Free Data Recovery Services?
Following the post a few days ago regarding the apparent offers of free data recovery I had further thoughts on the matter. The frequency of the Seagate firmware fault in the 7200.11 Barracuda series combined with the number of online explanations and resolutions to the matter may have led to end users feeling that the fault is such a simple one it is not worth paying for. But, given this, one must ask the question what it is that people are paying for.
I remember the first drive which came in with the associated firmware fault. It was a 500GB Maxtor-Seagate MX15 drive. At the time the fault seemed confusing and required development and testing to understand and resolve the fault. At this stage the answers were not copied and pasted over the internet. We consulted with a leading UK data recovery company who had not seen the affected drives at that point. At this stage it took research and development to devise the most appropriate manner in which to access the data stored on the hard disk drive. Although the end results might seem very simple that is a result of some person’s work to establish the formula.
Yesterday we received in a Seagate 7200.10 Barracuda series drive. There had been a power surge to the NAS device it was stored in. The owner thought that the hard disk drive was fine, but was inaccessible due to a fault on the NAS caddy, and he could not read it on his PC as the filesystem on the patient hard disk was Linux related. Although the disk was spinning normally and detected in the BIOS there was a significant fault. It related to the “CE Log Error” found in 7200.8, 7200.9 and 7200.10 Barracuda series hard disk drives. Again, some may consider the resolution to this fault as simple, or easily applied (when a company has invested in the right tools). Does this mean that it should be completed for free? Should the firmware/ROM fault in the Western Digital Tornado series circuit boards be resolved for free now there has been a successful and tested method for recovery?
Accurate diagnosis of hard disk drive failure is critical as it allows implementation of the appropriate action to recover the data. Without specialist tools it is simply not possible to accurately diagnose the faults with a hard disk drive. Letting someone inexperienced or untrained make their best guess at what the fault might be, and attempt an uncalculated course of action, is likely to significantly increase the chances of data loss.