WARNING to all viewers: DON'T EVER OPEN a hard drive when it's not inside a laminar chamber. (The author indeed does this in one, even if that isn't visible.) Opening a hard drive needs a 100% zero-dust environment, otherwise both a new head and the data platter itself would be destroyed by any leftover dust particle as soon as the drive is powered on. Tolerances in hard drives are very fine, the space between a working head and a platter is about 5-15 μm.
Nah, some of what he says is kinda cap like the description key or needing that tool. Wonder if it could have just been the board was bad. Never even explored it
For people confused about the encryption key: A lot of these drives actually contain an encryption key in the controller inside the drive itself. This key *not* meant to actually encrypt or secure your information; the idea is that you can instantly erase the entire drive by simply randomizing that key inside the controller. So it's more for instant full-disk erasure than general data protection. The alternative to this would be to manually erase and randomize each sector, which not only takes hours, but also reduces disk life. Simply randomizing the key does not deteriorate the drive and irreversible 'destroys' all information with zero wait time.
Thanks for explaining, but the use case sounds weird. Why would you want to "remove" everything instantly? You can have the same by just reformatting the disk ? (It will remove only partition table, not the information)
@@s0meus3r Reformatting the disk doesn't truly remove anything. The data is still there and easily accessed using file recovery tools, many of which are free. Formatting merely delists all files from immediate view. As you save new files, they're then written over the old ones. So if you want to protect your privacy when throwing away a drive for example (or have less than 5 seconds to protect yourself from an FBI raid) then simply formatting the drive doesn't protect you.
@NotGarbageLoops and that's exactly what I am telling about. What is the point of having encryption when the key can be extracted ? Clearly, privacy is not a concern in this case. So the only reason is the "fast secure full clean" - but it's quite questionable ... you potentially sacrifice slightly the performance or pay for hardware encryption for a case that is rarely used ?
@@s0meus3rEncryption is incredibly fast if done in hardware, which is the case here. So I doubt you'd see any difference without it. The reason conventional encryption is slow is because it runs in the CPU. But this has dedicated hardware right in the controller optimized for speed and low power.
Don't try this at home! There are many things to check first besides just assuming the heads went bad. Also, a clean environment is required when you open one of these and I'm not talking about Clorox...
@@HavocBlack as long as you understand the risk. as it'll most likely not be able to store more data on it. in an ideal situation if you do open one, you need a air positive room with no dust. (clean room)
@@SibaNLactually hdd as lots of stabilisationsstem ewen if not perfect. They can move up an down magnetically controlled head which mens if no power failures and no damages amd air is clean... sstem of hd will handle small alignmen errrs of heads.. but still its smallfixes... atleas thats what iv seen when i opened one yeara befre...
@robbykeane7802 If it is SSD, it's a little cheaper. If it's an HDD it's a lot more expensive to fix. The reader is the most expensive part. It is very difficult to swap out the reader. You are right
Dust, oxidation, and impurities in the air cause the drive to damage itself just by running. It'll work for maybe about 20-50 hours before the data starts becoming unrecoverable.
You are doing a great work with this harddisk, I really could use your help, I have a none working harddisk with 80 GB that have been laying around for 10 years. A lot of memories so I haven't had the heart to throw it away.
I work in retail PC repair. I'd say 1 in 40 people actually have the encryption key. The rest call us incompetent because they can't keep up with important details. 🤷
Dude, the more of these videos I see from this content creator and this shop operator the more respect I've got for what he does. Really really impressive stuff.
Note that it works because this type of drives isn't pressure dependant. If it was helium filled, he wouldn't be able to recover the data without some SERIOUS equipment.
@@lauraprates8764 Thanks. May I please know how you knew about that? I couldn't find context in the video that indicates it's a SED. Is it the serial number on the drive? BTW, I'm getting into the field of digital forensics, and later, I'll get into disk forensics, so I'm just curious if it's THAT EASY to decrypt that drive if it's a SED, maybe the decryption key shoudl't be plain text? Unless it's an old one maybe idk.
@@__someone__3141 SEDs aren't that good outside of the enterprise world, but for applications that require more security you have additional standards, like FIPS 140-2/3
It sometimes isn't readable. MD did get lucky, but this is still a legit last effort technique. Do note that the spliced drive won't last more than a week or two at best! It's been contaminated by room dust.
@@PhotonicEmissionhe probly did have the room cleaned a lot and he blasted it with green light in case too so he had a little more chance than the avarage joe trying to get his homework folders back
Laminar chamber. Designed specifically to do zero-dust work. This is a portable device that you place over a mat you work on, turn it on, and do open-drive works only when on. It keeps enforcing vertical flow of air through a particle filter in order not to allow the drive to catch any.
