Never Use A Computer Repair Shop For Data Recovery

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This is a rant and an example of why you should never use a computer repair shop for data recovery. If you have critical files, especially family pictures and family videos, and you have a hard drive that is clicking and needs to be repaired, you simply cannot trust your local computer repair shop to get the job done.
In this example we show you how horribly incompetent this computer repair company was. This is a 3TB Western Digital hard drive. Our customer took the drive to his local computer repair shop first, and they completely botched their attempt and then called him a few days later to tell him that they didn't have the right tools to do the job.
When we unboxed the drive, we noticed that one of the case cover screws was missing, and the case cover itself was bent and loose. None of the screws were even tightened back up.
Inside, the hard drive platter was nicked, scuffed and had smudges all over it. It should have never been worked on at all in that manner, and it may not even be recoverable now. Hard to say for sure, because we don't know exactly what they did.
Looking at the heads, it appears the slider is missing from Head 0, which means that head may have scored that platter surface if they kept powering up the drive in an effort to get it to work.
If you ever find yourself in this situation, simply contact any of the good, reputable data recovery companies that are out there. Even if you don't want to work with our company, there are others. Ontrack, Drivesavers, DTI, Gillware, CBL, and others will be able to help you without making the situation worse than it is.
Check out some of our other data recovery videos...
Data Recovery On A Dropped 3TB Hard Drive
• Data Recovery On A Dro...
This Hard Drive Was Thrown From A 2nd Story Balcony
• Repairing A Damaged Ha...
Repair and Recovery Of A 1TB Western Digital Hard Drive
• Data Recovery On A 1TB...

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25 июн 2017

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Комментарии : 97

@BrandonMcBain 6 лет назад

I've worked on computers for 7 - 8 years now. Even I'm not stupid enough to open up HDD.

@burnzy3210 6 лет назад

i worked in a computer repair shop, we'd recover data at the level we were competent, anything beyond that and we'd send people on to recovery specialists

@giga898 6 лет назад

I work at a repair shop, the only recovery we offer is software. If I can’t get the drive to read in Linux to use photorec/testdisk we don’t even bother with it anymore, we just send the customer off with a list of data recovery facilities. It’s completely irresponsible for a repair shop without the correct tools and knowledge to attempt a component level recovery

@Astinsan 6 лет назад

Heh heh heh.. I’m in IT and I know it’s out of my wheelhouse.. I never say it’s possible for me to do it. I always give them professional recovery avenues. I am interested in tinkering with them.. always out of the dead drive stack. I have fixed a few but was never the mechanical stuff. Always the logic boards. Since I have a scope and knowledge of micro controllers and smd work. This is why I watch your channel to see what your are supposed to do. I’m learning a lot and will definitely send my customers to you in return. Thanks for sharing.

@acsdata 6 лет назад

Cool. Thanks for watching.

@slappymckracken7935 5 лет назад

I'm in the middle of a situation right now where I unfortunately took a WD 2TB drive to a local shop where the engineer assured me he'd retrieve all my data within 72 hours. That was over a week ago and still no joy. The only contact I've had with this person within the last 7 days was initiated by me call them on the phone. At that time (2 days ago)he claimed they had needed to do another pass but it should be ready within 8 hours. No phone call no nothing. I finally called again this morning and some other guy said that "our data recovery engineer" wouldn't be in until after 1 P.M at which time he'd call. No call. So finally I call back and first get an answering machine but now I'm getting the sound of the line being disconnected. Great little operation let me tell ya! What I need now is a detective to find this data recovery engineer I guess. Or failing that the hard drive itself.

@Cyberpuppy63 4 года назад

Just buy a new HD, and install the O/S on it. That's about as simple as it gets.

@zaprodk 6 лет назад

Any update on this?

@diGritz1 6 лет назад

Clearly the repair shop used the wrong size hammer. On a side note, you said 1/2 come in like this. I'd say 3/4 of those are the customer thinking they can fix it because he fixed a DVD player back in the mid 90's. The level of incompetence that it takes to do that kind of work is difficult to imagine. Even those that are taken to a shop, I'm betting the customer was told the odds and the response was probably "I can't afford that much so just see what you can do".

@PerryCS2 6 лет назад

lol

@GaryBeltz 7 лет назад

The only time a computer repair shop can safely get data off a hard drive is when you have a dead computer (doesn't boot) and the drive is fine you can hook it up to an enclosure and use something like Acorns TrueImage and clone the drive onto an external drive or other media.

@acsdata 7 лет назад

Exactly!

@barrysauce 6 лет назад

I have used getdataback many times and was able to recover data numerous times for customers at a computer store I worked at. Was very good at it and with the tools I had it was very easy to tell if I was able to recover data or send them to a pro shop like drivesavers. Depends on what happened to the drive and how badly the laptop or hard drive was dropped. People rely on a hard drive too much. Any hard drive will fail. Pictures should be backed up if so important.

