WEBVTT - How Data Recovery Works 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.960 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:08.959 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:17.960 text style from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:20.360 Welcome to tex stuff. My name is Chris Poulette and 0:00:20.360 --> 0:00:22.840 I am an editor at how stuff works dot Com. 0:00:22.880 --> 0:00:24.960 Sitting across from me, as he always does on the 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:28.600 occasions on which we podcast, is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:33.920 What we have here is a failure to communicate. Isn't 0:00:33.920 --> 0:00:36.800 that the point of the podcast? I think some of 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:40.960 our podcasts have been a failure to communicate. That's true, okay, 0:00:41.000 --> 0:00:44.519 but we've gotten better, uh in some people's eyes. So 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:48.400 let's tackle this topic. What are we talking about today, Chris, 0:00:48.760 --> 0:00:52.360 We're talking about hard drives, or possibly the lack thereof, 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:55.040 depending on what happened to them. I got you now, 0:00:55.040 --> 0:00:57.480 We've already done a podcast about hard drives. It actually 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:00.800 wasn't that long ago. But one thing we didn't really 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:04.160 touch on is how do you get data off a 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:08.199 hard drive if the hard drive has suffered some some problems, 0:01:08.959 --> 0:01:13.039 if it has crashed in some way or another, and uh, 0:01:13.280 --> 0:01:16.320 really to get this out of the way, depending upon 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:20.080 the severity of the crash, there may not be anything 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:23.919 you personally, as in the average customer or average user 0:01:24.200 --> 0:01:26.479 can do to recover that data. Doesn't mean that there's 0:01:26.520 --> 0:01:29.320 no way to get the data back. It just means that, 0:01:29.400 --> 0:01:32.600 depending upon the severity and nature of the crash, Uh, 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.800 it's better to hand it over to a professionals. And 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:39.400 we'll get into why. Um, but let's go ahead and 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:42.600 talk about the fact that there are two major categories 0:01:42.640 --> 0:01:46.480 of hard drive failures. There are logical failures, which I 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:49.080 suffer on a daily basis, not through my hard drive, 0:01:49.200 --> 0:01:54.240 just me by myself. Um. And logical failures that's when 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:59.160 your hard drive suffers some sort of corruption or there's 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:03.480 a logical error where the computer cannot recognize the drive, 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:07.080 can't access the information that's on that drive. Yeah. If 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:10.600 you've ever had had files go corrupt on you, that's 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.640 sort of like what's going on here. Your operating system 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:17.360 can become corrupt and in a lot of cases it 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:20.040 basically well, we can get into the details of that later, 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:21.839 but that's that's what's going on. You can't you can't 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:25.000 read files on it. Yeah. Um, And this can happen 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:28.120 from either again, as Poletts said, like a file, a 0:02:28.120 --> 0:02:31.440 file becomes corrupted. Uh, you could get a virus that 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:33.720 does this sort of thing. Um, there are a lot 0:02:33.720 --> 0:02:37.679 of nasty malware out there that kind of does this 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:42.080 to your hard drive. Uh. And as a result, your 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:45.359 your system bios may recognize the drive, but it's not 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.080 going to boot it, and then you're gonna think, okay, 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:50.840 well what are my options? Uh. So that's one type 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:54.240 of failure. The other type of failure is a physical 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:58.720 failure of the drive. Now we're mainly talking about, um, 0:02:58.760 --> 0:03:01.800 the platter based hard drives here, not the solid state. 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:06.639 Solid state can also suffer physical failures. Uh. Physical damage 0:03:06.720 --> 0:03:09.400 that as a result of things like being exposed to 0:03:09.440 --> 0:03:13.680 magnetic fields, are actually suffering physical damage. But it's a different, 0:03:14.480 --> 0:03:18.799 different kind of damage than the platter based hard drives. Right, 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:21.800 just as a refresher if you didn't listen to the 0:03:21.840 --> 0:03:26.400 hard drive podcast or have forgotten. In a typical traditional 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:30.400 hard drive, you've got a mechanism that is spinning platters. 