At most data recovery speciality facilities they keep the room at a massive positive pressure and they filter the air to remove almost all if not all the dust. I also thought this because I didn't know there was a portable version of this.
You, my friend, are truly a magician 🎩! You are the last hope for many people who not only have valuable data, but often sentimental date the may be lost forever! You, more often than not, come through for them! Great job! God bless and take care...
That’s nothing new. Before drives we had to have documents,photos in literal file cabinets, binders ect. Both new and old formats are subjected to their own flaws.
No thats the pain of being foolish enough not to have multiple backups. Use the 3-2-1 rule: 3 drives 2 types of mediums(hdd and ssd) 1 kept offsite but at the very least at least have one backup
This isn't the money grab you think it is. With the cheap prices of cloud storage, only absolute idiots would pay you to do this. 10 years ago, yeah you could have made a lil money off it.
@@JoshuaNY93BX Have you done it to build a small chamber with air clean? Have you got successful to recover your data by replaced the heads? I'd love to know!
I'm glad you could recover the data. But, you opened the drive. Any contaminants will cause further issues. The big question, how did you know the heads were bad before opening it?
He's recovering the data to another drive this HDD is dead it's not getting put back in any system except recycling this is just a data recovery process.
Clicking sounds, scraping sounds, whisper sounds, whirring with vibration, whirring with an electric groan, all these are external indications of failed rw heads
He casually did it because he had it from the owner, so he just had to type it in. A full drive decryption brute force on a drive like that would take hundreds or thousands of years with current technology.
Totally unnecessary. You can just copy bit to bit and make a drive clone. No need for decryption. This guy just wanted to see his client private photos.
@@suprememasteroftheuniverseEh, yes and no. You're right, you can make a bit-bit copy, but there's a few factors you should take into account: 1. The drive is living on borrowed time, it may not live through a full drive read - if there's only 10GB used on it, why not copy only those 10GB? 2. The top level listing is usually used as proof of recovery. So usually with drive recovery companies, customer send them the drive, they see if it's recoverable, they get a top level directory listing, then they show a screen shot of that to the customer and ask them if they'd like to proceed with the full recovery for XYZ dollars. And if they can't recover it, they don't charge. That being said, guarantee you they look at and sometimes keep private customer photos. Whenever people are in a position where they have privy like that, they will inevitably abuse it.
@@MrSlowestD16if the damaged part was replaced why would it not live enough to recover the data? It's not the magnetic disc that is damaged so it shouldn't get worse in the nearest future again. Yes, it may not be as reliable in the further span of time, but it's not like 10 minutes left.
This video is 5 star literally. This is an extremely technical repair. Must be done by professionals only. If those platters move even one 1 micron off set to the other platters, you will never recover any data.
Yep fixing computers during my teens and 20s then even replacing stuff like that but not know where to go and seeing this my mind is blown, fucking awesome man wish i had these skills
There are 2 ways to avoid this, 1) don't buy WD or Seagate, buy Toshiba instead. 2) Avoid overheating, when use inside computer case, always let at least one fan directly blowing at them.
There is 2 critical things missing. 1. Only do this in a dust free clean room. If you don't, the surface of platters will being to oxidize and moisture and micro-dust particles can ruin them. 2. The donor drive not only has to be the same model, but also have the same firmware revision and sometimes comes from the same factory facility with matching parts.
Ours was a different study, I know that one day the 2TB will suddenly will say its final ping to my PC and it suddenly cannot get detected and it slows down or not let my bios boot normally until I isolated everything and found out that the 2TB hard disk we have since 2010 as our memories backup was broken, no spinning, no clicking, no signs of life except for the fact the controller is warm but not too much, the warm just to tell you its alive and working... im so devastated 😢 💔
If important data is stored on only one hard drive, then it is not important to the owner. Important data is always kept on at least two different storage media.
As someone that's graduated from college with a technical certificate for IT and CompTIA A+. I view this incredibly helpful in data recovery of my own hardware. Thanks for teaching me how to repair a hard drive. Sadly I don't think the same could be said for ssds
They do under some conditions (I'm not sure if it's all types or just some), but it's not gonna happen in an hour that he needs to read the data. That drive likely won't last long after this.
So after replacing old head to new head in the broken HDD we basically decrypt it's (undecryptable) data, transfer the files to the New HDD and re-screw it all together and live with two injured HDD's that will soon come back to service with another similar issue. To say short: you developped 2x Double Invalid Trouble and protected your family's salary.
