G-RAID File Recovery Needed

I've received the following questions from people wanting to recover files from G-RAID hard drives that have developed one fault or another. It's worthy to note that G-RAID hard drives sometimes run a RAID file structure which see's the files stored on the hard drives in a distributed segmented way rather that sequentially. Subsequently data recovery on RAID hard drives can be problematic. My advice with all RAID data recovery occurrences is to take the RAID to a data recovery expert - personally I use the guys at http://www.recover-deleted-data.co.uk/ when I've got to get files back from any sort of RAID device, not just G-RAIDs. Here are the questions:

Thunderbolt G-Raid drive is recognised by computer and you can see the files on the disk. But when you try to browse the files it crashes finder and you have to unplug it. I'm located in Manchester but can bring the drives to either Wolverhampton (Birmingham) or London locations.

I have a 4 x Seagate 2TB hard drives which are combined together into a 4 disk RAID 5 system. The system is made by a company called G-RAID but I'm unsure of which model I have. It failed on me a couple of years ago but I've never got round to trying to fix. I did take it to a couple of 'computer shops' around London (where you can mobile phone accessories – that sort of place) but they didn't have any luck.

One of our clients in Wolverhampton has an external G-RAID RAID 5 whose hard drives appear to have died, when it is connected (proprietary connector and sata) it spins briefly and then stops: It is not detected by Windows, we have tried on multiple machines. Our client is quite upset as she has family pictures and backups on the drive. Could you give us a quote to recover the drive? Inside the G-RAID the device the hard drives are Samsung 4 x ST1000LM024 1000GB. we have had a failure on one of our laptop SSDs we are after some documents recovering.

Need data from IDE hard drive

My previous desktop failed some time ago and although I never figured it out what caused it the motherboard was clearly beyond repair because when I swapped in a different psu it would start up at all, the system was totally dead. I've recently got a new desktop and wanted to recover the data from the old hard disk which was an ide connection and so I had no intention of making it a part of the new system. What I really want from it is theasy photos of my daughter when she was wee. I got an ide to usb adapter from Novatech but when I connected it up there was a nasty smell and a wisp of smoke from the power input to the disk. I intend to check the power lead in case there was a manufacturing fault which led to it giving the wrong voltage. My concern is that the board on the disk might be shorted out and I'm reluctant to try a different adapter, even one borrowed from a friend which i know is good in case I damage the disk further. So what I'd like is a quote for recovering the data on the disk.

IDE hard drives have not been widely used for almost 10 years now. Their SATA replacement hard drives featured a new type of connection that got rid of the parallel data cable and 4 wire D-connector type power cable

When the hard drive starts to smoke it means there is a problem with the electronic controller board of the hard drive. This is usually caused by a fault - usually in the voltage regulator chip that prevents the hard drive from powering up. Replacing the hard drive PCB with an identical one won't work as the board also controls a map of how the data is stored on each hard drive. So if you need the data from the hard drive you'll need a way of transferring the drive mapping from the old disk to the new disk too.

Seagate and Drevo Data Recovery

Here are a couple of data recovery enquiries I received about the feasibility of getting the files back from Seagate and Drevo hard drives that are no longer showing up.

I have a samsung M3 Portable hard drive (now Seagate) which has just stopped working. When you plug it in with the USB it very quietly makes a repetitive tonal sound that is internal to the device and sounds like it isn’t able to work – almost like when a CD skips, but not quite. It usually hums as soon as you plug it in, but it sounds unable to. The light on the device, however, does come on. The drive does not show up where it usually does on my laptop, although the laptop knows the USB is connected. I’m sure it’s a problem with the drive and not my laptop, as I’ve tried it on 2 different laptops. It is a personal drive (not work related) so it’s not essential I recover the files on it, but I would really like to, as there are photos and so forth on it. Any hope?