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:35.160 And Uh, in addition to that mechanism that is spinning platters, 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:39.600 there is a head that is a very very very 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.120 minute distance apart from the platters. It doesn't actually touch 0:03:43.520 --> 0:03:46.280 the platters read and write to well. No, I mean 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:50.480 and in a typical operating, normally operating hard drive it 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:53.080 is it is there to read and write information to it, 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.400 but it does not touch the platters. Now, if the 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:00.800 drive mechanism breaks down, if the pins the connectors that 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:06.800 connected to your computer break um, if the head actually 0:04:06.840 --> 0:04:09.960 touches the platters, which is known as a head crash. Um. 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:12.760 If any of those things happens, you can suffer a 0:04:12.840 --> 0:04:16.680 mechanical failure to your hard drive and your computer may 0:04:16.720 --> 0:04:20.520 no longer be able to operate that device right. And 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:24.719 mechanical failures happen for many different reasons. Uh. It could 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.440 just be from physically moving a computer around and you've 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:30.880 jostled something loose. It could be just the fact that 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.520 you know it's mechanical. Things are moving over and over 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:37.200 and over, and if you have something long enough, those 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:38.960 parts are going to start to have wear and tear 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:41.560 and eventually will break. Or it could be that your 0:04:41.600 --> 0:04:44.120 computer perhaps is generating too much heat and the heat 0:04:44.160 --> 0:04:47.320 in turn is expanding the elements within your hard drive 0:04:47.720 --> 0:04:50.680 and that is what's causing stuff to uh to to 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:54.440 not operate the way it's supposed to heat bad for 0:04:54.560 --> 0:04:56.760 hard drive. Heat is not a good thing. And of 0:04:56.800 --> 0:04:59.720 course they generate them because they're mechanical, yes, and then 0:04:59.760 --> 0:05:02.880 they're you know the whole friction thing. Yeah, yeah, so 0:05:04.200 --> 0:05:06.760 and I. In either case, you're going to have a 0:05:06.800 --> 0:05:09.799 situation where you're not going to be able to access 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:14.239 the information that's stored on that hard drive. And depending 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:18.440 upon the severity of the problem, either with a logical 0:05:18.600 --> 0:05:21.240 or a mechanical issue, you may or may not be 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:26.000 able to retrieve this data on your own. There are 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:29.719 a lot of different kind of do it yourself things 0:05:29.760 --> 0:05:33.240 you can attempt, depending upon the type of problem you have. 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:35.239 Let's say that you have a logical problem, for example, 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:40.680 with your hard drive. Um, if you are fairly adept 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.880 at handling computers, you know you know the ground yourself 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:46.560 before you touch anything inside a computer, for example, and 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:50.640 that you don't feel ill at ease messing around on 0:05:50.680 --> 0:05:54.160 the inerts of a computer. And this mainly applies to desktops. 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:57.400 Laptops are a lot harder to to do do it 0:05:57.440 --> 0:06:01.080 yourself projects on just because the way they're constructed, especially 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:04.880 for people who are less experienced with those projects. Yeah, 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:06.960 some of them require special tools just to get the 0:06:07.000 --> 0:06:10.920 case open, because they're using proprietary screws to hold them closed. 0:06:11.520 --> 0:06:13.719 My fears always how do I get everything back in 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:16.080 it the way it came? YEA for those of us 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.320 who had the kind of childhood where we um took 0:06:20.360 --> 0:06:22.320 stuff apart to see how it worked, and then realized 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:23.840 that when we put it back together it was never 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.000 going to work again. We get nervous when we start 0:06:26.040 --> 0:06:30.760 opening up computers. But you may be able to remove 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:33.280 the hard drive, not open up the hard drive case. 0:06:33.440 --> 0:06:37.080 Never ever ever open up the hard drive case, well 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:39.600 at least not if you expect it to ever work again. Right. 