All I can say is... "Don't Stop." This is obviously what you were meant to do! You are great at explaining the repair! I have no lisence or education in computer repair, but, there is nothing I wouldn't do! If my computer needed a new processor and the motherboard needs to be transfered to a brotherboard running windows 23? I would do it myself! But I would utilize the internet to get help in my repair! And here you are!! Keep it up! And Thanks! ✌️
I always knew that opening an HDD basically means destroying it, since even the smallest amount of dirt on the disk inside can prevent it from being read anymore.
Important note, everyone else already mentioned it: 1. Clean Room-like Environment needed (Chamber, or whatever else, DUST FREE) 2. You often times need a compatible Head which is almost exclusively a donor part from an EXACT model of the same Hard drive. 3. Dont do tis crap if ur not 100% sure you know what you do, this guy used atleast 4-5k worth of tools
@@returnedinformation1040It access directly the drive, on most OSes you can't do this because the drive are in a abstraction layer and only the kernel can access it directly, but this device is a middle man and then can access it directly
@@returnedinformation1040 Honest answer? I suspect absolutely nothing other then it being used as a hardware based drm* solution for the manufacturer. Most likely all of the vendor specific information is just stored on a encrypted flash somewhere on the board. * - Software is easy to pirate. Hardware not so much esp if none of the vendor specific information ever leaves the board.
@@boltez6507 It looks like from the video that he was somehow able to extract it from the drive itself. Which seems like bad security to keep your keys in plaintext on the thing that you're encrypting.
Awesome work! Keep it up. I just hope HD manufactures don’t decide to serialize the heads or something stupid like that. These companies that are anti repair in the name of “security” take/steal your info and profit more off your information than most thieves would.
I have one of these WD 1TB for laptops. Windows ran Chkdsk and said it had to rebuild its "Master File Table." After 6h, it was still running. I asked Bing A.I. how much this process would take and it had no idea. I powered down the laptop and did the only right thing to do with that piece of junk.
My girlfriend and I met on Call of Duty. Of all games, and we spent over a year long distance playing games together, recording so many games of us together getting to know each other and I have two hard drives that have this same issue. PLEASE, if there's a way to recover the data I still have them just hoping there's a way to see all the good times we had 😢 Ty for your time
"these go bad all the time" me sitting here with terabytes of drives from 2010 that have been powered on for most of that time since... With no more than a handful of bad sectors across every drive XD
If important data is stored on only one hard drive, then it is not important to the owner. Important data is always kept on at least two different storage media.
We had a tech do exactly this back in the 1970s, and destroyed 4 washing machine sized drives & disk packs during routine maintenance at a customer site…. it took three engineers about a week to rebuild the physical drives and restore their critical backups. Luckily they had a pretty good support contract. That ping-ping-ping sound is something you never want to hear. About two months later, despite company policy of ‘no jewellery’, the same guy almost lost a finger - shorting his gold ring across the power supply of a similar drive. He doesn’t work there any more.
You don't need that pc3000 if the heads are from the same make and model hard drive. And you can free up locked head by putting the drive in the freezer and then plugging it in cold and leaving it. Used to do that to old 30 gig fujitsu that didn't spin or had locked heads.
Hold on, hold on, hold on. Please rewind to "let's find the decryption key" and "bing bam boom we can see all of his data". Are you telling me drive encryption is redundant and useless? :-(
I'm not sure why the customer needed the PC-3000 if all that was wrong was the heads. Swap it out, confirm it works, and ship it back to him. No need to charge him extra.
Damn this data forensics device is sick as hell. Shame they go for almost 10 grand used... big big money in data recovery, but big investment to get the big boy tools for it.
And this is why we have backups. Flash drives, ssds, on-line, etc. So many ways to duplicate your data so you don't get stuck in this situation. Would have been a lot cheaper to back it up before the accident happened
PSA. Even if you did similar repairs in the past successfully without a clean room, tolerances have gotten much tighter.. A single speck of dust WILL ruin a platter..on newer hdds.
The thing that intridges me is that the software can decrypt the drive without the password (unless this is standard windows encryption and not whatever users enable (think it is bitlocker))
WARNING to all viewers: DON'T EVER OPEN a hard drive when it's not inside a laminar chamber. (The author indeed does this in one, even if that isn't visible.)
Opening a hard drive needs a 100% zero-dust environment, otherwise both a new head and the data platter itself would be destroyed by any leftover dust particle as soon as the drive is powered on.
Tolerances in hard drives are very fine, the space between a working head and a platter is about 5-15 μm.
