Re: Hard Disk Failure
On 2/27/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Don't you even want to know about the secretary who lost her job for > moving her phone? :-( I was assuming that was a reference to EMSEC (TEMPEST). Did I guess wrong? -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
On Sun, Feb 26, 2006 at 10:56:38PM -0500, Ben Scott wrote: > On 2/26/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Hard drive platters aren't "rusty" at all; they typically have a > >> mirror finish. Perhaps that was a reference to the magnetic coatings > > > > Yes it was , hence the "quotes" "around" "the" "rust" > > Well, if you knew what the right term was, why didn't you use it? :-) 'Cause when I explain how a hard drive stores magnetic fields to people not in the field its just easier to say "rust", ;-) rather than "ferromagnetic material" Its a finely engineered material but at the end of the day, it does have a ferrous metal in it. Maybe even already oxidized for stabilization. > > C'mon Ben, Do you really think the NSA is going to tell us if they shred > > their drives? Then they wouldn't be able to smoke out parties trying > > recover int. from the used hard drives sold by the gov't anymore... :-) > > I gather you're being facetious, but: You seem to be operating under Not even. just having fun, hence the unquoted smilies.. Don't take it seriously. "Being paranoid, Its not just a job, Its a hell of a lot of fun! " (The obnoxious intelligence officer that dropped in on M*A*S*H) > > don't get a decoder ring or a secret handshake when you work with the NSA > > I suppose it's possible there's some super-secret level of > classification that's so secret "they" don't even tell "us" about it, > but hey, maybe I know about that too and just aren't telling "you" > about it. ;-) Can't be. You didn't get the decoder ring or the secret handshake. ;-) Don't you even want to know about the secretary who lost her job for moving her phone? :-( -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to mess with this e-mail ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
On 2/26/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Hard drive platters aren't "rusty" at all; they typically have a >> mirror finish. Perhaps that was a reference to the magnetic coatings > > Yes it was , hence the "quotes" "around" "the" "rust" Well, if you knew what the right term was, why didn't you use it? :-) > C'mon Ben, Do you really think the NSA is going to tell us if they shred > their drives? Then they wouldn't be able to smoke out parties trying > recover int. from the used hard drives sold by the gov't anymore... :-) I gather you're being facetious, but: You seem to be operating under the assumption that there is a "they". The "they" is "us". As it happens, I've had a couple of jobs where the sanitization of classified data storage was a concern of mine. The government security people are just that -- people, just like you and me. "They" have a job, and manuals, and things they like, and things they disagree with, and all that. You don't get a decoder ring or a secret handshake when you work with the NSA, just a lot more paperwork. :-/ But when it came to sanitization (rendering information unrecoverable by any known means), "they" were quite clear about what was required. I suppose it's possible there's some super-secret level of classification that's so secret "they" don't even tell "us" about it, but hey, maybe I know about that too and just aren't telling "you" about it. ;-) -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
On Sun, Feb 26, 2006 at 07:31:28PM -0500, Ben Scott wrote: > On 2/25/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > A long time ago, working on a contract for equipment destined to be > > delivered to the NSA I heard a rumor about the procedure that you had to > > go through to remove the hard drive from an NSA building: > > > > Basically the drive was disassembled, the "rust" was sanded from the > > platters, the platters were shredded, and all of the "rust" and shredded > > platter material were placed in a crucible and melted down.the drive can > > now be removed from the building. > > Hard drive platters aren't "rusty" at all; they typically have a > mirror finish. Perhaps that was a reference to the magnetic coatings Yes it was , hence the "quotes" "around" "the" "rust" > on the platters; while not iron, I can sorta see an analogy there. Sorta? Sorta? Just for that I'm not going to tell the story about the NSA secretary who moved her desk phone 11 inches closer to her. :P ! and lost her job. > Sanitizing procedures for disks containing TOP SECRET data require > one to obliterate the recording medium. For hard disks, that means > either sanding down the surfaces of the platters, or melting down the > entire platter. Shredding doesn't really enter the picture; it's not > required in addition to that, and is not sufficient by itself. C'mon Ben, Do you really think the NSA is going to tell us if they shred their drives? Then they wouldn't be able to smoke out parties trying recover int. from the used hard drives sold by the gov't anymore... :-) "Being paranoid, Its not just a job, Its a hell of a lot of fun! " (The obnoxious intelligence officer that dropped in on M*A*S*H) -- Jeff "Don't quote me" Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software may have been used to screw up this e-mail Someone tell Monica that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. ba-da bing! (Thank you, I'll be here all week, try the veal.) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