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:41.479 If you want the data that's on that hard drive, 0:06:41.520 --> 0:06:43.960 you will not open it. I mean, okay, if you 0:06:44.080 --> 0:06:47.600 have a clean room and you are trained to do 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:49.880 this kind of thing, and you're a data recovery specialist, 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:52.760 sure then you can open up the hard drive. But 0:06:52.880 --> 0:06:58.440 for everybody else, do not do it right because those 0:06:58.480 --> 0:07:01.560 platters on the on the physical hard drives, the platter 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:05.839 based hard drives, um, if you get any dust on that, 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:10.400 it can it can cause that data to to be 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:13.720 inaccessible forever. You don't want to get dirty. You don't 0:07:13.720 --> 0:07:17.160 want to get scratched. You don't wanna. I mean, there 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.559 are chances that you could clean it or have someone 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:22.680 clean it and get that data back. But just in 0:07:22.720 --> 0:07:26.480 the process of trying to read that that platter, you're 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:28.440 going to find out that you can't get the files 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:29.680 that you thought you were gonna be able to get 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:33.120 just because they got dirty, right right, Well, you know 0:07:33.280 --> 0:07:36.160 that that's do you want to keep going with the 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.120 logical stuff with the mechanical stuff because I was I 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:42.080 have a good bit of information on how they they 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:44.440 get that information back on a mechanical drive, but I 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:47.480 don't want to get into that. Let's do Let's go 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:51.960 with mechanical first, because the mechanical, depending upon again the severity, 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.360 you may be able to do some stuff yourself. Here here, 0:07:55.400 --> 0:07:59.400 here's something that you could potentially do with a mechanical failure. 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:03.480 Now that this is a mechanical failure where uh, I'll 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:06.280 give you three different examples. Here's one where your your 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:09.400 drive is spinning. Here it's spinning, but there's a clicking noise, 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:12.880 something is hitting against something else that's not good. Here's 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:14.720 something that you may have heard that you can do. 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:16.800 You may have heard that you could put your hard 0:08:16.880 --> 0:08:19.480 drive in the freezer. Yes, I have heard that you 0:08:19.520 --> 0:08:22.680 can do that. I mean, granted, obviously you can do that. 0:08:22.720 --> 0:08:25.200 Assuming there's room in your freezer. You could do that. 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.960 And actually, the surprising thing is this can work. Uh. 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:33.559 Of course would have to remove it from the computer first. Yes, yes, okay, 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:37.120 there are some intermediate steps removing it from the computer, 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:40.040 putting it into a ziploc bag so that you don't 0:08:40.040 --> 0:08:43.360 get any condensation on your hard drive, um, and then 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:45.840 putting it into the freezer for around twenty four hours. 0:08:46.320 --> 0:08:48.720 The reason why this might work, this, by the way, 0:08:48.800 --> 0:08:51.440 does not fix the drive. It's just a temporary measure 0:08:51.440 --> 0:08:53.400 so you can get the data off the drive onto 0:08:53.440 --> 0:08:56.520 something else. The reason why this works is because the 0:08:56.640 --> 0:08:59.840 cold will cause the various components within the hard drive 0:08:59.840 --> 0:09:04.120 to contract. So if it if the reason why it's 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:07.080 it's hitting against stuff is because something slightly out of 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:11.199 alignment or heating has caused things to warp a little bit. 0:09:11.520 --> 0:09:15.040 Contracting may cause it to get close enough back to 0:09:15.080 --> 0:09:18.840 the original positions for it to run for a short 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.920 period of time and I'm talking like half an hour max. 