It is not good british policy to 'throw' mud at other businesses, but in the past week I have come across two cases of what best be described as incompetence.
The first case was a company trying to recover photos from a damaged or corrupted sD card. At the end of the recovery the results were poor. Then for some reason they returned the poor results on the same memory card, so overwriting the files and making the chance of future recovery extremely remote.
Another job I received a partially deconstructed CE card. The company was about to remove the chips, but realised they were not compatible with their memory chip reading equipment, having an unusual hidden pin layout. What I cannot understand is that the card would read OK as a complete card, but just had a few sectors not working. OK these were part of the FAT but actually not at all critical. It was possible to read the card, and using CnW recovery software a full recovery of the critical files was made.
The biggest golden rule with data recovery is to never change data on the problem device. When ever possible it is best to connect the device using a write blocker as this will also prevent a PC doing a virus erase, defrag, or any other device the PC may decide to do which is normally invisible and harmless. In the second case, the issue was solved with software as only a few sectors had failed. Chip removal may well have come across the same failed sectors and there is always the chance of more damage when subjecting memory chips with lots of hot air, and physical strain.
I have had a similar problem of a client with an SD which they returned to the manufacturer (probably their agent) and being told by them it was irretrievable. They found me and it was a simple job to DD it and then use CNW to carve the image. I got back well over 90% of their honeymoon photos!
ReplyDeleteWhen I heard it had been to the manufacturer my heart sank thinking they had probably trashed it by not following good procedure but it turned out a good story in the end. I suppose the manufacturers have no real interest in individuals, just millions of units sold. How cynical of me!
Spell check your post please.
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