Here’s the scenario. You went to a big data recovery firm that ended up rendering your hard drive unrecoverable. Either it was the result of severe platter damage such as scratches or it resulted from a rare SSHD that damaged firmware. Regardless of what happened, it’s not good news to you and it makes you wonder.

Is it really over?

Here is the short answer: no.

Well, no in most cases these days. Thanks to today’s technology constantly pushing forward, what was considered impossible a few years ago is now very much attainable. And… quite honestly, this is why so many data recovery firms render cases unrecoverable because well, they just don’t have the technology.

In pretty much every unrecoverable case the condition is the result of:

1. Damage that is too severe for anyone to work on
2. Not having the technology required to work around the issue
3. Not willing to invest the time required into a case that the client in not willing to pay for

Let’s suppose that you have a 3TB drive that has scratches on one of the platter surfaces. This particular drive typically contains 5 platters and shares a total of 10 surfaces between the heads. With one platter surface scratched, this means that there are a total of 9 other surfaces that are still good to recover. That’s 9 out of 10.

As good as this may sound, more often than not, other data recovery firms including the Big Names (Ontrack and Drivesavers) will call this case unrecoverable. Why? It is an unknown. Possibly it stems from a lack of the technology required to work with the scratched surface or disinterest in investing time into a case that is not 100% recoverable.

The truth of the matter here is that a drive with just one scratched surface will render the drive to about a maximum of 80% good data to recover. The rest will be corrupted because of the disconnection of the head that would be responsible for reading the scratched surface.

So… is it really worth it to consider second chance recovery?

Think about it for a moment. If a huge data recovery company like Ontrack says they can’t do anything with the recovery of your data do you honestly think there is a second chance? Well, yes there is. And yes, second chance data recovery is worth considering.

All you do is call the data recovery firm first. Ask them straight up: Can you recover data from hard drives with scratches? A company that responds that they can will be fairly open about the technology they have and use. If you hear the term ‘word burnishing’ you are in business. The term is a reference to a specific type of platter treatment.

Just for fun, let’s look at another possibility.

Someone has a SSHD hybrid drive firmware fail and the two companies contacted (Drivesavers and Gillware) called the case unrecoverable.

When something like this happens, it is fairly easy to give up hope of any kind of recovery. As for this case, it is far better to seek assistance from the people who actually manufactured the drive. In this specific case, that would be Seagate. Fortunately, Seagate also provides data recovery services unlike the other drive manufacturers who depend instead on third party data recovery providers.

The difficulty here is that with SSHD, a complex programming process would have been used to create the algorithms. They would have been created by Seagate so it makes perfect sense to turn to the guys who built that drive literally from scratch.

What I am trying to get across to you is that with data recovery, you should never give up hope. The industry tends to prey on consumers who don’t or can’t tell the difference simply because data recovery sounds like a complex process. I’m not making light of it, either.

Data recovery is not always straightforward but the hurdles that a data recovery firm may encounter can be explained (see my three points above). If you are told that your drive is unrecoverable, try taking it somewhere else because often something can be done to recover at least some of your data.

If you are not sure, you can contact us by filling out the Contact Form on our website. Provide as much detail as you can and we will get back to you to discuss what we may be able to do for you.

There is a reason why it is called second chance data recovery. That’s because there is always a chance that data on an unrecoverable drive may be saved.