Was sold in China to one of our customers as 1Gb drive for a very low price; the actual capacity of the flash chip is just 64Mb. Controller is programmed to report 1Gb to the PC. Note what the markings on the flash chip are sanded off.
We found a SOMO report on working conditions in some factories related to the hard disk drive manufacturing.
This is an example of a case when we cannot recover data. The platters (containing data) on this Toshiba notebook drive are made of glass, one of them was shattered on impact. Also the aluminium case of the drive was bent. It is actually possible (but very difficult) to extract fragments of files from the platter left intact.
Another successful data recovery from Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 with seized motor bearing. Recently we are having quite a few drives from 7200.8, 7200.9 series with this kind of failure. Toshiba notebook hard drives are also very prone to it.
With a lot of effort we managed to recover 100% of customer data from a drive what took a plunge (with the notebook) into the sea water and spent some time on the depth of 5 m.
Our data recovery customers from Phuket, Thailand and the rest of the world now can easily and securely browse the filesystem of their recovered drives online prior to payment.
Enemy #1 is mechanical shock. When people are moving computers around while they are on, or kick them accidentally under the table, there is a high risk what the tiny heads in the drive will crash on the disk surface which is spinning with a very high speed, often with disastrous results. Hard disk is also set for trouble when the “technicians” who assembled the computer were saving screws and fixed the disk on one side only, or not fixed it at all (unfortunately, computers assembled like this are common in Phuket).
Enemy #2 is heat. Tight or unventilated external HDD enclosures or mobile racks are the worst places for the disks. Low quality sleeve bearing fans attached to the bottom of the hard drives often become stuck after a few months, obstructing the airflow around the hard drive electronics board. If your computer is functioning in the room without air-conditioning, effective case cooling (proper case design and well-working and well-placed fans) is extemely important for your computer’ health. Good quality ball-bearing fans available on Phuket are Cooler Master fans.
Enemy #3 is low quality power supply unit (PSU). HDDs are probably the most sensitive components of the PC regarding power. Cheap 500-900 Baht power supplies, which can be found in almost every PC sold on Phuket, often are not capable of providing stable voltage and current, especially if you have more then one HDD or CD-ROM in your computer. The solution is to use the higher quality power supply.
Enemy #4 is electrical shock. The system lacking UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) with good protection circuit, and the installation without grounding are the main reasons why the surge on the power lines 2 kilometers away still occasionally make it to the disk. Mishaps while temporarily connecting the drive to another computer or the faulty adapter of the external enclosure are also common causes of failure. Usually electric shock damages only electronics board of the drive.
When your computer suddenly won’t start up properly, the cause is not always obvious to the ordinary user. Following symptoms may indicate the hard drive failure: