This PPT gives tips on how to preserve your data before you send your storage device it to a data recovery service. Learn what no other data recovery company will tell you. This presentation was actually created for IT professionals, but all can benefit from the knowledge shared from our specialist. Visit: http://www.sertdatarecovery.com

1. How To Preserve Data Integrity and Prevent
Further Damage In a Data Loss Scenario
SERT Data Recovery
www.sertdatarecovery.com
1750 N Florida Mango Rd #406
WPB, FL 33409

2. SERT Data Recovery was formed to offer affordable,
reliable, and transparent data recovery services.
Specialize in RAID, NAS, Mechanical and Firmware Hard
Drive Repair, Broken Flash Drives, NAND Recovery
Development Team With Over 25 Years Experience
CLASS 100 ISO 5 Certified Clean Work Bench
HIPAA Certified and Compliant
Local and National Services

3. Computer Repair: General Practitioner
IT Company: Orthopedist/Neurologist
Data Recovery Company: Brain Surgeon
Computer Repair, IT,
or Data Recovery Company?

6. SERVICE AREA

7. Data Recovery Principle
If you don’t know why the data is not
accessible: if you don’t have the experience
or technology to accurately diagnose and
repair the problem… don’t try to recover
the data.
When the data is worth $400+

8. What is Your Success Rate?
Previously Worked On: 80%
Catastrophic Head Crash: 20%
What are FAILURES due to:
We have a 100% success rate
on “recoverable” cases.

9. Data Recovery Process
Do Your Due Diligence – Ask The Right Questions
(What happened to the drive, did it fall, was it bumped or
banged, making any noises, what has been done to it so far, is it
spinning, does it get power)
1. Identify the Symptoms (Tell me what happened)
2. Determine the Cause
3. Develop/Implement a Plan
4. Recover the Data

10. I Don’t Want My Drive
Repaired…
I Just Want My Data Back
1. Hard Drive Repair
2. Data Recovery
The process of bringing a failed or failing drive to a fully functional condition
temporarily in order to image the drive. (Firmware or Hardware Failures)
This is where the files are actually recovered from the drive to a stable and safe
environment to be delivered back to the client. (Advanced Recovery Utilities)

11. Common Disaster Areas
• Recovery Software
• Dropped Drives
• Bad Sectors
• Opening a Hard Drive
• Head Swaps
• Platter Swaps
• Clicking Drives
• Overwritten Data
• Monolithic Flash Drives
• RAID 0 & 5 Issues
• NAS Devices (Drobo,LaCie, Synology)

12. Recovery Software
2. Failing Drives – Do Not Run Check Disk
1. Deleted Data
The safest time to use recovery software is when you know the data has been
deleted. Most users install it on the same drive they are recovering from. HFS+
is the least forgiving in recovering data that has been deleted.
If you don’t know why the drive is failing, or if it has bad sectors, using
software to recover the data is like playing Russian roulette. Depending
on why it is failing, it will cause the drive to fail quicker
and potentially damage the drive to the point it is not
repairable or recoverable.

13. Dropped Drives
The First Thing Everyone Does Is The Worst Thing
When a drive experiences any shock, there is at least a 50% chance the
read/write head assembly has come out of alignment or even worse, come out
of its parking place. If the drive is spinning and this happens, the chance of
damage rises drastically.

14. Dropped Drives
1. What is the first thing everyone does?
2. Internal damage?

15. Bad Sectors
1. Causes file system and file corruption
2. Software will get stuck in most cases
3. Drive must be imaged using special hardware to
avoid killing the drive
4. Do not run check disk
5. Cannot be repaired

16. Opening a Hard Drive
1. Do you know what your looking for?
2. Do you know how to fix it when you find it?
3. Are you in a safe environment?
4. Alignment Issues
5. Last resort for professionals
6. Don’t do it!

17. Head Swaps
1. Needs to be done in a certified clean room.
2. Finding a donor requires almost finding an exact match.
3. Donor vendors know what the drives are being used for.
4. Platter damage will ruin the donor heads.

18. Platter Swaps
Can’t you just take the platters out and suck the data off?
Can’t you just take the platters out and put them in another
drive?
The only time a recovery warrants a platter
swap is when the motor/spindle is seized.
Very few companies in the US can do this
procedure.

19. Clicking Drives
Usually a drive will click because the heads cannot read the
service area on the platter and does not know where to go next.
Some times this is due to corruption to the modules located in
service area.
1. Clicking drives do not automatically need a clean
room, or head swap.
2. Many firmware related issues cause clicking
3. Platter damage will cause a drive to click
4. Bad Heads also will cause a drive to click

20. Overwritten Data
Plain and simple. GAME OVER….

21. Monolithic Flash Drives
1. No printed circuit board
2. All components inside the memory chip itself
3. Requires knowing the pinout
4. Very difficult to reverse engineer

22. RAID 0 & 5 Issues
1. Power down immediately
2. Do not force back online
3. Do not reinitialize
4. 1 & 2 drives down
5. Need to know why the failure occurred
6. Basically don’t do anything you would not
bet your life on

23. NAS Devices
(Drobo, LaCie, Synology, Etc)
1. Tech support is NOT your friend
2. Do not run disk utility or check disk
3. Do not reinitialize
4. Do NOT use the default/proprietary array
configurations BeyondRAID (Drobo),
SHR (Synology Hybrid RAID)
5. Always set RAID to custom RAID 5 or 6
6. Need the box for recovery 90% of the time

24. Drobo Support
On May 19 at 10:13 AM the disk in the 3rd slot from the top with serial number
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX was power cycled because it had become unresponsive
and when it was redetected it was assigned a new logical disk number.
At that point the array is down one drive so the Drobo started data protection.
While trying to complete, the disk with serial number YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
started misbehaving causing the Drobo to reboot because now this disk was
critical to the operation of the array.
If you can get a good clone of the disk we should be able to get the array
stabilized.
Kind Regards,
XXXX X.
Technical Support Agent

25. Free Evaluation on drives without previous
attempts to recover data (includes software)
24 – 48hr Diagnostics
If we don’t recover the data –
You don’t pay the recovery fee
SERT Data Recovery
www.sertdatarecovery.com
1750 N Florida Mango Rd #406
WPB, FL 33409