Tag this man. Crucial information right here
Yep,, just one speck of dust and blahhh.
@@rodhester2166blahh xp??? Is that you???
I was really confused when he opened the drive
No?
The “PC-3000” is the most 80’s thing I’ve ever heard
Fr lol
And it looks like something made in the 90s or early 2000's
So which is the latest software used for data recovery, just asking for GK
@@desigamer6339it’s definitely the pc-3000 If he uses it very frequently throughout his videos on computers, hard drives, new phones etc.
@@user-yh7pt6zg9e thank u bruhhh
This video is soo underrated man. Love your work
@@mr.g-sezwhat do you think underrated is?
Facts
Just in case the replacement of that reader was temporary and maybe something else was broken it was just a precaution
@@aitaiaepeople Nowadays don't know what underrated means
Nah, some of what he says is kinda cap like the description key or needing that tool. Wonder if it could have just been the board was bad. Never even explored it
Finds 400 gigs of porn.
🤣🤣🫵
Was thinking the same😂
Came here to say this. Guy keeps calling it 'data'. We all know what that's code for.
Imagine popping a nut over one's and zeros
=))))
For people confused about the encryption key: A lot of these drives actually contain an encryption key in the controller inside the drive itself. This key *not* meant to actually encrypt or secure your information; the idea is that you can instantly erase the entire drive by simply randomizing that key inside the controller. So it's more for instant full-disk erasure than general data protection.
The alternative to this would be to manually erase and randomize each sector, which not only takes hours, but also reduces disk life. Simply randomizing the key does not deteriorate the drive and irreversible 'destroys' all information with zero wait time.
Thanks for explaining, but the use case sounds weird. Why would you want to "remove" everything instantly? You can have the same by just reformatting the disk ? (It will remove only partition table, not the information)
@@s0meus3r Reformatting the disk doesn't truly remove anything. The data is still there and easily accessed using file recovery tools, many of which are free. Formatting merely delists all files from immediate view. As you save new files, they're then written over the old ones. So if you want to protect your privacy when throwing away a drive for example (or have less than 5 seconds to protect yourself from an FBI raid) then simply formatting the drive doesn't protect you.
@NotGarbageLoops and that's exactly what I am telling about. What is the point of having encryption when the key can be extracted ? Clearly, privacy is not a concern in this case. So the only reason is the "fast secure full clean" - but it's quite questionable ... you potentially sacrifice slightly the performance or pay for hardware encryption for a case that is rarely used ?
@@s0meus3rEncryption is incredibly fast if done in hardware, which is the case here. So I doubt you'd see any difference without it. The reason conventional encryption is slow is because it runs in the CPU. But this has dedicated hardware right in the controller optimized for speed and low power.
@@s0meus3rspinning rust is incredibly slow I'm comparison to today's CPU/MCU speed so encryption is not likely to be a limiting performance factor
Don't try this at home! There are many things to check first besides just assuming the heads went bad. Also, a clean environment is required when you open one of these and I'm not talking about Clorox...
Clean environment is an understatement
what happens if you sneeze on oen of them.
Logic board is the first thing to check.
we already know
Indeed. Those Platter's are ultra sensitive to ANY kind of debris.
FYI to everyone. please do not open your hard drive. any piece of dust can ruin it if you plan on still using it for normal use
What if the hard drive will no longer read? Can you take the risk to fix it?
@@HavocBlack as long as you understand the risk. as it'll most likely not be able to store more data on it.
in an ideal situation if you do open one, you need a air positive room with no dust. (clean room)
I don't think either of those drives will be for normal use
@@SibaNLactually hdd as lots of stabilisationsstem ewen if not perfect. They can move up an down magnetically controlled head which mens if no power failures and no damages amd air is clean... sstem of hd will handle small alignmen errrs of heads.. but still its smallfixes... atleas thats what iv seen when i opened one yeara befre...
@@navytiger2You can sometimes get one last chance to copy some of the data.
PLEASE ADD A DON'T-TRY-AT-HOME NOTE...THIS WILL DESTORY THE DATA IF YOU DON'T KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU'RE DOING
Nah fuck em, they fucked up, its their problem
obviously...also anyone who tries anything at home that he found on the internet is responsible for themselves.
The third best technician thats ever lived
Who’s second?
@@user-ce6cl8wg3r Reginald Barclay
@@user-ce6cl8wg3rthe dell guy
Dell repair guy @@user-ce6cl8wg3r
The dell guy
And that little fix costs 5000 dollars.
Hardly 150 dollars
Hardly a box of Hershey kisses
@@GeorgeDaPro3847 I'd assume $600 minimum. Data extraction is pricey.