@sergeydzema5569 6 лет назад

hey ,if anyone else trying to find out small electronics repair try Saankramer Electronic Magazine System ( search on google ) ? Ive heard some decent things about it and my partner got great results with it.

@logerer5633 6 лет назад

Hello, I'm very new to data recovery/hardware forensics but am very interested in this topic and have a few general questions. On some videos on RU-vid I see how some people can disable specific hard drive heads without having to disable all the other heads. Is that a thing that can be done on any PC or does that step require special hardware+software like the PC3000? If special hardware is required, how exactly does it do that? What can it do that can't be done with a normal PC? I've googled a little bit and couldn't find any valuable information about it. And what was your way to doing professional data recovery? Are there any books or other resources which I can use to further educate myself about this topic? I apologize for any grammatical errors and would be very grateful if you or someone else reply to me!

@omimon 7 лет назад

Greg, I currently have a 3TB WD drive that is in the process of having data recovered. My technician claims that its a physical error that requires head swaps. My question is this, why does data recovery take so long? I have been watching many of your videos and as far as I can tell, from changing the heads to imagining the drive, it seems like it shouldn't take any longer then a day or two yet no matter where I look, everyone says that normally it takes around 5 business days. What is the deal?

@acsdata 7 лет назад

omimon Each case is unique. on average we usually have recoveries completed in 5 to 10 business days. However, we've had cases take as long as 6 months or more. Just depends on how the drive responds. If the platters have any damage at all, it can increase the recovery time tremendously, especially on larger capacity drives.

@hddrecoveryservices 7 лет назад

unfortunately, this happens very often. Have you tried cutting head 6 off? I am sure that this is still a good case to salvage lots of data.

@RichardGailey 6 лет назад

Can we get an update on this. Really interested to see if the original issue was software related (encryption/damaged partition/format issue) or hardware issue. Also, I love watching your videos. Would you be able to create a video with software that you would advise people looking into should they need to do some basic data recovery themselves, (where there is no hardware damage and doesn't require being sent to a lab) as well as cloning techniques. Also, in your work, do you tend to see the same make/model of HDD's coming in to you over and over again? If so, which HDD's would you advise steering clear of and which ones would you recommend.

@acsdata 6 лет назад

Customer flaked out on this one, and never heard back from them. Also, we have a video similar to what you are requesting... ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-eM3MgIf0ZRg.html As far as cloning, we either clone with Deepspar Disk Imager or we create image files in something like Data Extractor for PC3000. I would definitely avoid any Seagate DM family hard drives for sure. Specifically 2TB and 3TB. Model number would be something like ST2000DM001.

@marcoj4388 6 лет назад

i really do have a question in my mind and I hope you answer me , when you do the recovery , dose the files and folders comes back like it was arranged and ordered on the drive before it fail? ?or the files will come back mixed up randomly

@acsdata 6 лет назад

Most of the time the file system and structure is exactly as it was.

@smoejith9283 6 лет назад

Wow what a disaster! Feel bad for the customer who trusted this to morons!

@MorrisonoStudiosTV 5 лет назад

what does it usually cost to repair a 500gb Toshiba 2.5 with bad heads. I have a case of these. All with bad heads.

@acsdata 5 лет назад

It can range anywhere from $600 to $1,200 typically. Depending on the extent of the damage.

@DAS-Videos 7 лет назад

I am practicing taking a part and putting back together a drive that is already pretty bad. I took the case off and then back on, and the drive still worked the same. Then I took the parts out but my method to keep the heads apart failed. Putting it back together, it was recognized but just clocked. I am practicing because I have a dead drive that I actually want to get some files off of.

@DAS-Videos 7 лет назад

I won't bother sending my dead drive to a pro because the data I want back is only worth about $10.00.

@silicon212 5 лет назад

I've ever only opened up one HDD in an attempt to recover its data, and this was close to 30 years ago ... it was an old Seagate ST251 40MB drive that had serious stiction - as in, it would not spin under its own power. I opened it up to give it a 'rope pull start' and recovered everything off of it onto a new one, then used the old drive as a desk ornament - for many years.

@danielcristurean7475 6 лет назад

Never use a computer repair shop that does this to a hard drive.

@Vanadse 7 лет назад

I do have a question unrelated to this case in particular, just general. Where did you get your training for Data Recovery Specialist? I have been looking around for something along those lines for a while, but haven't found anything that would inspire me confidence. Do you have any recommendations?

