There are numerous articles that have been published that show and explain that some data recovery cases are the result of pure magic. Although some of the articles do have some truth to them, a number of them exist for one single purpose – to get your device into the hands of scammers so that they can charge you for an unsuccessful recovery attempt.
To save you some time and your hard-earned money, I will outline for you the types of recovery cases that are 100% unrecoverable regardless of what, where or who tries to recover it. These examples are not going to be successful at all.
Here is my list:
Erasure With Software Like Eraser That Overwrites The Partition With 0s With 7 Consecutive Attempts
Simply put, no one will be ever able to recover these types of cases. That’s because you can’t recover anything from 0s. The only thing here to ponder is – how exactly are you sure that it was completely erased in the first place? You can scan it yourself with R-studio in Demo mode, which happens to be free and see if the software will find any files. If it doesn’t, it’s over.
Severe Physical Damage To NAND Flash Chip
This includes SD, Flash drive, SSD or any other media that contains NAND flash. Let’s say that your dog has spent a few moments chewing up your SD card. If the chip is physically damaged, it’s over. No software, hardware, pinout or any other magic will be able to save your data.
128-256 Bit Encryption
This is the Bitcoins defense. Yep, that’s pretty much over if you do not know the passcode or have the RSA key. That is why Ransomware has spread so wide and continues to cause chaos in the tech world as we know it.
Extreme Heat Damage, That Had Demagnetized Platters Inside Your Hard Drive
Not even the most sophisticated hardware will be able to help in this situation. The only thing here is you can only find out by opening up the hard drive yourself and testing the magnet on the HSA. If it loses its properties, that means that 100% of the platters are demagnetized as well.
Severe Platter Damage Such As Scratches That Are Present In The Service Area
While in the majority of cases partial recovery of scratched platters is possible, those with scratches in the service area are 100% unrecoverable. Same goes about the shattered platters – 100% not recoverable.
Factory Resets On Mobile Phones Like iPhone Or Any Android
Don’t let anyone feed you a line with this one. No one can recover data from factory reset devices. Factor resets come with encryption. The type of encryption used is the same that was mentioned three places on this list ago.
Files Filled With 0s
Sometimes it is possible to recover some files with data recovery software, but when you open them, they won’t work or appear to be corrupted. The easy way to check if files are okay – or if they can be fixed – is by checking the file with HEX editor. If you open the file and see 0s and nothing but 0s, there is nothing to recover. What you actually have here is the shell of the files without any content.
RAID 0 No Redundancy
RAID 0s can’t be recovered if they suffer from physical or even logical damage. That is in most cases. Since the data is paired between the two drives, if one goes, it is over. RAID 0 is the absolute worst RAID to have. It’s fast, and sadly, not reliable at all.
And that concludes my list of cases where recovery is pretty much impossible. I shared this with you as I feel it is a good list for you to become familiar with. If you happen to have a case that you suspect is unrecoverable, but you really would rather have that confirmed with a professional, you can try us.
All you have to do is contact us through the online Contact Form and provide as much in the way of details as you can. Our diagnostics are always FREE of charge and can often be performed on the same day that you contact us.
We have seen too many examples of computer users who fall for one of the many tricks that the non-professional data recovery labs use. They succeed only because the average computer user does not really know what can and cannot be recovered. Plus, you would turn to a professional based on the fact that you believe they can save your data. Yes, in many cases that is true. However, in the eight examples, I have provided above, you are just wasting your money and getting your hopes up thanks to a tricky data recovery scammer.