Securing your critical, sensitive or precious data is very important and necessary in the current computer climate with such threats as malware, spy ware, virus or other malicious code s such as root kits not to mention the portable nature of laptop and notebook computer systems which can left in areas where unscrupulous and criminal hands may gain access even for a temporary opportunist time and copy your data out of your laptop to a USB pen drive or similar in minutes.
If the laptop is stolen then there is obviously no time restriction to gain access to your user data area and methods can be employed to either brute force or dictionary attack passwords, at least this is true for most operating systems and applications.

Hard drives have the capacity for higher security levels password stored directly on the platters outside of the user data area , which is beyond the access of ordinary means, these are set up and controlled by ATA commands.
There are some drawbacks to this little used security for instance an ex employee may leave the company without revealing the hard drive password either because they simply felt disgruntled or forgot to pass this information on to the IT department thus leaving a headache for the technicians who need to pass the data on to new employees.
Another point is that occasionally the hard disk may suffer from a issue where the ATA modules become corrupt thus invoking a ‘artificial or phantom’ password which then locks the drive from the user.
Typical messages of the hard drive will be hard drive is security locked, Freeze locked, password locked.

Our labs can remove these passwords with sophisticated equipment, tools and experience and allow access to the required user data area.

Methods to recover hard drive passwords do not use such ideas as ‘master password’ or ‘backdoor password’ in fact the method employed is a hardware and software solution which often will erase the sector(s) of the password or repair any damaged modules pertaining to the ATA password area.
Specialist ATA command sets, protocol, ports and registers are set up to gain access to this area.

BIOS passwords are stored directly on the motherboard and are completely different to hard drive passwords and require a different methodology and should not be confused which can happen this is particularly the case as to setup a hard drive password you must enter the BIOS and enter the hard drive password section, which is different from the BIOS password area of the system.
BIOS passwords are generally much easier to get around however it is worth setting this up in addition to all other passwords if the data is particularly sensitive.

If you are an IT department and have not employed the hard drive password system it is worth your while doing an audit for all systems and rolling out this system, this is especially so for any portable computer systems as should the worst happen and the notebook fall into the wrong hands you have some comfort that the data has that added level of protection.

Next we look at operating system and application passwords.

Microsoft Vista has Bit locker offers strong encryption and is also worth setting up and enabling, Apple Mac systems often employ 256 bit AES advanced encryption system which also offers strong protection.

3rd party encryption software can also be of great use for ‘on the fly’ dynamic encryption and further compound a solid structure of security defence to your data.

IT, computer repair shops and existing data recovery companies are the first port of call so to speak for most computer users who have suffered from data loss and now require services to retrieve that important data.

Deleted or similar types of failure can usually be dealt with via their own software and engineers, however when the failure type is more severe such as a physical failure type or the drive is clicking, noisy or making unusual noises then more specialist help is required.

Our data recovery partner programme can help you if you need to take the recovery to the next level without having to invest in the resources and time.

For every successful recovery completed on your behalf a commission payment will be made directly to your company.

Our engineers have vast stocks of components, hard drives and the experience to recover from a ll types of failed media such as hard drive and disks, USM flash NAND devices, DVD the list is endless.

A no data no fee policy applies to all work undertaken and a recoverable file listing is emailed before any committal is required from the client thus assuring that the critical data has been recovered before you choose to proceed.

Our labs offer this service to existing data recovery firms which may have a particularly difficult failure type or may not be able to source the required parts to take the recovery to the next stage, as our stocks of hard drive media are vast and contain literally thousands of parts and donor hard drives required.

Commission payments start at 20% for a certain volume of jobs received per month and rise to 30% for 20 jobs completed per month on your behalf.

Unrecoverable data may actually be recoverable via our advanced systems and knowledge such as HSA replacement and PCB work.

During normal operation and from model to model some hard drive noises can be heard either when the disk is being accessed or sometimes even when the drive appears to be idle, these are normal and in line with operational performance of the hard drive.
Loud repetitive clicking, ticking, scratchy or rhythmic noises from the hard drive usually are an indication of imminent or actual failure of the hard drive which should be switched off immediately.