@acsdata 7 лет назад

You won't find any real training. You'll have to do what most of us did. When our company first started back in 2003, we outsourced physical recoveries to a company and did all of the logical recoveries ourselves. Over the next 3 or 4 years we just bought huge stock piles of drives that were working and spent countless hours finding out what worked and what didn't. Developed some of our own tools, some of our own software and some of our own methods. What works for us may not work for others. The industry is very fragmented. You will find some tool suppliers out there and hardware/software vendors that supply the utilities almost everyone uses, but as far as "learning" how to fix the actual hard drives, it starts with being able to diagnose them properly before anything else, and knowing what to fix. That is something that can only be gained through time, study, testing, and experience.

@Vanadse 7 лет назад

So my real best bet would be to somehow obtain a job in one of the Data Recovery Companies out there. May be tricky since they generally request people with experience.

@acsdata 7 лет назад

That would be a good start. You may find companies that are looking to train. Most companies will want recoveries done a certain way, and they may have their own methods. In a situation like that they may prefer to train someone new.

@omimon 7 лет назад

Do data recovery companies all use cloning/imaging nowadays or are there other methods as well?

@chandigarhdatarecovery 7 лет назад

Greg I do train if your customers are willing to come to india ,Its a 3 Week Course For USD 1000 Very Reasonable .You Could Refer Customers In Future If They Ask You Such a Question

@TheStevenWhiting 6 лет назад

The problem is local repair shops charge peanuts for drive repairs. No matter how many times I'll tell people not to use them and that you have to spend real money for data recovery they don't listen and just go with the cheapest option.

@sleetskate 6 лет назад

you get what you pay for. pay $15 dollars for a repair, you get $15 worth of your data back

@calvinpringle2834 7 лет назад

Hello like you video on data recovery can you tell me why you turn on the overhead fan thanks

@acsdata 7 лет назад

It's a laminar flow hood. Filters the air.

@thegeforce6625 6 лет назад

Any update?

6 лет назад

Any new video soon?

@Ducksauce33 7 лет назад

so did you get anything off of it eventually?

@XSpImmaLion 7 лет назад

Ouch, terrible. Let us know if you managed to recover something from this absolute disaster!

@acsdata 7 лет назад

Will do. May even post a follow up video for this case.

7 лет назад

A follow up video would be nice.

@chargedsupercap2270 6 лет назад

I know a local electronics repair shop that has a clean room. Is it safe to do data recovery there?

@JohnJacobGarza 5 лет назад

chargedsupercap nope

@SpanishArmadaProd 6 лет назад

subscribed Cant wait for the update on this one

@chandigarhdatarecovery 6 лет назад

Time for a next video man been ages

@tspiderkeeper 7 лет назад

You can rant but how do you know the customers told the truth? For what we know they could of done it themselves. I work on computers and would not take a customers drive apart rather get them a warranty if not any on the drive and send it to the manufacture. If you have stuff you need to keep should always keep backups. You probably charge customers 1000+ dollars for service which if send to the hard drive manufacture on warranty you get a free replacement drive for the faulty one

@acsdata 7 лет назад

We get enough of these like this to see it this situation quite regularly. The customer's story was confirmed by the notes that were provided by the computer repair shop. So that leaves little doubt as to the validity. Good for you for not doing something similar. In many cases, it's the computer repair shop themselves that send the drives in and tell us what they've already done to screw the job up even worse than it was. And yep, you are right, a recovery like this is easily $1,000+...but our goal is to get the data off of it...a warranty replacement is meaningless, especially if the data is needed.

@syrop26 6 лет назад

I think warranty service does not deal with data recovery. They will wipe the drive, fiddle with it a little, then maybe give you a clean drive and put the original one in the bin. Is warranty service dealing with data recovery at all or they wipe data and restore factory settings at the very beginning?

@Drforbin941 4 года назад

Shows you the general level of competency in the computer industry .

@omimon 7 лет назад

Why did you say 3TB WD drives are not easy to work on?

7 лет назад

I think when the drives get bigger in capacity and the heads are damaged in such a drive the alignment of the new set of heads needs to be very very precise in order to get it working. I think it just a couple of nano meters that count in a difference between a good alignment and a bad one. In general its difficult to fix things in technology that get faster and more advance but do not change their size. That 3TB drive needs to be so dense in parts to make it working with such a storage. It has more than one platter (prob 4) and because of the density of the ink on the platters the heads needs to be closer to the platters. Comparing that to the same size 10GB drive (I have at home) that has one platter with a head much larger that looks no where near like that one that 10gb drive looks like a toy. And we can't forget that the hard disk are using mechanical parts to read and store data, the friction and heat cause irreversible damage eventually, that's why keeping a backup of important data is always important.

@acsdata 7 лет назад

The higher the capacity, the tighter the data density (data packed onto a single platter) and the lower the flying height of the heads. Imagine the heads like a flashlight. Point a flashlight at the ground from 3 feet up and you get a very wide area of light. Lower the flashlight to about 6 inches above the ground and you have a very narrow, concentrated beam of light. That is somewhat similar to what the flying height of the heads. The larger the capacity, the more narrow the tracks, the closer the heads float above the platter. It just makes track alignment much more critical.