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:25.719 So with that in mind, if you've if you could 0:09:25.760 --> 0:09:27.600 put your hard drive in the freezer, and you have 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:29.839 it set up so that you'r you can capture the 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.319 data that's on that hard drive, either using another computer 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:34.840 or your first computer with a new hard drive in it. Whatever, 0:09:36.280 --> 0:09:38.000 you can give that a try. You can hook the 0:09:38.000 --> 0:09:41.160 hard drive back up to a computer, boot it up 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:45.239 and see if it's running, and it might run fine. Um, 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:47.200 but it's not gonna run fine for very long because 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:49.480 as soon as it heats up, it's gonna start warping 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.360 again or or breaking down. So you only have a 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.800 route about, like I said, thirty minutes maybe maximum to 0:09:55.920 --> 0:09:58.680 get the data from that hard drive onto a different 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:02.600 storage device. Uh. Here's something that I feel that we 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:06.440 should mention. What's that that? Um, when we're talking about 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.720 these home remedies, keeping in mind that you know, if 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.080 you try this, you're trying it at your own risk. Yes, 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:15.760 we do not recommend doing this and saying that it's 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.200 going to to fix everything and you're going to be 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:21.319 able to get your You will absolutely be able to 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.680 do this successfully without any problems. There's a good chance 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.880 that you may not get anything from these home remedies, 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:31.600 But the reason that people try them is to avoid 0:10:31.720 --> 0:10:36.200 paying the very large fees the data recovery services charge. Yeah, 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:39.200 as it turns out, like because because to do data 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:42.480 recovery right quote unquote right to the point where you 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:46.760 know you're going to get you know, over the data back. Uh, 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:50.680 it's it's a complicated and technical process, and so it 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:56.040 does cost a pretty penny. Um is not an unusual 0:10:56.120 --> 0:11:00.120 fee to see in in data recovery services. Is at 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.120 an unusual fee to see in data recovery services. But 0:11:03.160 --> 0:11:05.679 did you want to keep going with the one more 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:08.800 home rent or well, kind of like you do a 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:12.240 combo home renmedate. Let's say that you're hard drive is 0:11:12.240 --> 0:11:17.800 not spinning, so it won't spin up right there? There 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:21.880 is a a method where that you can try, if 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.800 you're brave to uh, to see if you can get 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.000 it spinning again, which is, again remove the hard drive 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:30.160 from your computer, and then use what I like to 0:11:30.200 --> 0:11:35.040 call the Fawn's method. You give it a whack with 0:11:35.080 --> 0:11:37.280 the palm of your hand a rubber mallet. Maybe you 0:11:37.800 --> 0:11:40.080 drop it from just a few inches above the table, 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:45.520 and that might unstick whatever is stuck inside your hard drive. 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:49.319 I don't recommend it, but it is it has been 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:52.000 known to work. It has been known to unstick elements 0:11:52.000 --> 0:11:56.040 that have caught together within hard drives. And again it's 0:11:56.040 --> 0:11:58.320 another method where it's a temporary fix. You need to 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.920 get that data off a SAP. Uh So, yeah, that's 0:12:01.960 --> 0:12:04.560 the the hit and or drop method. Those are the 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:10.280 three do it yourself methods for mechanical failures that I 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:15.719 happen to know off the top of my head. Okay, well, um, 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:18.360 you may be saying, okay, so a minute ago, you 0:12:18.360 --> 0:12:21.920 you guys were talking about the data recovery services. Well, 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:24.800 what did they do that so special? Lets them charge 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:27.000 that much money for it? A lot of the data 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.600 recovery services out there, Um, when you take your drive 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:32.320 to them when it's busted, you know that it's a 0:12:32.360 --> 0:12:34.680 mechanical failure going on because you hear the clicking noise, 0:12:34.760 --> 0:12:38.160 or it won't spin up, and or you can see 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:41.160 that the pins have been damaged and you need to 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.960 get the information off of there, perhaps as soon as 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:48.000 you know right now. Um, this is where the data 0:12:48.000 --> 0:12:51.440 recovery services shine. And there may be somebody in your 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.640 hometown or maybe somebody that you need to mail it off. 