As part of “Sharing the Technology” we believe that it is important to understand the three phases of the HDD data recovery process and the hard disk drive data recovery industry.
We divide the majority of HDD data recovery work into the following three phases.

1. Diagnose and Repair the HDD
2. Image the HDD
3. Logical File System Recovery

Phase 1: Diagnose and Repair the HDD
In phase one, the HDD is diagnosed and any problems that prevent the drive from functioning normally are addressed. The necessary repairs are preformed whether it be a physical/mechanical issues, a failed PCB, or a firmware problem. The ACEDRE method is to always utilize PC-3000 first to perform a proper diagnosis of the hard disk drive. Utilizing the diagnostic abilities, reporting, and specialized utilities, all issues are discovered and corrupted firmware is fixed. Even if the issue turns out to be mechanical, PC-3000 can help diagnose the issue properly. Once the drive is functional and able to communicate with a PC’s BIOS, we enter phase two.

Phase 2: Image the HDD
In phase two, the repaired drive must have its contents read and copied to another drive. This prevents further data loss caused by working with an unstable drive during the final stage. Phase two utilizes the capabilities of the Disk Imager or Data Extractor to create an exact duplicate of the drive. The Disk Imager has a complex set of customizable routines for error handling to deal with issues such as bad sectors and other common HDD problems.
Phase two is essential to ensure that the recovery process does not fail due an unstable drive or excessive lost data. In all cases where a HDD is unstable, there will be lost data and possibly a corrupted file structure simply because the HDD was not able to properly read the sectors. Having tools that maximizes the amount of returned data will make the final phase far more successful.
(See our White Paper “Drive Imaging as Part of Data Recovery” for more detailed information about the drive imaging process.)

Phase 3: Logical File / System Recovery
Once phase two is complete we move on to phase three and use Data Extractor to repair any damaged files, directory information, boot sectors or other elements of the OS structure, and ascertain the accessibility of the required data. Once the data is accessible, we have the option of supplying the customer with the new hard drive and data, or transferring the requested data files to another medium.

The state of the data recovery industry
There are many adequate software applications on the market that focus strictly on logical file recovery (phase three) and many PC shops and technicians employ this method as their sole form of data recovery. However, these obviously do not cover the majority of HDD data recoveries. In fact, our experience shows that only 20% to 30% of all data recovery cases fall into phase three alone. The largest problem created by this state is that there are many technicians who are not aware of the full possibilities in data recovery and this leads to a poorly educated public market.

On average, we see data recovery cases falling into three categories. Some cases may fall into only one, two, or all three categories.

• Software issues (Logical File Recovery) – 20% to 30% of total data recovery jobs
• Electronic or Firmware related issues - 50% to 60% of total data recovery jobs
• Mechanical Issues (Failed Heads Etc.) – 10% to 20% of total data recovery jobs

These percentages are, of course, broad ranging averages. Within each make and model of hard disk drive, these averages can vary greatly. For example, there are some models of certain drives that have consistent firmware issues causing the amount of cases to be as high as 90% firmware related.
Professional data recovery companies need to ensure that they cover all three phases of the data recovery process. As mentioned, phase three is adequately covered by hundreds of software programs on the market. However, only PC-3000, the Disk Imager, and Data Extractor can properly cover phase one and phase two.
Ensuring that the right tools, training and support are available to professional data recovery technicians and ensuring that the public is properly educated about the possibilities for data recovery is what “Sharing the Technology” is all about. We see it as our responsibility to maintain a strong and healthy data recovery industry. For ACE Data Recovery Engineering Inc, this is our mission and mandate.