@VibrantlyBrantly 6 лет назад

Seeing that made me sick

@stevenyoung5433 6 лет назад

Did data manage to be rescued?

@stephenzelley3501 6 лет назад

Have you guys stoped making videos or have you just not needed to make any videos ?

@acsdata 6 лет назад

We have some more coming soon. Thanks for watching!

6 лет назад

Any news?

@Talondrone 6 лет назад

seeing the fingerprints on that Hard Drive platter made me cringe a little, what a moron.

@GaryBeltz 7 лет назад

Was the drive a total loss?

@acsdata 7 лет назад

Not sure yet. Still waiting on the customer's approval to begin. We posted shot that video just minutes after unboxing the drive.

@KyuubiYoru 6 лет назад

I can't understand how someone can have "critical" data on just one harddrive, whats about Raid and backups?

@syrop26 6 лет назад

I don't even remember how many back up copies I have. Recently I deleted the data from my girlfriend's mobile and at the same time the same data from my computer. I thought she would have to recover it from the copy I made earlier on her own laptop, but it turned out I had yet another copy on a USB drive.

@zaprodk 6 лет назад

apparently it wasn't important enough :O

@SunnyWu 6 лет назад

Because people are stupid. lol

@Talondrone 6 лет назад

you'd be surprised to know what important data some people store on "Just one Hard-Drive" and 3TB is rather decent.

@sleetskate 6 лет назад

i dont fucking know. i have my data backed up to 2 different drives and countless old drives im even afraid to wipe, even though everything on them have been backed up

@cybercat1531 7 лет назад

The question then: How much was recoverable?

@acsdata 7 лет назад

Haven't started yet. Just got it in today and posted the video the moment we saw how screwed up it was. As of now, we are still waiting on the customer's approval. I have a feeling it should at least be partially recoverable, but hard to say for sure at this point.

@TheStevenWhiting 6 лет назад

ACS Data Recovery 10 months on. How much was recovered? Would be interesting to know.

@derrickswinney2297 5 лет назад

pfft this guy just likes to repeat himself over and over about the point he's trying to make, doesn't realize he left an audience in suspense, on a cliff hanger. This guy has no sense of the drama which is bad for a youtuber @@TheStevenWhiting

@brobroant6205 3 года назад

The repair shop shouldn’t be in business if they’re doing this

7 лет назад

From watching your channel I have learned that files are stored on the platter in some kind of an ink format which must not be touched at all to avoid the damage of the data. You even filter the air to make sure the dust does not come on the platter aaaand they manage to touch the platter with their fingers. Wow.That computer repair shop has no idea what they are doing, because I as an ordinary person would probably do the same damage as they did. They are nothing more than a few random people just "learning" on others people essential data. This video seems it might help someone because I had no idea a repair shop could do such a BAD job. Still shocked with the cover thing part how do you even mess that up? :O

@PerryCS2 6 лет назад

not ink... magnetic..., in some videos where the platters get scored and the coating rubs off I can see why it would kinda look like ink but its billions of tiny pieces (their data)

@chandigarhdatarecovery 7 лет назад

Greg , Rename This To " Never Use a Computer Repair Shop For [ Data Recovery ] , I Have a Case That i Will Share On My Channel Soon .Keep Rocking ....

@acsdata 7 лет назад

Thanks. I had originally titled it that, but there are cases where a decent computer repair shop can help. It's the incompetent ones that don't know where their abilities end. We have computer repair shops that we work with on a regular basis. Sometimes its a simple matter of data being deleted, or an accidental format, and they can usually handle those on their own. But they are also smart enough to know they have no business trying to do head swaps and they immediately refer those to us.

@chandigarhdatarecovery 7 лет назад

BTW One Incompetent Computer Repair Shop Has Voted "Thumps Down Lol " .

@acsdata 7 лет назад

Probably the bone heads that worked on this one lol.

@nethernoah484 6 лет назад

Computer repair shops can help with data recovery in this case: the hardware of the drive works almost perfectly but has software issues (like an unbootable operating system, corrupted data or an infection happened).

@nethernoah484 6 лет назад

I managed to recover data from 2 drives that had unbootable operating systems on them!

@n8lbv 6 лет назад

The *good ones* (like us) know when it's a job for us and when it's a job for somebody like you. And that if the data is/was important NOT to even touch the drive at all as soon as its determined that the drive itself is not perfectly fine. This video is insane though. I'm pretty sure your customer needed to see that. :) Just wow. steve at michigan broadband dot com Cheers. My thing is networks & servers and BACKUPS not hard drive recovery.