Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 VMFS File System Reconstruction (Part 4) In the last three installments we have taken an in depth look at the VMFS file system. As we have seen there are many different components that make up the file system … [Read more...]
RAID 5 Sybase Data File Diagnostic Software
February 24, 2012 By
Recently I received a set of drives that were originally in a RAID 5 (stripe set) configuration. These drives were old Seagate forty gigabyte Parallel ATA (PATA) drives. The client explained that they had rebooted the server and when it came up again … [Read more...]
How to Fix Bad Sectors on a Hard Drive
March 30, 2011 By
The truth of the matter is; you can't repair bad sectors on a hard drive. Receiving ‘Bad Read’ errors or I/O errors from a hard drive is not the type of problem that can be remedied or ignored. The following is an explanation of how hard drives … [Read more...]
VMWare and DoubleSpace The Old Meets The New
March 11, 2011 By
Ever hear of DblSpace (dos hard drive compression)? Maybe you heard of DrvSpace? I know, how about Stacker, everyone has heard of Stacker. No? Well if you haven’t heard of these it might be because these file system handlers were used … [Read more...]
What Does CHKDSK Really Do? From a Software Engineers View
February 28, 2011 By
I wish I had a nickel for every potential client that has called the shop and explained to me that they have a hard drive that is locking up (bad sectors usually) and it won’t populate the file system. As I am listening I hear things like “I … [Read more...]
External USB Hard Drive Recovery
February 18, 2011 By
USB drives have been around for several years now and because of that fact data, has been compiled that reflects the type of files a USB drive will store. In addition, I apply my experience, to the types of damage that a USB enclosure will … [Read more...]
Determining configuration for RAID Five or RAID Zero
February 18, 2011 By
Reading the title makes it sound like something that should be easy. I should be able to just pull out the drives in the order they are presented in the hardware, mark them as 0 through whatever and be done with it. However it has been my experience … [Read more...]
Stale Drive Detection for Windows NTFS Raids
January 31, 2011 By
Greetings and Salutations! My name is Richard Correa and I am a Software Engineer and data recovery specialist for DTI Data. Over the years I have written many tools to help the technician resolve several of the problems they may encounter during … [Read more...]
Recovering from a RAID Controller Failure
December 18, 2009 By
There are many reasons why a RAID goes down. A technician will normally assume that one or more of the drives have failed. This is a common diagnosis as the diagnostic lights on each of the drives may be blinking, the lights may have gone amber, … [Read more...]
RAID 5 Stale drive detection
December 2, 2009 By
Over the course of a week I receive several calls regarding the recovery of a RAID 5 array. In the course of the initial interrogation of a client I ask several questions regarding the state of the array, what has been done to recover the array and … [Read more...]
Network Attached Storage NAS and Other Nightmares
November 24, 2009 By
Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices have been a boon for storage technology. What a great windfall for the industry. Grab yourself an Open Source operating system, stick it on a prom, get yourself an inexpensive motherboard, some hard drives … [Read more...]
Recovering a badly fragmented Outlook PST file after a few rounds with chkdsk The Final Installment
November 24, 2009 By
Welcome back! As before, we still have the problem where chkdsk was run on a RAID with a stale drive. We have had a brief explanation of how NTFS 5 works and how the data is stored on the volume. Lets take a much more detailed look as to how … [Read more...]
Speed Clone For Windows Released
November 11, 2009 By
DTI Data Recovery continues its excellence in software development by releasing Speed Clone for Windows. The new Speed Clone download package includes the Windows version as well as a bootable DOS ISO for cloning hard drives that are registered in … [Read more...]
Windows Surface Scanner Freeware Utility
November 4, 2009 By
Several times a week DTI Data receives calls from clients describing a situation where their computer seems to ‘freeze’ or ‘lock-up’ on boot up.  No matter what they try the system will no longer boot and they receive a Blue Screen of … [Read more...]
A Recovery Solution from the NTFS File System
November 2, 2009 By
I started programming almost thirty years ago. I cut my teeth on the ATARI 400 and stayed in that venue for almost two years. After awhile though, I came to realize that although the ATARI and its design were simple and powerful, if I were to … [Read more...]
NTFS File System and PST File Data Recovery
September 22, 2009 By
As discussed in the previous articles we have a RAID that had some problems. These problems were exacerbated by the fact that a chkdsk was run on the file system and changed some of the attributes of the PST file we are trying to recover. … [Read more...]
Chkdsk is Not Designed For Data Recovery
September 9, 2009 By
In the previous two articles we have discussed how the RAID and some of the decisions the client made in trying to recover the RAID affected the PST file. In addition I discussed that there may have been a stale drive in the array and which … [Read more...]
Outlook PST Data Recovery
September 9, 2009 By
Last time I gave a brief description of a RAID that we received here at the shop. I also shared some of the things the client had done to try and get their RAID back online. I also explained that chkdsk had been run. What made this RAID unusual was … [Read more...]
Recovering Fragmented Outlook PST After Running chkdsk
August 26, 2009 By
The following saga is the story of the recovery of a single Outlook PST (Personal Information Store) file. It was accomplished using a simple hex editor some diagnostics, and the courage of David when he slew the Philistine Goliath. Well, maybe … [Read more...]
Converting RAID 1 to Single Drive
June 8, 2009 By
RAID 1, also known as a mirrored set, would seem to be a perfect way to keep your critical data safe. The concept being that you have redundant drives. Whatever gets written to one drive will get written to the other drive. In other words, the drives … [Read more...]