From: "Ben Scott" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2006 19:31:28 -0500 From what I understand, many drives have additional diagnostics and commands in addition to the standard "read block X" stuff. However, these commands are manufacturer-specific. Sometime during 2.4, the kernel gained an ability to talk to IDE devies in a "raw" mode. Though the kernel support exists, I haven't seen any tools which actually use it to talk to drives directly. :) Here's an excerpt from linux-2.4.20/Documentation/Configure.help: > Raw Access to Media > CONFIG_IDE_TASK_IOCTL > This is a direct raw access to the media. It is a complex but > elegant solution to test and validate the domain of the hardware and > perform below the driver data recover if needed. This is the most > basic form of media-forensics. > > If you are unsure, say N here. > > Use Taskfile I/O > CONFIG_IDE_TASKFILE_IO > This is the "Jewel" of the patch. It will go away and become the new > driver core. Since all the chipsets/host side hardware deal w/ their > exceptions in "their local code" currently, adoption of a > standardized data-transport is the only logical solution. > Additionally we packetize the requests and gain rapid performance and > a reduction in system latency. Additionally by using a memory struct > for the commands we can redirect to a MMIO host hardware in the next > generation of controllers, specifically second generation Ultra133 > and Serial ATA. > -- "So many people like XML because so few people understand Scheme." ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
From: Bill McGonigle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sun, 26 Feb 2006 15:52:34 -0500
On Feb 26, 2006, at 15:31, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> okay, okay, so maybe my command can't copy the partitions
> BACKWARDS...but... *scratches head*
but often sectors that won't read forward will read backwards. I
don't understand the drive physics, but I've recovered drives with
I'm willing to bet money that's not true. The "drive physics" of
recovering data with dd_rescue are no different than any other fs
access (including using dd). dd_resuce *probably* just lseek(2)s
along the drive from back to front.
I'm sure the guys who write these programs understand dd well and more
about drives than we do.
To confirm my suspicion that the author of this program is in fact a
GUI baby, I just downloaded a copy of
11124beac799890c3048c9a5ccf4746b dd_rescue.c
The code uses open(2) to open the input file... which gains you
nothing over stock dd. I honestly can't think a reason to even run gcc
on this program. ?!
Dave
--
"So many people like XML because so few people understand Scheme."
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Re: Hard Disk Failure
On 2/25/06, Jeff Kinz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > It would actually makes sense for the hard drive internals to be able to > deliver information about what the analog head reads were seeing to the > external interface because it would allow the manufacturer/developers, > or technicians to do really deep, meaningful diagnostics on a drive. From what I understand, many drives have additional diagnostics and commands in addition to the standard "read block X" stuff. However, these commands are manufacturer-specific. > A long time ago, working on a contract for equipment destined to be > delivered to the NSA I heard a rumor about the procedure that you had to > go through to remove the hard drive from an NSA building: > > Basically the drive was disassembled, the "rust" was sanded from the > platters, the platters were shredded, and all of the "rust" and shredded > platter material were placed in a crucible and melted down.the drive can > now be removed from the building. Hard drive platters aren't "rusty" at all; they typically have a mirror finish. Perhaps that was a reference to the magnetic coatings on the platters; while not iron, I can sorta see an analogy there. Sanitizing procedures for disks containing TOP SECRET data require one to obliterate the recording medium. For hard disks, that means either sanding down the surfaces of the platters, or melting down the entire platter. Shredding doesn't really enter the picture; it's not required in addition to that, and is not sufficient by itself. For lower levels of classified data, one used to be able to use certified degaussing or software tools. However, these are becoming less and less allowed these days -- both storage and recovery technology has become so sophisticated, and information densities so high, that it is difficult to be sure everything is gone. Physical destruction is becoming the universal requirement. Google for "clearing and sanitization matrix" to see some of the requirements that have been published in the past. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
> I don't understand the drive physics, but I've recovered drives with > dd_rhelp that dd couldn't salvage. dd_rhelp's main feature is that it recovers the "easy" stuff first, saving the "hard" work for last. Thus if the drive has only a few bad blocks, everything else gets copied first, and then it sits there retrying until it gets the last bits of data or you kill it. I dunno if dd_rescue just makes this easier, or if it could all be done with dd, or what. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