What is causing the noise?
Two components make up for the noise heard from the hard drive first there is the spindle motor and bearings which these days employ fluid dynamic bearings (FDB) which reduce noise considerable then there is the head stack assembly (HSA) which is driven by the voice coil motor (VCM) it is this components that creates the knocking, clicking or noise from the disk.
When the disk is powered on the spindle motor starts up the platters reach there designated speed such as 7200 RPM then the VCM releases the HSA to scan the platter surface and look for specific areas of the surface such as servo wedges and marks, tracks, calibration data and other unique data for that particular drive.
Surface damage can impede the location of these vital areas thus causing the HSA to repeatable look for those signals thus creating the repetitive clicking noise from the drive, the HSA may also be damaged which can be broken down into two main areas such as the actual heads and the preamplifier section, again if these are damaged no signal is being returned to the printed circuit board (PCB) and will cause a temporary loop to occur, of course the firmware and CPU on the PCB will allow for X number of retries before timing out and returning the HSA to the park position.

Firmware damage can also cause this failure type such as noisy or clicking and is caused because even thought the media surface is alright and the HSA operational the specific data for the drive can not be found and cause suspected physical damage this section requires specialist tools and knowledge and can easily be mistaken for issues mentioned in the previous paragraph.

What are the specific causes?

Specific causes to noisy hard drive storage media are broken down to internal and external influences.
We have discussed HSA failure briefly however this can be broken down into actual specifics such electrical over voltage entering into the HSA, excessive heat damage to the HSA, and the finite and mean time between failure (MTBF) with the start stop and hours breaking the HSA physically down.
Surface breakdown the magnetic properties of the media due to entropy and heat related issues.

How can the data be recovered?
Noisy hard drive Media rarely can be dealt with by home users in fact many IT departments do not have the required tools and knowledge to recover data with such failure types and certainly if the storage devices has valuable data then it should be handled by any other company than a professional data recovery company.
Software solutions will not help and in many situations will actually destroy the data as leaving the drive running in this format will compound or destroy your data surfaces.

Professional data recovery services.

In most circumstances a professional data recovery company will recover your required data using specialist tools, equipment and knowledge which might include replacing failed compo nets such as the HSA which is not as easy as it might sound as for instance there are many different permutations for HSA from model to model and even though a n identical model of drive is located to used as a donor drive for the failed components the actual HSA may differ considerably and must be matched exactly the procedure will fail.
Firmware revisions also can change on a day to day basis and from factory to factory again precise information and matching must be adhered to if a successful recovery is to effected and the required data recovered.
The cost of this type of service must be weighed against the value of the data if it is sentimental data then that is difficult to quantify, however when it comes to business data that is a much easier scenario, how much is the loss of accounts data say from the last year from a clicking or crashed hard drive? Only the company would know this but this can easily derived from what if any paper trail you may have, and the size of the business.

Data recovery is a process of reconnecting computer users with their data by extraordinary means.

Data loss occurs when the computer operator is unable to find, locate or connect with their data by ordinary means even though their data may be on the media.
Simple data loss is when a user accidentally deletes a file in this instance with many operating systems such as Microsoft and Apple systems the data can be ‘retrieved’ by reversing the action the file system is informed to keep that file or folder do not mark it as empty space thus the file will not be deleted.
What happens when the user deletes from the trash area or recycle bin or similar?
The computer data now appears to totally lost as the computer system has no means to access this data any more, so a different approach and tools will be required.
The file is now in ‘limbo’ for want of a better description it is neither permanently deleted or accessible to the operating system any further, moreover it is in jeopardy of being overwritten so if the file is of importance then you must immediately shut the computer system down, this will negate the chances of the file being overwritten.
The media must be removed then and installed to a computer system which has a write blocker which will inhibit any writes from taking place to the user data area as the operating system will try and write $meta data at least to the volume which could destroy your data, following the write blocker attachment the hard drive should be examined via a hexadecimal editor which will help the user locate the $MFT master file table with location of file.

If the data has any value to you and you are concerned about losing it then you must consider your actions carefully as unless you exactly know the above procedure you may overwrite and thus destroy your files so a professional data recovery company is a serious consideration.

Computer virus’s are now numbering in the 100,000 + mark and another type of data loss situation maliciously designed with intent to destroy, overwrite or effect the logical integrity of the file these have been designed to destroy data in many instances up to date complete protection is required such as anti virus, anti spyware & malware and the relatively new root kit bugs, but all of this is of no use if it is not updated and system scan regularly.

Heat related issues are the no.1 killer of hard drive and the data they hold, hard drive cooling kits can prevent thermal issues impacting the operational performance of your hard disk and are readily available.

Probably the term head crash has been heard by many computer users and it has to be said is not always a qualified statement of fact.
Unusual noises emanating from the disk enclosure such as clicking and ticking noised do not automatically mean that a head crash has occurred in fact that noise can be from a number of failures such as head failure, preamplifier failure, servo fields and address markers not found, and firmware issues within the drive itself.
A head crash is when the heads come into direct contact with the surface of the platter(s) in an area and time they should not as some hard disks rest the head arrangement on the inside diameter of the disk when the drive is parked however if the heads come into contact with the surface elsewhere within the drive they may cause the condition of a head crash and score and damage the platter(s).
This type of failure can be catastrophic but depending on the company, tools and experience there may be a possibility of a recovery.