You're looking at cost... No price of service.
@robbykeane7802 If it is SSD, it's a little cheaper. If it's an HDD it's a lot more expensive to fix. The reader is the most expensive part. It is very difficult to swap out the reader. You are right
@@GeorgeDaPro3847 try closer to $1400-$3000 depending on where you send it.
I’m curious - why didn’t you keep the data on the hard drive now that it works?
Possible future failure. Once it’s open, it’s prone to fail. Back up the data and replace the drive.
It may break again in the future
He touch plates. Its will be broken and in air will be oxidate
When it touches air you don’t have much time left, maybe a week or two
Dust, oxidation, and impurities in the air cause the drive to damage itself just by running. It'll work for maybe about 20-50 hours before the data starts becoming unrecoverable.
Your customers have total confidence in your honesty.. congratulations
450GB worth of "Homework" data
thats the kiddie poorn
@@sexbeast-uf2bqman 💀
LOL the ole *“homework”* folder 😂
For most people it's only 40GB of "homework" data.
Educational. No one will ever open it.
You are doing a great work with this harddisk, I really could use your help, I have a none working harddisk with 80 GB that have been laying around for 10 years.
A lot of memories so I haven't had the heart to throw it away.
"Let's find the encryption key..."
!? WHA!?
That must be part of the PC3000.
When u say find the encryption key, u mean he send it to you or you actually FIND IT with some software or bruteforcing it?
Gonna need this answer as well
Unless it's using some horrible encryption algorithm, he's not bruteforcing it without a quantum computer or centuries of time.
@@user-vk2cd9qw7i tah that's The usual idea but The way he said that, i've got ask
I work in retail PC repair. I'd say 1 in 40 people actually have the encryption key. The rest call us incompetent because they can't keep up with important details. 🤷
None💀
Love the repairs man. Great job. You are a real influencer, unlike other junk.
Thats a lot of Homework 💀
Ton of homework 😇
My guy was studying so hard that his work reached 400+ gigabytes
Bloop
@Adolfhitler20470projecting sum lil bro?
450gb isn’t even that much, i got 3TB of storage and 1.5 in use😭
Dude, the more of these videos I see from this content creator and this shop operator the more respect I've got for what he does.
Really really impressive stuff.
The same happened to yesterday 😭😭😭 I looked you guys up and you're local I'm definitely stopping by!
Note that it works because this type of drives isn't pressure dependant. If it was helium filled, he wouldn't be able to recover the data without some SERIOUS equipment.
I don't think there's many labs that can currently do it.
Wait.... how did you find the decryption key? Is this encrypted with Wondows bitlocker?
No, it's a SED non FIPS-2 compliant, the decryption key is stored on the controller
@@lauraprates8764 Thanks.
May I please know how you knew about that?
I couldn't find context in the video that indicates it's a SED. Is it the serial number on the drive?
BTW, I'm getting into the field of digital forensics, and later, I'll get into disk forensics, so I'm just curious if it's THAT EASY to decrypt that drive if it's a SED, maybe the decryption key shoudl't be plain text? Unless it's an old one maybe idk.
@@__someone__3141 if you pause in the right time it shows the encryption type as Self Encrypted Disk
@@__someone__3141 SEDs aren't that good outside of the enterprise world, but for applications that require more security you have additional standards, like FIPS 140-2/3
@@lauraprates8764😕 id SEDs store excryption key within itself, what is the use of encryption then?
so why these drives are used?
i was suprised when you could actually read the data - i always thought that opening a hard drive was pretty much guaranteed failure for it
It sometimes isn't readable. MD did get lucky, but this is still a legit last effort technique. Do note that the spliced drive won't last more than a week or two at best! It's been contaminated by room dust.
from what I understand is that HDDs are really sensitive to dirt, so dust can easily make it unreadable
@@PhotonicEmissionhe probly did have the room cleaned a lot and he blasted it with green light in case too so he had a little more chance than the avarage joe trying to get his homework folders back
Laminar chamber. Designed specifically to do zero-dust work.
This is a portable device that you place over a mat you work on, turn it on, and do open-drive works only when on. It keeps enforcing vertical flow of air through a particle filter in order not to allow the drive to catch any.
At most data recovery speciality facilities they keep the room at a massive positive pressure and they filter the air to remove almost all if not all the dust. I also thought this because I didn't know there was a portable version of this.
How the heck can you unencrypt so easily? 😮 I better start tightening my security on my devices 😂
You, my friend, are truly a magician 🎩! You are the last hope for many people who not only have valuable data, but often sentimental date the may be lost forever!
