DIY Data Recovery

Yup, you read it right.   Recovery Force now has a page to help support those of you who are trying to save a few bucks and do the data recovery yourselves.

Disclaimer:  Recovery Force is not liable for any damages or data loss caused as a result of DIY data recovery attempts.

If there is any concern about the physical condition of the hard drive (ie, it is making strange sounds), do not power it on and call Recovery Force at 866-750-3169 to discuss the safest course of action.

It is strongly advised that you take the time to review the following article, the Data Recovery Process before you proceed with any attempt to run data recovery software.

If there is even a remote chance that you might send your drive to Recovery Force or any other professional data recovery lab:

• DO NOT Open the drive’s cover
• DO NOT Freeze the hard drive
• DO NOT Cook the hard drive
• DO call for advice first.

Assuming that you have read the data recovery process  and have confirmed that the hard drive in question detects, is physically stable and something that you are comfortable to work with, you should follow these steps:

1. Clone the drive with something that can handle drives with bad sectors and keeps a log so you never read a sector twice
   • Software – GNU ddrescue (Simple guide to using ddrescue) or HDDSuperClone
   • Hardware – DeepSpar Disk Imager or RapidSpar Disk Imager
   • Cheap Hardware – Startech Drive Duplicator (does not log read errors)
2. Connect the clone to a working system running Linux, Windows or Mac OS and scan the clone with a software recovery program
   • R-Studio – Download R-Studio Demo
3. Save the recovered data to anything you wish, except to the original hard drive and the clone.  We recommend a new USB 3 hard drive.
4. Make sure you verify that all the recovered data is good.  Just because a file name is listed, does not mean that the contents of the file are accessible.  Especially if the clone has missing sectors, be sure to set the clone aside with the original until you are 100% confident that you won’t need further recovery efforts.