Another Seagate not detected by the BIOS came into the labs the other day, the difference with this case was that the client a well known local large electronics company that offers services to the MOD had found information on the Internet and had attempted to repair the faulty Seagate and recover the data themselves.
What commands had been issued to the faulty hard drive remain to be known, however the case was severely compounded by the client issuing commands found from an Internet search, although well intentioned very nearly made a recoverable case into a unrecoverable case.
Firstly diagnosis is required as to the failure type, is it electronic, firmware or mechanical or perhaps a combination of all three failure types?
All computer users and even technicians unless they are hard drive experts will not understand and diagnose a failed or failing HDD, and then to apply what has been found on the Internet can be a serious mistake.
In this case it was a serious firmware failure, the Seagate hard drive would spin up, calibrate and come ready, however no surface access was possible as it was not detected by the BIOS.
The translator had issues and this was compounded by the client issuing commands that could have ‘bricked it’, or shall we say destroyed any chances of any possible data recovery, the case very complex and required senior engineers to handle the case.
The end result was 100% successful, the failed hard drive contained specialist software, CAD data and office type data which was very valuable to the client.
It is understood that current economic times are tough, but to attempt a do it yourself of a complex data recovery case will not help your situation, professional data recovery services are the only option you should consider taking and avoid any Internet self help groups and forums with none qualified advice and help.
Seagate commands are lengthy and complex further to this the diagnosis can only be made by HDD engineers with years of knowledge and experience, as there are different families and models and different modes, some commands will destroy data in a matter of minutes with no reversal, simply hooking up a serial TTL adapter and terminal in to the hard drive will not suffice and should be avoided at all costs.
In essence Seagate data recovery should be left to those that can prove that they have the capabilities, knowledge and equipment to undertake a successful recovery and retrieve your important and precious data, whether that is family photos, business accounts, or a music collection.
Hard drive technology has changed considerably of the last relatively short years, and the cost has gone down and capacity increased, this can lead to a false security in terms of data reliability, hard drive complexity and a data re3tireval service, which will cost more than the original hard drive, data backup on multiple systems will ensure integrity and longevity of data.