My Drevo X1 Pro SATA III 256gb SSD hard drive has failed. I'd had problems with my MacBook Pro previously, where it couldn't connect to my old HDD. Replaced it with an SSD, still couldn't connect. Replaced the hard drive cable, which solved the problem. All working fine until one day out of the blue I had the same issue again. The MacBook couldn't find the SSD or boot up etc. Initially thought it was the same problem, ordered a new hard drive cable, but that didn't fix the problem. Took it to the campus IT shop, they ran some tests, came to the conclusion that the hard drive was faulty, as he couldn't connect to it from his systems either. His comments on the invoice were as follows: "Cannot pick up SSD hard disk. Tested hard disk in a another PC – also not picked up either in bios or macdrive diagnostic software. Tested the cable with known good Mac hard disk – ok. Conclusion – faulty Drevo SSD hard disk." He also said that it looked like whatever connectors there were in there, that they could be faulty.

My comment: Until I've taken a good look at each drive to discover what's wrong, I'm not able to say if I can recover the files. From the symptoms above, I', hopeful that I can get the drives showing up again and retrieve the files, but I really do need to diagnose them first

Dead Phones - Rescue Photos

The circuit on my iPhone 6s has broken and the phone is dead and will not connect to any computer, I have been told by Apple it isn’t fixable and I had photos on the phone that I would much like to retrieve and wondered if I could get a quote on how much this would cost?

I have deleted my photos off my Samsung phone and the memory card . are you able t help please?

My phone is dead and has been the past couple of months. I haven't backed it up at all and I had nearly 14,000 pictures on there. Is there a way I can get these photos back?

I have the One Plus 3 phone, one day a screen came up with different options in chinese, I clicked the option that said factory reset and had accidentaly lost all my data, I've still been using my phone, I've been using several apps and sotwares without any luck, I'm still to root my device however I am not fully clued on dabbling with mobile phones. I would really like to recover my photos as I had a years worth of data on it

My Samsung mobile switches off when l try to use the internet and when switched off overnight returned to factory settings losing all data

My Samsung Galaxy SIII has conked out – the only screen visible on switch on is the first one. This phone is very dear to me as it belonged to my late son and i have been using it since his death. I would be so grateful if it were possible to retrieve photos especially, but also contacts and calendar.

Water damaged I phone 6s. I just want my data out of it and saved. The phone has been to repair shops but they couldnt repair it. please be honest cn you get my data out of the phone and if so what are the costs like. I am interested in the photos especially.

Data Recovery Report

When you have a broken hard drive that you need to get the files from you have to send your computer disk to a data recovery company to get them to retrieve your data. They will examine your hard drive and find out what is wrong with it. Then they'll send you a report detailing the faults and issues. Here's a standard report:

This is the report from another company I used two years ago:
The report from the lab has been finalized and the engineer has reported the following.
· When powered the drive clicks and spins down
· Drive opened within clean lab for internal examination
· Failing read/write heads preventing access to data
· Possible damage on media surface area causing mechanical and logical read/write operation to fail.
· Partition tables unreadable due to read/write failure
Access to data is unsuccessful due to damaged read/write heads.
The heads are the mechanical components that read/write data to/from the internal platters.
The work required to correct the faults include:
1. Drive disassembled within clean lab facility
2. Drive rebuilt with compatible donor heads
3. Drive to be placed on Data Extractor to improve stability and read/write process
4. Attempted Sector by sector image
This is a highly skilled process that is not infallible. The chance of a successful recovery once this process has been completed is approx: 70%.
Unfortunately there are currently no parts in stock to complete the rebuild but we can purchase a compatible donor from our suppliers in the US.

As you can see, a data recovery report clearly identifies what the problem with the hard drive is and the chance of them getting your data back should you decide you want to proceed with the data recovery cost. You can expect to pay in the region of £300 to £700 for a data recovery service from a hard drive.


Emergency Server RAID Recover Data

When it comes to being asked to recover data from large systems running RAID - I always pass the work onto a competent company like Data Clinic's RAID recovery team. ICO compliant with your data security, their team retrieves the information from RAID systems (HP, Qnap, and NAS, running RAID 5, 6, 10 and 50, throughout most of the UK. Furthermore whilst I work on a 5-7 day schedule, Data Clinic have an emergency service that recovers data ASAP - sometimes the same day.

Here are 3 example enquiries I've had lately where Data Clinic were able to recover the client's files.

I have a server disk which one of our users has accidentally deleted approx. 70gb of data, which we now need recovered. The OS is Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 – 64bit

I have a Iomega 200D with 4 x 1TB Seagate SATA drives installed configured in a RAID 5 array. One of the drives has failed and we are no longer able to access the data on the device.