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:58.040 Uh two. But the thing is what they're gonna do 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.360 when you do that is they will They will probably 0:13:00.400 --> 0:13:04.199 charge you a small fee, maybe hundred dollars, maybe even nothing. 0:13:04.240 --> 0:13:05.800 Maybe they'll do it for free. But what they'll do 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:08.000 is they'll evaluate the drive to see whether or not 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:09.920 they can actually do anything with it. If they think 0:13:09.920 --> 0:13:11.960 they can work with it, they'll let you know, and 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:16.760 they'll let you know approximately how successful they think they'll be. 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.000 And what happens is when you say, okay, yeah, go 0:13:21.040 --> 0:13:23.280 ahead and pull all the data off of there. They're 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:25.480 not going to repair the drive for you. There's not 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:26.760 going to be a lot that they can do in 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.080 the event of a mechanical failure. Like Jonathan was saying 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.160 just a moment ago, there's there's only so long that 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:34.760 that drive is going to work in its current state, 0:13:34.880 --> 0:13:37.680 if it will work at all. Um So, what they're 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:40.920 going to do is a very good data recovery service 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:42.520 is going to have what they call a Class one 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:45.959 clean room. Yeah, this is a room that filters the 0:13:46.040 --> 0:13:50.079 air so that there are fewer than a hundred particulates 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:53.000 floating around inside that room, no bigger than half a 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:56.520 micron in size. We're talking a very very clean clean room. 0:13:56.679 --> 0:14:00.199 And so you've heard us talk about clean rooms before, 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:02.160 because we chatted about it when we were talking about 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.480 building chips like microprocessors. The fact that you need that 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:09.120 because the elements on these chips are so small that 0:14:09.440 --> 0:14:12.240 a moat of dust dwarfs them, and therefore, if it 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:16.240 gets on you know, some silicon when you're about to 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:20.240 process press press eight chip, it's going to ruin that chip. Yeah, 0:14:20.400 --> 0:14:23.000 same sort of thing here. You know, you can't get 0:14:23.080 --> 0:14:25.720 these things. If you want to be able to retrieve 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:29.480 the data from these these crashed hard drives, the platters 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.240 have to be clean, yes, And I mean if you're 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:34.640 trying to if if they're trying to get your data 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:36.880 back and you've had a head crash and their actual 0:14:37.120 --> 0:14:41.240 gouges in the surface of the platter um adding dust 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.400 to it, it's not going to help anything. You're just 0:14:43.400 --> 0:14:46.440 gonna make their job even even more difficult. So they're 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:48.720 going to take the drive apart in a clean room, 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:51.360 and what they're gonna do is they're going to examine 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:53.000 it to see what's going on. So if the drive 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:55.880 mechanism is bad, they're going to move the platters to 0:14:56.760 --> 0:14:59.240 uh a mechanism that will work so that they can 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.640 get the information off of their and enshort. What they're 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:04.800 gonna do is they're going to retrieve the information and 0:15:05.280 --> 0:15:06.880 you know, burn it to a disk for you so 0:15:06.920 --> 0:15:09.120 that you can retrieve the information. Your hard drive is shot, 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:12.840 but um, it sort of depends on what's going on 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:15.560 with it now. Jonathan was also talking about getting stuff 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.920 on it. If your drive has been submerged in water 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:22.880 or you know, caught in a fire. Say you're your 0:15:22.960 --> 0:15:27.560 fan stopped working in your desktop computer and it started 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:31.000 a small fire. You put it out, but your hard 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:34.520 drive got caught in there. Maybe it's only suffered you know, 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:37.200 a little smoke damage, but you still can't use it. 0:15:37.600 --> 0:15:39.760 They're going to have to take the platters out and 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:42.720 clean them very carefully with the with