PCB or the printed circuit board is another area of failure and can cause a disk to fail and will require data retrieval it has been noted that some have tried swapping the PCB in an attempt to recover the data and unless this is done with exact knowledge and understanding of the specific manufacturer and model it should not be attempted as the PCB contains unique code embedded into it that pertains to that exact hard drive only and can not be swapped from another.The code on the PCB includes such issues as the head map arrangement, start up algorithm, and other such data unique to the media.
Typical reasons why users swap the PCB is that there is apparent chip damage which is clearly visible and usually this failed chip is the motor and or VCM voice coil motor chip which has blown.To successfully repair the printed circuit board you will need hot air rework stations, fine solder, a multimeter and above all else the very steady hand! Again if the data is of any value then expert opinion, advice and services must be sought, as in some instances if severe damage occurs to the PCB it can make the data unrecoverable.

52 years ago the hard drive, hard disk, fixed disk or HDD as named by many, landed on planet earth.

Little did the creators of this device realise how it would have impacted into day to day life and how the storage capacity would have grown.

IBM 305 RAMAC was the planets first commercially available storage system which was on a whole new level of storage.

Total storage capacity was 4.8MB which is so tiny it does not register on the minds on IT users today who are used to buying a mainstream PC with 500GB routinely installed with 1Tb hard drives available the growth has been truly of stellar proportions.

It seems strange that although the hard drive is over 50 years old and has expanded and increased in operational read and write performance that underlying principle remains, that is spinning magnetic platters, for sure they spin much faster, have very trick head arrangements and operate on repeatable sub micron distances the derive is basically an electro mechanical device yes a mechanical device in a digital solid state world, surely that will not last?

Well many manufacturers are committed to this spinning mechanical layout of HDD media for the near future at least with talk of 20k spindle speeds to increase access times, however there is change happening.

SSD or solid state devices are now emerging on laptop systems with 16 and 32 GB of storage.
SSD technology has some distinct obvious advantages such as no moving parts, ideal for users on the move and more resilient to G forces and general movement, less prone to thermal changes, higher performance for read and write times and almost instant loading of operating systems, the downside at the moment as with all new emerging technology is the cost for R & D and production costs which will eventually fall as the technology becomes more mainstream.

Further developments are hybrid drives which are a combination of classic magnetic storage media and the SSD devices.

Magneto resistive random access memory or MRAM for short has been around for some time now and has shown promising results with lab tests, a non volatile storage device and utilising magnetic properties rather than traditional electrical charges this system offers very good power efficiency so ideal in the greener world and mobile users.

Heat assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) has also reached the press with favourable reviews and is based on thermal changes to the media surface, the density has been calculated at 50 GB per inch.

Moving seemingly faster than C or the speed of light the IT sector is perceived grow at an almost exponential rate creating built in obsolesce.

Recently the data labs team were contacted by the local BBC radio station who had been contacted by Ross in bloom flower festival, the organisers had lost a piece of work which was 6 months in the making.
The paper was created in the now defunct Canon Star writer format and as the machine was now no longer operable the floppy disk containing the work could not be accessed via a personal computer system and as the star writer was 15 years old they could not find any service supplier with that particular type of technology, this was a classic technology gap, that is to say that the original equipment no loner functioned, could not be serviced or replaced leaving the data or media ’stranded’ with no ordinary means of being edited and printed.
Upon diagnosis the 1.44MB floppy drive contained the file in question in word star format our engineers were able to manually via a hex editor restructure the contents and formatting and then convert it to a more usable and up to data Word format, the client was very happy as it contained over 5000 words with many hours of research.

Tape systems are now entering this phase of technology gap entropy, that is to say that over time not only will the media degrade due to basic physics but that the system themselves very quickly get left behind in favor of newer system such as disk to disk backup which is now growing in popularity.

A basic audit on a yearly basis can diminish the chances of this type of data loss occurring by evaluating the total IT infrastructure of your organisation you can identify what may be seriously redundant kit with no secondary service or equipment available to replace failing hardware, this would be the time to replace the equipment, but what about the data? Conversion services are available to all formats, operating systems, and custom hard ware and software, for instance converting Mac to PC and vica versa, PC to Unix and application conversion from such systems as loco script, word star, word perfect etc to newer more manageable data sets.

