Disk Drive Planet

Data Recovery company Birmingham Alabama

diskdrive — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 04:23:33 +0000

The only Data Recovery company Birmingham Alabama that we like is Vulcan Data in Hoover. If you are attempting to recover data from a hard drive that still spins, and does not make any clicking noises, the chances are, 92% of the time, they can recover your files, documents and precious photos for less than $200. If you are looking for head replacements, controller cards, or other physcial repairs, get out your check book – it will cost you.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Hard Drive replacements are here – Welcome the new SSDs

diskdrive — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 03:45:32 +0000

Faster than expected, the new hard-drives, known as SSDs are here. SSD – or Solid State Drives, are the replacement for the long failing, spinning mechanical versions that have driven the data recovery business for the past 30 years. Affordable now as a replacement, these drive can now be had for a paltry $115 for a 40GB variety

Posted in Uncategorized Tagged: hard drive repair

My thumb drive is not recognized

diskdrive — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:39:38 +0000

A common situation, you insert your thumb drive into your computer and nothing happens. You remove it, insert it into another machine, still nothing. There are 3 possibilities:

You have broken the connector on your thumb drive
You have lost or corrupted the boot record on the thumb drive
Your board or chipset is dead, and a circuit(s) is broken

The first 2 items can be corrected. The 3rd is almost impossible, and most repair companies refuse to accept dead boards because consumers refuse to pay for the repair and expenses involved. If you have a thumb drive with the 1st 2 symptoms, you can have your data recovered for under $90 most of the time.

Posted in Data Recovery, Flash Memory Tagged: flash drive is not recognized, thumb drive is not recognized

Intel shipping new flash drives

diskdrive — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:04:49 +0000

The all new drives are labeled X25-M. In fact, Intel decided to not change the model name of these new 34nm drives, which is apt to confuse some of you who go out hunting for the new and improved version.As of today, the channel price quoted for the X-25M 80GB is $225 (down from $595 at introduction one year ago) and the 160GB version is $440 (down from $945) for quantities up to 1,000 units.

Posted in Uncategorized

Microsoft releases Windows 7 on the public

diskdrive — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 12:48:21 +0000

Microsoft releases Windows 7 on the public

Bill Gates unveiled the new Windows operating system know as Windows 7 on an unsuspecting public at the TED conference. No software was actually released, just the bugs were let out. Microsoft is rumored to be developing a viral strain that can be inhaled to wipe out competitors

Posted in Uncategorized

Flash Drives pushing over 1 GB/s transfer rate

diskdrive — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 13:58:41 +0000

A new configuration from Micron can push data at over 1GB/sec over a PCIe card with 2 SSD flash drives

Posted in Flash Memory

How to repair a damaged usb flash drive

diskdrive — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:47:38 +0000

Flash drives today are ubiquitous, mainly because they have become very affordable, and much more portable than external disk drives. Unfortunately, the risks associated with flash media can be more than traditional disk drives. Most folks do not understand tthe procedure to unmount drives before removing them from the port. This procedure is very important to prevent corruption of the partition and file tables. Most flash drives employ the use of FAT16 or FAT32 file systems to allow for universal access from all operating systems (Mac, PC, and Linux). Unfortunately, these file systems are easily corrupted during write operations as the drives are removed. Most of the time the files are still there, but the file tables and formatting are corrupt, making the drive unreadable, and unusable. Many times the user mistakenly FORMATS the drive when prompted by the OS- which can be devastaing for your data.

Many times, formatting your drive will make it functional, but most times you will permenantly destroy your data. So it is always good to know a few techniques to avoid data loss.

Rules:

Never write to your flash drive if you cannot see your data – this means, do not format, and do not use anti-corruption tools or “disk repair” tools like SpinRite, or any other S.M.A.R.T based (Self Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) tools that write to your drive
If you don’t understand sectors, cylinders, file structure, and do not have a thorough understanding of file systems, do NOT ATTEMPT to use this guide
You should always have two copies of your files, and you should NEVER use flash media as primary storage, rather, only to move files from one place to another. Now ask yourself, why are you reading this if you have another copy of your missing files?

If you are an IT professional, and have experience with CLI, click here for instructions and tools

If you are a Do-it-yourself guy – click here for instructions

Posted in Uncategorized

Water-proof and fire-proof hard drive promises protection for data

diskdrive — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 13:19:21 +0000

Many business and homeowners have experienced the loss of data to fire, flooding, and natural disasters. Now there is a company who intends to protect us from all these forms of data disaster. ioSafe is looking to be the first company to protect data from both water and fire with their new design, “DataCast endothermic insulation technology, which the manufacturer claims forms a chemical bond with water molecules that, at temperature above 160 degrees Fahrenheit, releases water vapor to limit the internal temperature of the unit.” The story

Why USB drives are not recognized, not visible in the drive list

diskdrive — Thu, 08 May 2008 02:18:21 +0000

Many folks are left pondering this question: Why can’t I see my USB drive or thumb drive?” The biggest issue we see with faulty flash drives are users removing the drives from the port during a write operation. Most operating systems such as Windows, Linux, Unix(Mac), and others warn you about removing flash drives before unmounting. It may not make sense to you why this needs to be done, but if your computer is writing to any device while you unplug it, your run the risk of destroying file tables, formatting, files, and other stuff that you will lose when you “snatch and run”.

Static electricity can also be a potential problem with these drive, so it is a good idea to protect the connectors after removal from the machine to prevent current discharges across the circuit board/chips during transport. Most drives come with a cap to protect the connectors, and some have a slider to move everything inside much like a turtle.

Flash Read Error, Flash Drive not recognized- How to repair USB flash drive

diskdrive — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 15:48:51 +0000

Many times we see flash storage that is not recognized by the Operating System due to formatting problems, read errors, and lost file table information. Many times this is not a disaster, but rather an easily and quickly correctable data recovery issue that can be handled cheaply by a professional recovery shop.

If you feel you are up to the challenge you will need several things:

Weller WP25 Soldering iron
Weller ST7 Solder Iron Tip-Conical
Soldering station with alligator clips. iron holder & magnifying glass
putty knife or strong blade to cut into drive case
some soldering skill

Please do not attempt this procedure if you cannot afford to lose all your data, leave this procedure to the professionals.

The first step is to 1-gently cut into the case, not touching any of the sensitive components inside (this is really a ONE-SHOT deal) if you screw them up, oh well, you saved money but lost all your data. 2-peel back the case, exposing the board and chipset. 3-identify the broken connectors, this is the trick, and you may need a higher powered dual-scope for this procedure. Resolder the connectors after identifying them. If this procedure does not work, you may need to remove the connector completely, and attach wires to the board that are tied to a new cable connector. (refer to images)

This image will guide you to connector alignment(do not connect to the wrong lead, you WILL damage your data) making sure the alignment is correct. Connect your newly repaired usb connector to the machine….VOILA !!

If you have difficulty in this procedure, please give us a call