the solution that 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:45.840 they use for that kind of thing, something that's not 0:15:45.880 --> 0:15:49.080 going to affect the readA or right ability of the 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:52.800 platter I guess, and put it in a mechanism again 0:15:52.880 --> 0:15:56.360 that that will work. Uh, and do that now. And 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.640 when we say mechanism a lot of these hard drives, 0:15:59.640 --> 0:16:02.960 what you have to do is have an identical working 0:16:03.360 --> 0:16:07.800 hard drive. Because hard drives come in different shapes and sizes, 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:11.280 they come in differently. You know it's and it's just 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:12.760 one of those things where it's not like they have 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:15.520 a universal device and you put a platter in there 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:18.160 and it's gonna work perfectly. That's another reason why it's 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:22.000 so expensive for these for these businesses to work properly, 0:16:22.040 --> 0:16:26.360 they need to have spare parts from lots and lots 0:16:26.360 --> 0:16:30.640 of different uh hard drives. Um. One of the other 0:16:30.720 --> 0:16:33.040 kind of physical failures, which you know, I didn't really 0:16:33.120 --> 0:16:35.520 chat about because again I was focusing on the do 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:37.800 it yourself, and this is really not to do it yourself, 0:16:38.640 --> 0:16:42.720 is an electronic failure where the circuit board beneath your 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.680 hard drive, the thing that connects the connecting point between 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:48.480 your hard drive and your actual computer, the physical connecting 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:52.320 point that can have a problem, that can suffer a failure, 0:16:52.400 --> 0:16:56.160 in which case you really need someone else to fix it, 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:58.800 like to give you an identical circuit board and connect 0:16:58.800 --> 0:17:01.280 it all together properly for to to come back, and 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:02.600 you may not even be able to do that. That 0:17:02.640 --> 0:17:05.720 computer might be shot or you may have to rebuild 0:17:05.760 --> 0:17:08.840 from that that point on, in which case data recovery 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:11.280 is really your only, your only option to get that 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:13.920 information back anyway. You're not gonna you know, it's not 0:17:13.960 --> 0:17:19.399 necessarily repair thing, it's a recovery. So uh. Again, if 0:17:19.400 --> 0:17:21.639 you take it to a data recovery specialists, they're going 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:23.679 to have to have those parts in stock to be 0:17:23.760 --> 0:17:27.479 able to to do anything, because again it's not a 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:33.240 one size fits all sort of model. Everything's proprietary. Yeah. 0:17:33.240 --> 0:17:36.720 The most the most serious problem that you could have 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:40.360 as a mechanical failure, I would say, is when there's 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:43.639 actual physical damage to the platters themselves, the likelihood of 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:48.280 getting information back off of that that disk is less 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:51.159 than a lot. It depends on It depends on a 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:53.560 lot of different factors, how bad the gouges are and 0:17:53.600 --> 0:17:55.520 where they are on the disc, and how good your 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.879 data recovery specialist is. There's some data recovery specialists out 0:17:58.880 --> 0:18:02.560 there who have men age to retrieve data from hard 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:06.080 drives that I would have sworn were beyond the ability 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:09.960 to to salvage UM. And you actually had a really 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.000 good example of that. You send it to me about 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:16.440 the uh, the hard drive recovered from a Space shuttle. Yes, 0:18:16.760 --> 0:18:19.480 the Space Shuttle Columbia, which, as many of you will remember, 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:23.920 UM had a a problem that caused it to burn 0:18:24.000 --> 0:18:27.480 up on re entry and it broke apart, of course, 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:32.600 killing me the astronauts on board unfortunately, and UM, of course, 0:18:32.680 --> 0:18:34.359 a lot of the parts were recovered. A lot of 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:37.840 the pieces of the shuttle were recovered, including at least 0:18:37.880 --> 0:18:41.480 three of the hard drives, and UM NASA sent those 0:18:41.960 --> 0:18:44.639 UH to one of the giants in the industry and 0:18:44.680 --> 0:18:48.440 all on track UM to have them recovered. Now, two 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:50.760 of the drives that that were mentioned in this MSNBC 0:18:50.960 --> 0:18:53.960 article UM they had a whole media section with lots 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:56.360 