For this particular case the client was extremely happy that the data could be converted and has now invested in a more modern computer set up, there are though countless others such as authors who utilize this perfectly adequate system which is fit for their purpose but their lies the danger so make that audit part of your plans in the near future.

The paper entitled secure deletion of data written by Peter Gutmann and published in 1996 postulated the possibility of recovering data from magnetic storage media via such exotic methods employing MFM Magnetic Force Microscopy this scanning techniques uses a sharp tip which interacts with the disk surface and an image is then produced of the disk surface
Section 2 of the paper there is the following statement “Even for a relatively inexperienced user the time to start getting images of the data on a drive platter is about 5 minutes”.
Off course this is well documented as is the paper and related to hard drive technology some 12 years ago and may as well be 12 light years ago based on the almost exponential growth of HDD storage media their capacity, areal density B.P.I Bits Per Inch track widths and perpendicular recording technology, coupled with the sub micron distance of the Head Stack Assembly head to surface calibrations, no one has produced any new evidence, photos or samples of MFM or STFM tunneling data from modern hard drive surfaces, not least that they have been able to reconstruct the data back to meaningful useful logical file structures for end user usage.
The paperwork discussed the famous 35 times overwrite to thoroughly sanitize the magnetic spinning media and destroy any data on the surface, is this really required?
Perhaps the DOD Department of Defence is then needed 7 times overwrites? or how about 3 times for a quick delete?
Answer = 1. Yes that’s correct 1 times overwrite from the beginning of the user data area LBA Logical Block Address 0 to the end of the drive. This is all that is required to destroy the data permanently for most requirements.~
There are a number of utilities which can do this for you some of which are freely available for download from the Internet.
Why not try this yourself then come back to us with your results we would be interested to hear from you?
However there is one small caveat that may be overlooked, bad sectors and lists may contain data for which the utility may not access thus leaving some data remaining.
Hard drive technology handles bad sectors by way of lists and marking them bad which the operating system will also do through the $meta data file badclus$ the secure deletion software may have limited or strict timing in accessing those sectors and move on before completing its overwrite pass to the area of the disk moreover software will not have access to defect lists as this contains the translator which is only accessible via ATA firmware commands completely outside of user access for obvious reasons.
To correctly erase all the data with standard software then low level format the media, next scan the media with a bad block tool making a note of bad blocks available acquire software which can deal with these issues, bad sectors and is able to have timeouts amended for slow sectors and CRC errors this way you will be able to deal with all user data area including bad sectors G & P Lists and LBA user area and securely erase your hard drive taking into consideration ALL bad sectors.This process obviously takes some time to complete and so it must be calculated into the desired results and objective.
The obvious answer to security and ALL storage media and if you want complete peace of mind then physical destruction of the device is the only absolute way to destroy the data and requires the least amount of resources, however the article is based on overwrites and the practical realistic possibility of recovering data from overwritten data have any companies or departments ever recovered any data from any media? There was a recent challenge and reward for any institution, comp[any or organization to recover overwritten data and to data the challenge remains intact and unclaimed.

2004 was an eventful year for the data recovery labs no least because of this particular story of data loss.

An Italian restaurateur called our offices regarding his accounts that were stored on his 2.5″ hard drive which he had been working on the morning he called in.
The client was working on the laptop at his breakfast table and finishing his final accounts for that year when he accidentally dropped his coffee cup directly over the laptop.
In his panicked state he immediately attempted switch the laptop back on to see if there were signs of life, however the laptop was dead.
After contacting a friend he removed the 2.5″ hard drive and tried connecting it via a USB caddy to a second computer with no results the laptop media was also dead.
This situation was exacerbated by the client then deciding to open up the hard drive, and in his words he explains how he felt, ‘ I was desperate and panicking, i just thought i would open the hard drive up to see if i could fix anything’, suffice to say there was nothing the client could do as the inside of the hard drive did not yield any meaningful help and looked alien to him as he had never seen inside a hard drive before.

This is the actual 2.5″ Hitachi laptop hard drive with coffee spillage.

Our labs took safe custody of the hard disk the very next day and sure enough the hard drive was covered in coffee stains.
It was immediately moved to our class 10 clean room area where engineers started to asses the situation and make decisions as to the best possible action, which in this case was specialist cleaning as dried coffee contain many elements.
Cleaning was successful then the hard drive was rebuilt with all damaged components such as head stack assembly replaced , work on the printed circuit board was the final physical part of the recovery this included replacing damaged surface mount components.
Finally the drive was ready to be imaged via our cloning team who made an exact replica of the user data area which was then scanned via a hex editor to recompile the raw image back into meaningful and launchable files, the accounts were totally recovered along with family photos and other personal data.