You, more often than not, come through for them! Great job!
God bless and take care...
The pain of being dependant on technology for memories... This guy is a good doc😊
That’s nothing new. Before drives we had to have documents,photos in literal file cabinets, binders ect. Both new and old formats are subjected to their own flaws.
No thats the pain of being foolish enough not to have multiple backups. Use the 3-2-1 rule: 3 drives 2 types of mediums(hdd and ssd) 1 kept offsite
but at the very least at least have one backup
@@andrewk8636what do you mean by offsite, could you give me an example?
@@andrewk8636 or just do raid lol
Bro can set the heads a couple hundred ATOMS from the discs
True skill
th-cam.com/video/WELpp2nUpXE/w-d-xo.html
We have tools and this drive has head ramps. Those do that. You just remove the heads from the ramp. That silver tool he used is called a head comb.
The head floats above the disk on a cushion of air, which is why dust is so dangerous. Hard drives are not assembled to nanometer tolerances.
The experience and tools to do this would be so awesome to have in my business
It's not hard build yourself a clean room first though, not hard or expensive
It's not hard at all to obtain the right tools hardware and software. I have recovered lots of drives
How i will get this tools?
This isn't the money grab you think it is. With the cheap prices of cloud storage, only absolute idiots would pay you to do this. 10 years ago, yeah you could have made a lil money off it.
@@JoshuaNY93BX Have you done it to build a small chamber with air clean?
Have you got successful to recover your data by replaced the heads? I'd love to know!
I certainly could not be trusted and going through other people's hard drives. Lmao
i have a drive ill probably sent you with same situation. Dropped it many years ago and that was game over 👍
Really appreciate these vids 🙏
I'm glad you could recover the data. But, you opened the drive. Any contaminants will cause further issues. The big question, how did you know the heads were bad before opening it?
He's recovering the data to another drive this HDD is dead it's not getting put back in any system except recycling this is just a data recovery process.
Clicking sounds, scraping sounds, whisper sounds, whirring with vibration, whirring with an electric groan, all these are external indications of failed rw heads
Bro just casually fucking decrypt this guy’s hard drive
The drop was so bad, it encrypted it.
He casually did it because he had it from the owner, so he just had to type it in.
A full drive decryption brute force on a drive like that would take hundreds or thousands of years with current technology.
Totally unnecessary. You can just copy bit to bit and make a drive clone. No need for decryption. This guy just wanted to see his client private photos.
@@suprememasteroftheuniverseEh, yes and no. You're right, you can make a bit-bit copy, but there's a few factors you should take into account:
1. The drive is living on borrowed time, it may not live through a full drive read - if there's only 10GB used on it, why not copy only those 10GB?
2. The top level listing is usually used as proof of recovery. So usually with drive recovery companies, customer send them the drive, they see if it's recoverable, they get a top level directory listing, then they show a screen shot of that to the customer and ask them if they'd like to proceed with the full recovery for XYZ dollars. And if they can't recover it, they don't charge.
That being said, guarantee you they look at and sometimes keep private customer photos. Whenever people are in a position where they have privy like that, they will inevitably abuse it.
@@MrSlowestD16if the damaged part was replaced why would it not live enough to recover the data? It's not the magnetic disc that is damaged so it shouldn't get worse in the nearest future again. Yes, it may not be as reliable in the further span of time, but it's not like 10 minutes left.
Goes from “my customer” to “my dude” almost as fast as you were able to recover that data, maybe a lifelong customer has been made today.
That's slick you're like oh baby it's working yeah
This video is 5 star literally. This is an extremely technical repair. Must be done by professionals only. If those platters move even one 1 micron off set to the other platters, you will never recover any data.
Bro is so good at his job he can change parts of a hard drive without problems
Bit late now - but can you recover data from a drive with a single deep scratch on an ide drive running windows xp?
Probably some data, but not all. Its not that different
@ElvenJustice Did you take it apart? How did you become aware of the scratch on the drive platter?
i love your videos. keep it up❤
Yep fixing computers during my teens and 20s then even replacing stuff like that but not know where to go and seeing this my mind is blown, fucking awesome man wish i had these skills
There are 2 ways to avoid this, 1) don't buy WD or Seagate, buy Toshiba instead. 2) Avoid overheating, when use inside computer case, always let at least one fan directly blowing at them.
Don't ever open up a hard drive at home if you still plan on using it as a hard drive
true
There is 2 critical things missing.
1. Only do this in a dust free clean room. If you don't, the surface of platters will being to oxidize and moisture and micro-dust particles can ruin them.