and lots of articles about what they do UM, as 0:18:56.440 --> 0:18:59.639 as many good marketers will do UM. But they had 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.800 an the article on MSNBC U it was really fascinating 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.639 because two of their hard drives were burned so badly 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.719 that they really couldn't do much with it. Another one, however, 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:12.840 UM had suffered a had suffered damage to the platters, 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.000 but they were able to clean the platters off and 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:20.960 get the information, not because UM, you know, the gouges 0:19:21.000 --> 0:19:25.439 weren't significant, but because the data had stopped writing short 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:27.840 of where the gouges were, so that the data was 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.480 intact up to the point where the gauges started. The 0:19:31.640 --> 0:19:33.720 undamaged part of the platter. It was the part that 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.200 actually had data written to it was the damaged part. 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:38.840 No data had been written to that section yet. And 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:41.359 you may remember in our hard drive podcast we talked 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:44.400 about how when you write information to a hard drive, 0:19:44.440 --> 0:19:48.040 it doesn't necessarily do it sequentially on the platter itself. 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.159 So you're trying to you're not necessarily gonna have two 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:54.520 sectors next to each other containing one really big file. Well, 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:58.520 in that particular instance, you did because they were using sauce, 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:02.600 which has a different way. I mean, it actually stored 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:07.439 data sequentially on the hard drive, so it wasn't saved. 0:20:07.440 --> 0:20:12.240 Willy nilly, I'm sorry, I keep talking. Every keep just interrupting. 0:20:12.280 --> 0:20:15.000 You keep going, please, um no, No. That That's the 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:18.200 thing about about that is that in this case they 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:22.639 were the drive recovery specialists who were able to save 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:27.000 information that the scientists said can had conducted while they 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:30.600 were out in space. So that was a very very 0:20:30.640 --> 0:20:33.680 positive outcome for that particular instance. But unfortunately, the other 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:36.760 two drives were damaged beyond repair, and that you know, 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:39.359 is certainly not unheard of even for the best of 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:42.080 the best. Right, Yeah, if the if the platters have 0:20:42.160 --> 0:20:45.800 suffered real severe damage, then there may be nothing you 0:20:45.800 --> 0:20:49.080 can do. Um, you mentioned flooding. I was gonna point this. 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.040 This is not really a do it yourself but this 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:52.840 is one of those things that it's good to know 0:20:53.000 --> 0:20:56.520 in case you ever are in a situation where, uh, 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:58.960 you have a hard drive that's been submerged in water, 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:01.800 but for you take it to a specialist, you may 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:05.520 want to continue to have it submerged in water. Really yeah, 0:21:05.680 --> 0:21:09.840 here's the reason why. Uh. When the water gets into 0:21:09.880 --> 0:21:12.560 the hard drive, it can be caring, carrying lots of 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:17.200 particulate matter along with the water. When that hard drive 0:21:17.400 --> 0:21:20.800 dries out, that particulate matter can adhere to the platters 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:23.479 on your hard drive. I see. So that can make 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:26.000 it more difficult to clean the hard drive and makes 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:27.679 it less likely that you're going to get all your 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:31.000 data back. Um, if you submerge the hard drive in water, 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:35.520 that can keep the particulates uh kind of suspended in 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.480 the solution of the water, and you can take it 0:21:38.520 --> 0:21:41.040 to the recovery specialists who can then in a very 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:44.520 controlled manner, remove the hard drive, dry it out, and 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:48.520 clean it so that it's these little particulates don't get 0:21:48.560 --> 0:21:50.800 stuck to the platters. So what you're saying is if 0:21:50.840 --> 0:21:53.440 it's if it's still submerged in water, keep it still 0:21:53.440 --> 0:21:56.560 submerged in water. Yeah, yeah, because I would assume that 0:21:56.640 --> 0:21:58.640