Opening of the hard drive by the client could have made the situation unrecoverable , especially if the media was allowed to spin for a period of time in this state.
Occasionally our labs will receive media which has been opened in no clean room conditions and invariably the data is not recoverable due to the extra damage suffered on the surface of the platters, never open hard disk drives in non clean room conditions unless you want to compound the recovery or create an unrecoverable situation.

Many people have heard of the term spontaneous human combustion (SHC) this belief of some is that the body ignites and burns without any external influence whatsoever, of course this is not a qualified or exact science and is consigned typically to the anecdotes of history, however our labs received a hard drive which did spontaneously ignite and smoke while in the users hands.

The story began back in 2005 when a lady on an extended sabotecial from the USA contacted our labs for help here data and that of here partner which was a three year thesis and some 100,000 words was stored on said hard drive.
Following the computer system at here home failing she inlisted the help of here IT department, sensible move especially as the IT department was a division of the MOD with high end equipment and well trained professionals.

Technicians at the clients workplace connected up and switched on the power to the 3.5″ Maxtor hard drive, instantly the drive began to smoke a few seconds later the drive popped with a flash clearly seen and heard within the department.

After they had cleared the smoke filled room they realised that this possible recovery was beyond their capability and enlisted our services.
What has caused such a seemingly catastrophic failure?
Upon diagnosis at our labs it was imediately apparent that there was a major issue with the PCB or printed circuit board as one the chips was completely charred and burnt.
What chip had blown?

Hard drives are comprised of spinning magnetic media commonly known as platter(s) these platters are span via a spindle motor and bearing system, the spindle motor is controlled via a smooth chip, this smooth chip which had died can suffer from several conditions that may cause premature failure such as thermal changes within the computer system and if the actual hard drive has no adequate cooling it can cause thermal runaway of the component which will cause it to fail as in the particular case.
Further examination of the hard drive revealed more damage to the media and the head stack assembly (HSA) was diagnosed as faulty this issue was compounded as the Maxtor drive was not a widely used model and the head preamplifier was difficult to trace.

Logistics and hard drive tracing department sourced a drive from the USA following clean room work on the disk enclosure which involved head stack replacement and surface mount electronic repairs access to the user data area was established.

Imaging was then initiated from the begining to the end of the user data area from this image our engineers were able to extract all the required information including the 3 year thesis.

During 2005 our labs received a phone call and subsequent email from a distressed Gentleman from Norway.
While enjoying the afternoon with his family on a Norwegian beach his laptop which was being used to backup photos from his digital camera accidentally fell into the Norwegian sea!

Suffice to say the client was extremely distressed to discover that the laptop would not boot up and displayed the message ‘No valid boot disk’. This error message created a great deal of gloom for the family because not only did the laptop contain that days photos but others from years previous.
Following an online search for data recovery services the client was eventually directed to our website where he duly contacted us for advice and help as to how to retrieve the precious data on the laptop hard drive.
During the conversation the client admitted to trying to gain access to the drive by connecting it to another computer system, this we informed the distraught client was not wise as water ingress would have probably occurred as it would have gained access to the disk enclosure and entered into the hard drive cavity and due to the properties of sea water there would be much specialist cleaning required, it was imperative that the drive not be switched on again and that it should be shipped to our labs a.s.a.p.
Following our safe receipt of the 2.5″ media our support staff phones the client to inform him that we have safe custody of the device and that an immediate free diagnosis of the media would begin.
The diagnosis involved examining the PCB or printed circuit board and the disk enclosure in our class 10 clean room environment.
It was clear from the beginning that minerals from the sea salt water had been deposited and that specialist cleaning would be required to take the recovery to the next stage.
Following the cleaning of the hard drive media the engineers attempted access to the user data area and with success! from this point the drive was handed over to the imaging team that created an exact clone of the media from the beginning to the end of the user data area.
Logical structure and file checking was next in the stages of recovery with specific attention paid to the .jpg or photo files that was required with engineers launching a random amount of data to check the integrity and usefulness of the file structure, all files that were required were recovered and moreover they were fully functional!
This was achieved with 48 hours of the labs receiving the 2.5 laptop hard drive media the drive was then returned to the client, his kind words of appreciation was typical of thankful computer users who have suffered data loss.
The real moral here is never try to attempt a data recovery to any media which has suffered from physical damage and as in this instance with water damage never switch the drive on, then contact professional data recovery labs for assistance.