2. The donor drive not only has to be the same model, but also have the same firmware revision and sometimes comes from the same factory facility with matching parts.
3. In 99% of the case it is not possible to restore and save 100% of data, especially if HDD did drop, there will be a lot of corrupted files
My dad dropped his hard drive and 2 TB worth of data has been lost.
Ours was a different study, I know that one day the 2TB will suddenly will say its final ping to my PC and it suddenly cannot get detected and it slows down or not let my bios boot normally until I isolated everything and found out that the 2TB hard disk we have since 2010 as our memories backup was broken, no spinning, no clicking, no signs of life except for the fact the controller is warm but not too much, the warm just to tell you its alive and working... im so devastated 😢 💔
If important data is stored on only one hard drive, then it is not important to the owner. Important data is always kept on at least two different storage media.
As someone that's graduated from college with a technical certificate for IT and CompTIA A+. I view this incredibly helpful in data recovery of my own hardware. Thanks for teaching me how to repair a hard drive. Sadly I don't think the same could be said for ssds
@@teflontelefon actually. I am a graduate. Just hard to consider yourself true IT when you live in a job desert environment
Missed opportunity to do a throw back Rick roll with the data at the end.
I thought the silver platter got tarnished from oxidation when it was opened
I don't know about oxidation but dust will surely get to it. They replace the head just to get the data off there, after that the drive is scrap.
They do under some conditions (I'm not sure if it's all types or just some), but it's not gonna happen in an hour that he needs to read the data. That drive likely won't last long after this.
If you ever feel like you wasted time and money, remember this exists.
So after replacing old head to new head in the broken HDD we basically decrypt it's (undecryptable) data, transfer the files to the New HDD and re-screw it all together and live with two injured HDD's that will soon come back to service with another similar issue.
To say short: you developped 2x Double Invalid Trouble and protected your family's salary.
You know how satisfying it is to watch this.
All I can say is... "Don't Stop." This is obviously what you were meant to do! You are great at explaining the repair! I have no lisence or education in computer repair, but, there is nothing I wouldn't do! If my computer needed a new processor and the motherboard needs to be transfered to a brotherboard running windows 23? I would do it myself! But I would utilize the internet to get help in my repair! And here you are!! Keep it up! And Thanks! ✌️
I always knew that opening an HDD basically means destroying it, since even the smallest amount of dirt on the disk inside can prevent it from being read anymore.
You say that in past tense. Besides what does that have to do with this video where he does it correctly?
Uh oh, some dust particles in there 1nm needed
Can you please make a video on what to do after forgetting bitlocker key
Format your drive, you are screwed.
lol, it ain't happening. He had the key from the owner.
Important note, everyone else already mentioned it:
1. Clean Room-like Environment needed (Chamber, or whatever else, DUST FREE)
2. You often times need a compatible Head which is almost exclusively a donor part from an EXACT model of the same Hard drive.
3. Dont do tis crap if ur not 100% sure you know what you do, this guy used atleast 4-5k worth of tools
One of the reasons I still back information up on a mechanical HD
Does the pc3000 have the description software? If not, what is it?
He used a hex editor i guess, which takes ages. I dunno how he did it. Coulda asked the customer
I wonder what does that device do that an actual computer doesn't
@@Exotic69420It's a SED, he got the key from reading the controller memory
@@returnedinformation1040It access directly the drive, on most OSes you can't do this because the drive are in a abstraction layer and only the kernel can access it directly, but this device is a middle man and then can access it directly
@@returnedinformation1040 Honest answer?
I suspect absolutely nothing other then it being used as a hardware based drm* solution for the manufacturer. Most likely all of the vendor specific information is just stored on a encrypted flash somewhere on the board.
* - Software is easy to pirate. Hardware not so much esp if none of the vendor specific information ever leaves the board.
just casually bypasses his encryption lmao
How did he get the decryption key? Did the customer give it to him?
yeah wondering about the same thing.
@@boltez6507 It looks like from the video that he was somehow able to extract it from the drive itself. Which seems like bad security to keep your keys in plaintext on the thing that you're encrypting.
@@keksehexe yeah saw that, thats plain naive encryption technique.
@@keksehexeYup! They had bitlocker auto-unlock enabled which stored the actual key on there 😅
Awesome work! Keep it up. I just hope HD manufactures don’t decide to serialize the heads or something stupid like that. These companies that are anti repair in the name of “security” take/steal your info and profit more off your information than most thieves would.
Also what is the cost of the software - if you dont mind me asking
That's basic software doesn't cost a thing
PC3000 is a hardware device. You won't be able to use just the software.