On Feb 26, 2006, at 15:31, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: okay, okay, so maybe my command can't copy the partitions BACKWARDS...but... *scratches head* but often sectors that won't read forward will read backwards. I don't understand the drive physics, but I've recovered drives with dd_rhelp that dd couldn't salvage. I'm sure the guys who write these programs understand dd well and more about drives than we do. -Bill - Bill McGonigle, Owner Work: 603.448.4440 BFC Computing, LLC Home: 603.448.1668 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cell: 603.252.2606 http://www.bfccomputing.com/Page: 603.442.1833 Blog: http://blog.bfccomputing.com/ VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
/me can't stand it when people who can't read man pages write new utils to do things that can be done with options to existing commands: % n=0 % dd if=/my/bad/drive of=/target/drive skip=$n seek=$n conv=sync,noerror okay, okay, so maybe my command can't copy the partitions BACKWARDS...but... *scratches head* -- "So many people like XML because so few people understand Scheme." ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
Dang! I just stumbled across this in the list of available packages on my Debian box while looking for something else - `wish I'd known about this the last time I was trying to salvage data from some zorched platters... DDRESCUE(1)DDRESCUE(1) NAME dd_rescue - copies data from one file (or block device) to another SYNOPSIS dd_rescue [options] infile outfile DESCRIPTION This manual page documents briefly the dd_rescue command. This manual page was written for the Debian distribution because the original program does not have a manual page. dd_rescue is a program that copies data from one file or block device to another, it is a tool to help you to save data from crashed partition. It tries to read and if it fails it will go on with the next sectors, where tools like dd will fail. If the copying process is interrupted by the user it is possible to continue at any position later. It can copy backwards. OPTIONS -s ipos start position in input file (default=0) -S opos start position in output file (def=ipos) -b softbs block size for copy operation (def=16384) -B hardbs fallback block size in case of errs (def=512) -e maxerr exit after maxerr errors (def=0=infinite) -m maxxfer maximum amount of data to be transfered (def=0=inf) -l logfile name of a file to log errors and summary to (def="") -r reverse direction copy (def=forward) -t truncate output file (def=no) -w abort on Write errors (def=no) -a spArse file writing (def=no) -A Always write blocks, zeroed if err (def=no) -i interactive: ask before overwriting data (def=no) -f force: skip some sanity checks (def=no) -q quiet operation -v verbose operation -V display version and exit -h Show summary of options AUTHOR This manual page was written by Ayman Negm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others). April 16, 2003 DDRESCUE(1) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
On Sat, Feb 25, 2006 at 02:40:04AM -0500, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > I've seen many tools for extracting data from partitions. But, has > anyone seen FOSS tools that will let you microstep a drive? You > know... move the head and record its signal, so you can recover data > that's been overwritten beware the Oracle. I have no experience with the internals of a hard drive, but I have done some low-level programming using the external interface of such devices. But it has been a while. I don't recall there being any capabilities to deliver signal information via the external interface. That doesn't mean they don't exist, it just means I didn't come across them in any of the documentation I saw. It would actually makes sense for the hard drive internals to be able to deliver information about what the analog head reads were seeing to the external interface because it would allow the manufacturer/developers, or technicians to do really deep, meaningful diagnostics on a drive. my guess is, that in order to be able to do the types of things you are describing above, you would have to wire some sensors directly into the hard drive electronics. If there are capabilities like the ones you are asking for which can be accessed through the regular external interface, then building an open source tool to access that information would be relatively easy. The most direct path to building such a tool would be to take the existing software drivers for a hard drive and add a few more functions to it that access those particular capabilities. A long time ago, working on a contract for equipment destined to be delivered to the NSA I heard a rumor about the procedure that you had to go through to remove the hard drive from an NSA building: Basically the drive was disassembled, the "rust" was sanded from the platters, the platters were shredded, and all of the "rust" and shredded platter material were placed in a crucible and melted down.the drive can now be removed from the building. -- Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA. speech recognition software was used to create this e-mail Rumsfeld tells Bush, "3 Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq today." "Oh my Lord". says Bush. He sits with his head in his hands for a long minute and then looks up and asks: "How many is a brazillion? ba-da bing! (Thank you, I'll be here all week, try the veal.) ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
