Blog — Data Recovery and Cybersecurity

Lightning and Power Surges: the Electronics Die, but Your Data Often Survives

A lightning strike or a power surge does not destroy your data: it burns out the electronics that let you access it. On a hard drive, it is almost always the circuit board or the power supply that takes the hit, while the platters remain intact. In the vast majority of cases, replacing the board and transferring the ROM is enough to recover the content. This article explains where the voltage spike comes from (mishandling, distant lightning, flooding), what burns out depending on the device (hard drive, SSD, USB stick, server or NAS), and why the outlook often remains good. Two reflexes are essential: do not keep trying to power on a device that has suffered a surge, and be wary of any burnt smell. On the prevention side, a UPS protects critical hardware, a surge protector the rest, and a backup remains indispensable.

Flooded Hard Drive: Why You Must Not Let It Dry Out (and What to Do Instead)

A hard drive that has been in water is not doomed, provided you do not let it dry out as is. It is not the water that kills a drive, it is the corrosion that follows: when the water evaporates, the conductive salts and residues remain on the circuit board and keep eating away at the metal. This guide explains, with the chemistry behind it, the three destructive mechanisms (short circuit, oxidation, electrolytic corrosion) and details the right first-aid steps: never plug it back in, remove the circuit board, rinse it with clean water, dry it fast, never open the casing, and hand the drive over to a lab as fast as possible. You will also find the aggravated cases (mud, extinguishing powder, chemicals), the time factor and an insurance trap well worth knowing: do not let the cleanup company sort through or throw away your storage media.

Clicking Hard Drive: What the Noise Means and Why You Must Switch It Off

Is your hard drive going click click? This noise is not harmless, but it is not an immediate death sentence either. This guide explains what really happens inside: the read/write heads can no longer read the firmware stored on the platters, the circuit board keeps returning them to the stop of the parking zone, and this back-and-forth produces the clicking. Behind one and the same noise lie four possible causes, from a simple head replacement repairable in a cleanroom to permanent loss when a broken head grinds away the surface. You will understand why every restart to see if it works makes the failure worse, why the freezer, opening the drive or swapping the board must be avoided, and what the only reasonable action is before entrusting the device to a laboratory.

Hard disk operation

The precision of a read head is comparable to that of a Boeing 747 flying at 272 km per second, less than a centimeter above the ground, while being able to count every single blade of grass.

5mm High Hard Drives for 2015

Microprocessor and motherboard manufacturer Intel is working with hard drive manufacturers to standardize a new 2.5" disk format for Ultrabooks. The idea is to reduce the size of hard drives by 28%.

PMR Hard Drives

Since 2006, hard drives have used a technology called PMR (Perpendicular Magnetic Recording) for data recording.

Hard Drives Exceeding 60TB with HAMR Technology

In March 2012, Seagate was the first manufacturer to successfully store more than 1Tb per square inch using HAMR technology.

Hitachi and the 4TB Hard Drive

As announced some time ago, Hitachi has released a 4TB hard drive.

Hard Drives Only 7mm Thick

Hard drive manufacturer Hitachi recently announced a new range of hard drives intended primarily for laptops.

The specificity of these hard drives lies in their size, since they will measure only 7 millimeters thick. Available in 3 capacities - 250 GB, 320 GB and 500 GB - these hard drives all operate at 7200 rpm, have a S-ATA 6 Gbps interface and have a reduced consumption: 1.8 watts in read/write and 0.8 watts in standby.

SSD Hard Drive Price Drop in the United States

Whether a consequence of the floods that affected "classic" hard drive manufacturers in 2011 or a favorable economic situation, the price of SSD hard drives seems to be decreasing endlessly in the United States.