@@TheLukasz032 Cheers, i'll look it up. Looks expensive tho
UPDATE - just looked it up .... yeah thats expensive
Sadly ppl dnt realize that the repair person will have access to your data !!
how tf did get the encryption key??
That's a very valuable work. Thank you for the data recovery!
my man youre in my contacts now I will be in touch. being a videographer youre a life saver
It's really interesting seeing how things are repaired, especially technology related.
One little particle during the assembling-procedure and YES -> BOOM again ;-)
When i broke my laptop's harddrive, i fully shattered the disks
I was doing this years ago. People say clean room. Clean room be dammed . Hard part was eBay , finding the identical hdd
Now it is a bit more difficult
As hard drives fail often, what you need is a robust backup system that way you can ignore this kind of hassle and a huge data recovery bill.
You are a freaking genius
YOURE IN JERSEY???? Holy cow im so happy
you got the same problem?
I have one of these WD 1TB for laptops. Windows ran Chkdsk and said it had to rebuild its "Master File Table." After 6h, it was still running. I asked Bing A.I. how much this process would take and it had no idea. I powered down the laptop and did the only right thing to do with that piece of junk.
I've looked. It's insane how much they want to get your data off a drive that doesn't work. 2000$
Take a shot every time he says my customer's
My girlfriend and I met on Call of Duty. Of all games, and we spent over a year long distance playing games together, recording so many games of us together getting to know each other and I have two hard drives that have this same issue. PLEASE, if there's a way to recover the data I still have them just hoping there's a way to see all the good times we had 😢 Ty for your time
"these go bad all the time" me sitting here with terabytes of drives from 2010 that have been powered on for most of that time since... With no more than a handful of bad sectors across every drive XD
If important data is stored on only one hard drive, then it is not important to the owner. Important data is always kept on at least two different storage media.
We had a tech do exactly this back in the 1970s, and destroyed 4 washing machine sized drives & disk packs during routine maintenance at a customer site…. it took three engineers about a week to rebuild the physical drives and restore their critical backups. Luckily they had a pretty good support contract.
That ping-ping-ping sound is something you never want to hear.
About two months later, despite company policy of ‘no jewellery’, the same guy almost lost a finger - shorting his gold ring across the power supply of a similar drive. He doesn’t work there any more.
You don't need that pc3000 if the heads are from the same make and model hard drive.
And you can free up locked head by putting the drive in the freezer and then plugging it in cold and leaving it.
Used to do that to old 30 gig fujitsu that didn't spin or had locked heads.
Crazy how now we use ssd as our primary storage, unlike back then where we used them for windows os
Where were you when I needed this kind of help?😭
I was like " oh, thats not that hard!!, i may actually try it myself"
Hold on, hold on, hold on. Please rewind to "let's find the decryption key" and "bing bam boom we can see all of his data".
Are you telling me drive encryption is redundant and useless? :-(
I'm not sure why the customer needed the PC-3000 if all that was wrong was the heads. Swap it out, confirm it works, and ship it back to him. No need to charge him extra.
Calmly walks through enceyption
Hexadecimal code is not encryption. It's just the way data is saved on the hard drive.
Those magnets on the spindle are some of the strongest I have ever seen
Great Work. All that data looks so fun 🔥👌🏾
Worth mentioning: you can’t do this at home. Neither can I. Actually lots of people can’t do this in a lab, idk how he makes this look so easy.
“456Gb of Cough p!rn cough!” This dude has never left the house
Oh my god, my anxiety shot 20x seeing the cover of those hard drives come off.
Damn this data forensics device is sick as hell. Shame they go for almost 10 grand used... big big money in data recovery, but big investment to get the big boy tools for it.
Hunter called "Dude I said 0 the drive not recover it"
I really wish I had these computer skills not only to fix computers but to code which I’m sure you can do as well
_"That doesn't look like a clean room.... I prefer data recovery techs that don't __-get captured-__ work outside of clean rooms."_
And this is why we have backups. Flash drives, ssds, on-line, etc. So many ways to duplicate your data so you don't get stuck in this situation. Would have been a lot cheaper to back it up before the accident happened
PSA. Even if you did similar repairs in the past successfully without a clean room, tolerances have gotten much tighter.. A single speck of dust WILL ruin a platter..on newer hdds.
what this video skimmed was how easy it was to decrypt the drive O_O
I love wiston churchil speech.
The thing that intridges me is that the software can decrypt the drive without the password (unless this is standard windows encryption and not whatever users enable (think it is bitlocker))