MJM Data Recovery

MjM Data Recovery are now able to unlock firmware on the new Grenada and Lombard series of drives. When repairing a hard disk prior to recovery it is important to be able to examine and repair bad modules and tables within the firmware of the hard disk. When firmware problems started appearing in about 2006/2007 the firmware zone on the drive was fully accessible using a TTL terminal adapter to manipulate the firmware, turn features on or off to improve the readability and reset and rebuild corrupt or damaged sections of the firmware. If this repair can not take place, then the data is not recoverable. With the later Grenada and Lombard drives (the ones with a corner cut-out on the PCB) the firmware is either restricted or entirely locked down - especially on the SES series of Grenada. We are now in a situation where we can remove these locks temporarily and make a clone of the data. We recently recovered 2 drives from a RAID 5 array where the problem was exacerbated by needin

About Data Recovery I thought I would write a blog post describing what data recovery is all about. To put the phrase in to a description it would be 'Recovering data from damaged computer storage media' The problem is that the description would not cover reasons. So there are are few main reasons for data loss in the first place. These are (and this list is not exhaustive) .. Logical failure - deleted files, formatted disks, virus damage, random encryption events, overwritten data. MjM Data Recovery Limited have written their own software for accessing logical problems on most operating systems offering a better chance of recovery.   Firmware problems - this is where something has gone wrong with the built-in systems on the hard disk or ssd drive resulting with the storage system not working as expected. Either the device is not usable at all, or if it is it is very slow, sporadic data access or corrupted data. MjM use the latest firmware tools and for some systems ha

Hard Disk Error Diagnosis. When a drive has been sent to us for recovery because of a physical failure, it is absolutely vital that a correct diagnosis of the problem is made. Some companies will try one thing and if that fails try another until they either get to the problem or give up as a lost cause. We do not recommend this type of ad hoc analysis as in some cases it can make a problem worse. For example, a write-head fault can easily be mis-diagnosed as a firmware problem and attempts to 'repair' firmware can result in it becoming completely unreadable making the problem worse, because now not only do heads need changing but the drive also needs firmware repairs being made. There are set stages in the diagnosis stage and these follow a pattern. Once a problem is found it is not always considered the only problem so diagnosis will continue. In some cases this may involve ordering spare parts to complete a diagnosis, but in most cases we will not charge for these. Depe

Data recovery for encrypted hard disks When a hard disks is encrypted or contains encrypted data the recovery process can be significantly more complex. The first part of the process is imaging or making a clone of a hard disks, followed by data extraction and repair from the clone. When data is encrypted it adds a further layer of recovery as the encryption will need to be removed before the data can be extractted. We have developed several techniques for recovering data from drives encrypted with almost any of the widely available commercial and free encryption software. More information can be found on our website: Data Recovery from Encrypted Data

Seagate Data Recovery Back in 2008 Seagate introduced the 7200.11 F3 series of drives, the range was from 160 GB up to 1500 GB and later 2 GB. Soon after, these drives developed a firmware bug that totally bricked the hard disks. Seagate forums were overflowing with tales of woe. Seagate brought out a firmware update that fixed the problem, but the drive needed to be working to apply it. There was another problem, the firmware fix actually bricked working drives - but only a specific model was affected with the update. Seagate were then forced to provide free data recovery on this model, but left the rest to their own devices. At one point someone made some termminal commands available that could fix the SMART logs and translator problem that cause the 0 MB problems on some of the drives so then they could then run the firmware update. Thanks to that guy many users were able to recover their data. When Seagate bought out the 7200.12 and some later Laptop versions, there wa

Complete disassembly of a hard disk. A transfer and minor update from an article on our old website. This article does a complete disassembly of a hard disk drive describes each component and what heir function is. Five separate interlinked sections describe An overview of the hard disk to be dismantled Gives a description of the drive and shows the difference between good and bad platters The Head Stack Assembly Shows each part of the head stack and describes their functionality within the drive. The Electronics PCB of the hard disk An brief explanation  of the functions of the PCB on a hard disk drive. The Motor How the motor is controlled and the bearing mechanics. The platters. Describes the manufacture of platters.  The article can be found here. Disassembly of a Hard Disk

How ATA Registers Work After some requests from users we have started restoring some of the technical pages we had on our website. There were a few on our old website that are being converted from the old site tro the new one. The latest one is the page that describes how the ATA registers work on a hard disk drive. With explanations of the purpose of their functions and has been updated to include 48 bit LBA addressing., The page can be found at : https://www.mjm.co.uk/articles/how-hard-disk-ata-registers-work.html We are also in the process of building some technical videos showing exactly what goes on when accessing hard disks.

Another busy weekend updating the information on our RAID pages. Added some new pages and text. Recovering data from raid arrays is a complex problem that requires complex software, we started developing our own raid recovery software back in the early 2000's We are now a market leader for raid data recovery and can recover from the most complex of raid systems, including EMC Isilon SAN and EqualLogic systems. Full details of our raid recovery service is available at our website .. Raid Recovery For more information about us please follow the link to our main site here: Data Recovery Services