracks on the drive are. if the drive was near full to capacity the chances for data recovery are good for the inner tracks. The earliest data will be stored on the outermost tracks of the drive so if the drive can be rebuilt and it is the outer tracks it may be just windows that is gone.

 

[USAFRet]

Dear R_1, yes I do understand that scratch on the magnetic materials is game over. What about those surfaces that are fine (e.g no scratch)

The drive is dead.
Is the data on it absolutely critical? A life or death event?
If so, then a recovery company may be able to do something.

If not...let it go.

However...the apparent fact that you've opened it up already reduces the chance of anyone retrieving anything off it.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

Another "I didn't bother with backups" post (implied, not actually said).

Very unwise.

 

[Jon1962]

you would need to replace the heads. the heads in the unit are now dead. the drive will need to be rebuilt.
the outer edge is where the longest contiguous tracks on the drive are. if the drive was near full to capacity the chances for data recovery are good for the inner tracks. The earliest data will be stored on the outermost tracks of the drive so if the drive can be rebuilt and it is the outer tracks it may be just windows that is gone.

Dear R_1, yes I do understand that scratch on the magnetic materials is game over. What about those surfaces that are fine (e.g no scratch)

The drive is dead.
Is the data on it absolutely critical? A life or death event?
If so, then a recovery company may be able to do something.

If not...let it go.

However...the apparent fact that you've opened it up already reduces the chance of anyone retrieving anything off it.

The data is critical, it contains a lot of family photos and is very precious. I am willing to send it to a recovery company, was wondering if any company would be able to do something about it and is the technology available for a good recovery?

A previous company opened the drive up in a clean room, would it still affect the chances?



@ R_1, the drive is around 3.5 years old, has about 300gb empty from a 2TB drive.

 

[USAFRet]

The data is critical, it contains a lot of family photos and is very precious. I am willing to send it to a recovery company, was wondering if any company would be able to do something about it and is the technology available for a good recovery?

A previous company opened the drive up in a clean room, would it still affect the chances?

@ R_1, the drive is around 3.5 years old, has about 300gb empty from a 2TB drive.

There is absolutely no way for anyone to know, or offer a probability of success.
Somewhere between 0% and 100%.

And this situation is precisely what backups are for.

 

[R_1]

its just as has been said. there is no way to know. "Call it in the air" is the best anyone can say. you can see the scratch on the platters, which means you have opened the drive. the drive is now contaminated with all the dust and other particles in the air, your house is not a clean room like the inside of a drive. the clock is now ticking because moisture (Humidity) is now working on the exposed pixie dust (small iron particles) and is causing further corrosion (rust is not magnetic).
if you need the data you can try for a rebuild and forensic restoration of all the readable data. (call it in the air)
I must reiterate, after the rebuild, and the recovery there is no guarantee that what is recovered will be readable. (call it in the air)

 

[Jon1962]

its just as has been said. there is no way to know. "Call it in the air" is the best anyone can say. you can see the scratch on the platters, which means you have opened the drive. the drive is now contaminated with all the dust and other particles in the air, your house is not a clean room like the inside of a drive. the clock is now ticking because moisture (Humidity) is now working on the exposed pixie dust (small iron particles) and is causing further corrosion (rust is not magnetic).
if you need the data you can try for a rebuild and forensic restoration of all the readable data. (call it in the air)
I must reiterate, after the rebuild, and the recovery there is no guarantee that what is recovered will be readable. (call it in the air)

Hi bro, the drive was opened in a clean room, i was informed by the DR team on the issues. May I know why after the imaging and recovery, why will the data not be readable?

 

[DR_Luke]

Depending on where the scratch is and how severe things are, it is possible to recover the data. But, it is very tough with DM series drive, in the best of circumstances. A few labs you might want to contact for a second opinion are:

Recovery Force
Data Medics
Data Savers
Data Busters
PCImage

Good luck.

 

[R_1]

Good news about the clean room.
depending on the fragmentation of the data on the drive the recovered files may have data in the scratched area. I have not seen the damage to the drive so I can only speculate here, and speculation lends itself to worst case. not every file will be stored in the same location on the drive,so large files may not be recoverable because of missing/damaged blocks.

 

[Jon1962]

how does one retrieve data from a Raw Data Image? The data inside is truncated

 

[Jon1962]

Dear bros, the recovery centre mentioned that despite it having a scratched platter, they were able to image the HDD but is unable to decipher the data. They said they needed to find an algorithm to translate the data so that it can all be accessed. What can be done?