We've had our QNAP NAS fail recently and we need to copy the data from our drives. It's a 4x2TB setup with the 2nd bay appearing to be malfunctioning. We bought a new drive for that bay but it failed to mount and rebuild. This means that the drives are probably all in good shape but the NAS itself is non-functioning. Can someone come have a look ASAP please, it's extremely urgent that we have this data copied over to a new drive.

Data Clinic's RAID recovery team are based in Manchester and London but also recover data across the UK, still on an emergency (same day) service.

I'm sometimes asked why I don't handle RAID data recovery work myself - the answer is simple: RAID is a very complex type of data storage where files are stored in segments across all the hard drives in the RAID array - this data once recovered, has to be pieced back together rather like a patchwork quilt - this is a very skilled job that is beyond the capabilities of most, including me, therefore that's why I leave it up to Data Clinic.

Help required with phone!

I lost text messages from my Android device(Samsung Gt s7262) can I recover my data

I left my HTC one out in the rain and it wont turn on, I have a lot of photos I would like back, can you help? I don't mind if the phone is destroyed in the process but the family photos are irreplaceable.

My wife's iphone 6s has been through the washing machine, is there anyway you can obtain the photos and what sort of costs is this?

My samsung s4 screen is smashed. I just want the photos and videos from the phone. are you able to do this and how much will it cost?

Our old iPhone is 'disabled-connect to iTunes'
iCloud is showing backed up from Feb 2015 onwards but it's our daughters baby pictures 2yr prior to that we are so desperate to retrieve.
The iPhone was never backed up with iCloud / synced to a device so all our photos are locked in this phone that we can't get into.

I have damaged my phone by dropping it in a water. Is there a chance to recover data, especially photos from device without mechanical opening it.

My iPhone 5 does not turn on and does not charge anymore. I would like to recover data from the phone (only interested in Contacts and Photos).

I have a phone which will no longer turn on (not battery or charge port issue) and I desperately need to retrieve one photo in particular from the internal memory. It is a Sony Xperia – please help!

I want accidentally deleted texts messages from August 2016 -beginning September retrieved for court evidence. Can you do this? If so How much will this cost please? I have an apple iPhone 6

OnePlus 5 smartphone has been salt-water damaged and won't boot, what should the price be to recover the photos/videos from it?

My phone had water damage. I sent it to a friend who is apparently a phone technician and explained that my pictures on there are very important to me and I need them. He has had the phone for 3 months now and I have just received the following message with details on what he has done and why he can't fix it….
'Phone came in water damaged and wouldn't turn on, had short on speaker amp ic, also fried tristar and Tigris. Reballed speaker ic and replaced tristar and Tigris. Phone then fully working again, sent back. A day later the main audio ic failed. The phone was sent back to me (still working), given the go ahead to change the audio ic, warned of possible cpu damage. Changed the audio ic, this caused the backlight ic on the other side of the board to short because of underfill / solder expansion. Phone would detect through iTunes but no display or bl. Pads pulled on backlight ic because of underfill removal. Was told that the data on the phone wasn't backed up when returned the first time before being sent for more work. Tried connecting to iTunes to do a backup but code required on the phone, tried using an external backlight with just the Lcd panel connected but nothing still displayed on the phone. Replaced chestnut Lcd driver, now phone will pull current from the charger but no longer detected in iTunes. Removed chestnut and still nothing in iTunes, suspect cpu damage.


London Data Recovery

Recently I've been experiencing a particularly difficult problem with my desktop hard drive. It has failed and i need the data extracting from it. As I'm located in streatham hill, london I've sent it to Datlab data recovery London branch.

External 1TB Seagate Hard Drive not being recognised by MacBook. Faint beeping on plugging in but drive not starting up. This contains around 800GB of very sentimental photos & videos,which are not backed up. Based in London and can travel so can you look at the drive?

I have many important documents and family photos stored on a Samsung external hard drive. I have never had any problem writing to this drive or reading from it until recently when my laptop and other computers I have tried have failed to recognise it completely when connected via USB. I need to recover as much data from it as possible and am 5 miles south of London.

I have a Seagate Expansion drive that has been dropped and no longer connects to my PC. What would be the cost to recover the data if it is possible.