I've seen many tools for extracting data from partitions. But, has anyone seen FOSS tools that will let you microstep a drive? You know... move the head and record its signal, so you can recover data that's been overwritten ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
Neil Joseph Schelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > My boss just came to me with a failed hard drive in a personal computer of > his. I'm remembering only that someone mentioned having some experience with > hard disc recovery services recently, but I can't seem to find it in my list > history. > > Can anyone with experience, suggestions in this regard let me know what I > might suggest to pass on to him? Especially price-wise and expectations? Get yourself a Knoppix CD, boot up with that, get a network connection up and see if you can't rsync the data somewhere else. I was able to do this with my wife's laptop a couple years ago. It's simple, cheap, and fast. If that doesn't work, and the data is important, then consider a data recovery server. But that's likely at the other end of the spectrum: complicated, expensive, and slow :) -- Seeya, Paul ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
On Tuesday 14 February 2006 10:12 am, Michael ODonnell wrote: > > buy another of the same model drive and try swapping the platters > > Yow! I've disassembled dead drives just out of curiosity > and I'd bet serious cash that the even an accomplished > hobbyist would find swapping platters from one drive to > another to be anything but straightforward. The various > parts and assemblies often don't fit together in ways that > make sense to humans, the tolerances are unforgiving and > you'll likely need some specialized tools as well as > access to a well maintained Clean Room and a bunny suit... ;-> FWIW, if the data on the drive is important, I would immediately take it to a qualified data recovery company. If you try to do it yourself, or take it to the corner computer store to try to save a few bucks, you stand to lose some or all of the data. Companies, like OnTrack, specialize in this type of thing, and can generally get as much data off the drive as is possible. Additionally, if you know a drive is failing, take as much data off that drive as soon as possible, and replace it before you lose the rest. -- Jerry Feldman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Boston Linux and Unix user group http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9 PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9 ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
On 2/14/06, Christopher Chisholm <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > An old trick is to put the drive in a freezer overnight. While I really > can't explain it, sometimes you'll get a few minutes of time with the > drive when you take it out. There's a couple of things that trick can address. One is stiction. Sometimes bearings will start to seize or heads will stick to platters. Rapid cooling/heating can sometimes cause enough contraction/expansion to free things up for a little while. The other thing is that marginal electronics components will sometimes start working again if you cool them down. Another old trick was (seriously) to gently hit the drive on the side with a hammer. Stiction again. That was generally considered a last resort, though, for obvious reasons. :) > Another option (one I've never tried and probably is not a good idea) is > to buy another of the same model drive and try swapping the platters > from the bad drive to the good drive. Eeesh. Yah, I wouldn't try that. If one bit of dust gets between the heads, you could make things a lot worse. A lot safer would be to just swap the PCBs. If it's an electronics failure (as opposed to a mechanical or media problem), that will fix it. But the drives generally have to be *very* similar. > I believe this is what the drive recovery people do. They have a lot of tricks; that is one of them. They use clean rooms, though. One demo I read about used a special rig where they mounted an individual platter on a gimble. They used it when platters were physically bent, to move it around a fixed read head. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
> buy another of the same model drive and try swapping the platters Yow! I've disassembled dead drives just out of curiosity and I'd bet serious cash that the even an accomplished hobbyist would find swapping platters from one drive to another to be anything but straightforward. The various parts and assemblies often don't fit together in ways that make sense to humans, the tolerances are unforgiving and you'll likely need some specialized tools as well as access to a well maintained Clean Room and a bunny suit... ;-> ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
