Hosted by Steve Cherubino and Scott Moulton of MyHardDriveDied.com.

Running time: 1:00:25
Added: 5 Mar 2010

My Hard Drive Died #9

Scott Moulton

Computer Forensic and Data Recovery Services

www.MyHardDriveDied.com

Topics discussed:

Question from Steve:

Q: How did you get started in the Data Recovery industry?

A: I started repairing hard drives when I was a member of the IT staff at NICS (Network Installation Computer Services).  
I have no formal training; everything that I know has been self-taught based on trial and errors and many years of experience.

New Data Recovery Process

Surgical cloning allows extracting data based on selected Files/Directories instead of having to clone the entire drive.  
It avoids having to read the entire drive and cause possible damage during such reading process.  
Extracting a single folder (My Documents) from a 60GB drive took only about 10 minutes.

A standard cloning procedure on the entire drive would’ve taken about 2-3 hours.

Software Intelligence Cloning Companies

Salvation Data (Product: Data Compass) 
A disk data recovery equipment built to extract data from failed hard drives

DeepSpar Data Recovery Systems (Product: DeepSpar Disk Imager)

Allows imaging data for selected types of files and directories

Master File Table (MFT)

Each file on an NTFS volume is represented by a record in a special file called the master file table (MFT).

New Western Digital Drives (4K blocks) 
Western Digital has started shipping drives that drop the ancient 512 byte disk sector for a 4k sector. 
Advanced Format is the term to which Western Digital refers to its latest 4K products.  
The main purpose is to increase capacity and to provide faster speed. 

New Data Recovery Tool 
Computer Science Labs' Spindle, Extraction and Replacement Tool (SERT) is used for the precision removal and restoration of multiple platter hard disk drive systems where spindle bearings or motors have seized or failed. SERT addresses the most evident manufacturer types. 
SERT Video

Past Conferences

ShmooCon 2010 (Feb 5 thru 7, 2010 - Washington, DC) 
Security conference & Data Recovery

Scott’s presentation “Understanding a Broken Drive” and YouStream Video

Hackerpaces

Community-operated physical places, where people can meet and work on their projects. 
This website is for everyone who started or wants to start their own hackerspace.

List of hackerspaces

Arduino

Arduino is an open-source electronics prototyping platform based on flexible, easy-to-use hardware and software.  
It's intended for artists, designers, hobbyists, and anyone interested in creating interactive objects or environments.

Upcoming Conferences 
Outerz0ne 6 (Mar 19 thru 20, 2010 - Atlanta, GA)

Next Data Recovery Classes

Washington DC  Apr 12th-16th

San Diego   May 10th-14th

San Francisco  Jun 14th-18th

Atlanta   Jul 12th-16th

Chicago  Sep 13th-17th

Dallas   Oct 11th-15th

Washington DC  Dec 6th-10^th

Notes by Jorge Hernandez of 123ComputerRepair.com