Data recovery adventures

An article, posted 5 months ago filed in harddrive, recovery, hdd, files, data & backup.

I'm not a data recovery specialist, but I tend to help people out every now and then with computer problems, and sometimes you have to deal with a disk that doesn't seem to work anymore. This is a collection of notes I made after I got a new challenge. I had to resort to using testdisk and ddrescue. I've been testing a few tools, and read about more, but these were the tools I landed on.

IMPORTANT: I'm not an expert on this topic. Every additional moving of the needle can cause a harddrive to fail even harder. If your data is absolutely critical, use a certified data recovery service.

1. Is it replaceable hardware?

When I get a harddrive in a laptop or external enclosure, my first attempt is to see if there is something between computer and the disk. I try to remove the disk from the computer or enclosure and connect it to a USB3 to 4-types of P/SATA adapter I have bought years ago and has saved me multiple times. If it mounts, copy everything to another drive, to b…

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