Depending on the state of the drive, you could try a couple things before sending it off to expensive data recovery centers. For one, you could some sort of data recovery program, which reads data from a drive at a very low level. I've used these with mixed success on drives before. It really depends on the state of the drive. An old trick is to put the drive in a freezer overnight. While I really can't explain it, sometimes you'll get a few minutes of time with the drive when you take it out. And if it doesn't work, you really haven't lost anything. Although, the drive recovery people might wonder why it's so cold :) Another option (one I've never tried and probably is not a good idea) is to buy another of the same model drive and try swapping the platters from the bad drive to the good drive. I believe this is what the drive recovery people do. You have to be really careful, though, because one touch and a finger print is on a platter forever. Not only that but even trace amounts of dust or sand can scratch the hell out of platters when the drive is running. Plus is takes some really small screwdrivers. But, if the data on the drive is not of the most critical importance, it would be a lot cheaper to give this a shot than to spend $1000+ on having someone else do it. I mean... how hard could it be?! -chris Neil Joseph Schelly wrote: My boss just came to me with a failed hard drive in a personal computer of his. I'm remembering only that someone mentioned having some experience with hard disc recovery services recently, but I can't seem to find it in my list history. Can anyone with experience, suggestions in this regard let me know what I might suggest to pass on to him? Especially price-wise and expectations? -Neil ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
On Feb 13, 2006, at 21:32, Neil Joseph Schelly wrote: Can anyone with experience, suggestions in this regard let me know what I might suggest to pass on to him? Especially price-wise and expectations? My info is at least a year out of date, but DriveSavers was ~$2400 for an 8GB laptop drive, they sent back the requested subset of data on DVD to avoid buying a new hard drive from them, and they got back the data that didn't have bad sectors. I've been running dd_rhelp on a client's very important drive in lieu of DriveSavers for about a month. It's down to about 2MB of bad sectors - unfortunately those seem to be very important sectors as the drive image still won't mount or fsck without them. So it keeps trying (again and again and again and again) until the sector reads. There may be completely unrecoverable sectors but it hasn't hit that wall yet. Anybody here have experience with the Autopsy or Sleuth tookits on corrupted ext3 partitions? -Bill - Bill McGonigle, Owner Work: 603.448.4440 BFC Computing, LLC Home: 603.448.1668 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cell: 603.252.2606 http://www.bfccomputing.com/Page: 603.442.1833 Blog: http://blog.bfccomputing.com/ VCard: http://bfccomputing.com/vcard/bill.vcf ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
On Tue, February 14, 2006 12:01 am, Ben Scott wrote: > On 2/13/06, Neil Joseph Schelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I'm remembering only that someone mentioned having some experience with >> hard disc recovery services recently ... I, myself, have used OnTrack (http://www.ontrack.com), twice. Worked fine both times -- and came out to something over $1K both times. Note, however, that this was some years ago -- back when the contents of a hard disk could be sent back on a couple CD ROMs. I don't know how they do stuff like that nowadays. -Ken > Well, I dunno if it was me, but I've used CBL > (http://www.cbltech.com) before with success. One reason I like them > is they provide a free evaluation and quote. > >> Can anyone with experience, suggestions in this regard let me know what >> I >> might suggest to pass on to him? Especially price-wise and >> expectations? > > Prices typically start at several hundred dollars, and go into a few > thousand dollars. This stuff is very specialized, and it isn't cheap. In > many situations, all data can be recovered. There are several factors > which affect both parameters: Type of failure, the extent of the damage, > how much data, and make and model of drive. If it's a failed component on > the PCB and a popular drive model, the recovery company might be able to > do a simple swap. If it got run over by a truck, well, that costs more. > > -- Ben > ___ > gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org > http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss > > ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
Re: Hard Disk Failure
On 2/13/06, Neil Joseph Schelly <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm remembering only that someone mentioned having some experience with > hard disc recovery services recently ... Well, I dunno if it was me, but I've used CBL (http://www.cbltech.com) before with success. One reason I like them is they provide a free evaluation and quote. > Can anyone with experience, suggestions in this regard let me know what I > might suggest to pass on to him? Especially price-wise and expectations? Prices typically start at several hundred dollars, and go into a few thousand dollars. This stuff is very specialized, and it isn't cheap. In many situations, all data can be recovered. There are several factors which affect both parameters: Type of failure, the extent of the damage, how much data, and make and model of drive. If it's a failed component on the PCB and a popular drive model, the recovery company might be able to do a simple swap. If it got run over by a truck, well, that costs more. -- Ben ___ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