I was hoping to obtain a quote for the retrieval of data from a Seagate external hard drive. When connected to a laptop the hard drive connection was severed when the hard drive fell off a desk. The 'safely remove hardware' procedure not been completed. After this, the hard drive is no longer recognised by any computer which I have tried the drive in. The computer is aware there is a connection, but it is never possible to open the drive. I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers for the hard drive but this hasn't worked. I would be grateful if you could indicate the likely cost of retrieving the files from the drive?

I travel frequently and after my most recent trip my external hard drive ( model: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00FP50JAG?tag=ps-uk-seagate-01-21) cannot be read. It powers on, I can hear noises coming from it yet it doesn't seem to be recognized by my PC. Questions: 1) How much would the service cost? 2) What timeline can I expect? 3) Can you pick up the HDD from my business or do I have to personally deliver it?

Hard drive failure on a Seagate 500gb SATA Drive not detectable by external reader or laptop. Looking for quote at this stage – data lost is personal baby photos, and its the HR director for the company!

Hard Drive Recovery in Liverpool

In this post I've combined together several enquiries for data recovery services from customers in or around the Liverpool area. I'm including Chester here too.

Solid State Drive Won't boot. I want to take some files from it, There are just a few files I need from it importantly that are irreplaceable. My mobile worstation is a m6800 and it says drive doesn't install, check cables.

My 2TB Seagate Backup Plus with not show the drive and the data. Makes beeping sound if ear is placed close to hard drive. Please email as currently working in Liverpool and can't get to a phone because of the type of work I'm doing. If it helps, I live in Aintree and I know there is a local data recovery business in Horton House Liverpool, just behind Exchange Flags.

Hard drive keeps clicking. The computer is recognising it but you cant access the data. Light keeps flashing on the drive. Drive is a WD my passport ultra. I have a fair amount of money to spend on getting this data recovered, so I'm looking to get the recovery done. I don't want to have to take out a second mortgage to get the recovery done thou! Ps I'm near Wallasey, Liverpool.

I have a CCTV system, I want the recover the videos thats been overwrite and gone, and I cant review them anymore

Western digital external USB 3 drive with one PCB for both the drive and adapter (external drives usually gave separate pcb for drive and another one connecting sata to USB) Drive gets power, but is not being recognised by Windows, Mac or Linux. I have a computer system that runs my mortgage advisor / brokering business. I don't know about what costs you charge, but if you are perhaps moving house or require mortgage brokering services perhaps we can have a chat and come to some arrangement.

Macpro disk structure not reading

My portable hard drive seems to have stopped working with any of my devices. Makes a clicking noise and then disconnects itself. It has a lot of photos and music stored on it and no other back up.

There is a physical fault on my laptop hard drive (according to the guy in my local computer shop) I would need data recovery of photos/videos and word documents. If that is possible can you give me a price quote and timeframe for the service.

I own a very old Macpro desktop, circa 2006. This Macpro contains equally old 500GB Seagate hard disks. Model name Barracuda 7200.9 (let me know if any further info regarding the disk itself would be helpful). On this disk I had a windows partition installed via bootcamp. After more than 10 years of mostly faithful service this hard disk finally seems to have died. I can no longer boot the windows partition from the disk, and when I boot into Mac OS I can no longer even see the disk being detected by disk utility or system information apps. Even if the hard disk is dead, there is still data on the disk that I would like to recover. I wanted to come to you to see if this was possible, and if so, if you could give me a quote for recovery from such a disk. Let me know if I can provide any further info.

I wanted to see if my data can be recovered. My OS crashed and I couldn't access my HDD. I tried to boot up Ubuntu to access the files (was previously on Windows 10), but in doing this I accidentally formatted one of the partitions from NFTS to ext4. I can't access the files and want to know if this can be recovered. How much will this cost and what is the lead time?

I was copying some files and suddenly the external hard drive froze. I just unplugged it without stopping it properly and now I cannot access my files anymore. It says: F is not accessible. The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable. I cannot remember dropping the device or causing any other physical damage.

Barry says: Disk structuring problems can be simple or difficult to sort out - it depends on the problem. Whether the data is recoverable or not also depends on the problem. Usually Windows machines are easier to work on than Apple ones because of the way the filesystem works. You can contact me direct or try an independent expert like Data Recovery Tips (UK).