
Free Data Recovery of Wet Phones and Hard Drives for Hurricane Harvey Victims - unkown-unknowns
https://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/2017/08/30/drivesavers-offers-hurricane-harvey-victims-free-data-recovery-of-wet-phones-and-hard-drives/
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ekidd
I've called upon Drive Savers before, when an employer's RAID 5+1 drive lost
two disks in one afternoon, the second halfway through a rebuild—and then the
proprietary, ancient RAID controller board died before we got somebody onsite.
Unfortunately, all the RAID configuration was stored in the dead board and the
data layout on disk was proprietary.

We ended up paying about $7,000 to Drive Savers and they managed to recover
all my employer's data. Drive Savers is definitely a class act.

So this offer is a big deal: This isn't some fly-by-night company just trying
to market their services. This is a very high-end recovery operation which
normally costs a lot of money.

~~~
userbinator
Unless they have built-in encryption or similar, RAID controllers generally
have pretty straightforward on-disk layouts; staring at the disk contents in a
hex editor for a little bit will usually reveal the solution.

In any case that's still a logical recovery, which is far easier than the
presumably physical recovery being offered here.

~~~
ekidd
Well, as noted above, there were two physically failed disks—one which
triggered the rebuild, and a second disk which failed with read errors during
the rebuild. Then the RAID card died. According to the official policy, the
equipment should have been replaced almost five years earlier.

So this recovery involved physical recovery of at least one disk to meet the
RAID's minimum threshold, then a logical recovery.

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bvv
This is certainly an awesome and generous gesture and Drive Savers wholly
deserves all the attention they get here. (No sarcasm!)

Meanwhile, this is the donation page of Save the Children for the victims of
the South Asia Floods:

[https://secure.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.95...](https://secure.savethechildren.org/site/c.8rKLIXMGIpI4E/b.9535065/k.66C/South_Asia_Floods_Childrens_Relief_Fund/apps/ka/sd/donor.asp)

Clicking on this link is probably not much harder than clicking the upvote
button on this story.

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alsetmusic
As a former (and future, should the need arise) customer of Drive Savers, I
can attest to their remarkable abilities and standout service. I've met reps
from the company at a few trade shows and when I told one that my (then)
employer sent them lots of business, I was introduced to several of their
techs. Even when I wasn't playing the role of 'paying customer', everyone was
extremely friendly.

Even still, this is a surprisingly generous offer. Good PR for them,
obviously, but right in line with the encounters that I've had in the past.

Trivia: DS successfully recovered a full episode of the Simpsons. This was
relayed to me at a trade show.

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QAPereo
I was watching the news and and a woman was recounting how her family escaped
the flood, and in particular the things she wished that she had done
differently. One of the things which struck me was that she hadn't considered
the effect of the water on her phones which she and her family put into their
pockets. The phones of course they were dead when they arrived at the shelter.
I'm guessing this was a pretty common experience, and without something like
this free service coming along I have to assume that they would just be
writing them off and be focused on rebuilding/relocating. This is a really
amazing thing to offer people are absolutely devastated, good PR, but also
just good behavior.

In particular for those people who lost everything, it might be that some of
the only photos they have are on those phones.

~~~
digi_owl
Maybe it is because i grew up in a more rural setting. But i am gladly taking
a more bulky and low spec phone if it means it is more rugged in various ways.

~~~
Larrikin
My last couple phones have all been Sony Xperia phones simply because they are
water proof/resistant. It's hard to go back to anything else after you get
used to it. Never have to worry about damage in the rain and its great being
able to use the phone in the shower.

~~~
panarky
> its great being able to use the phone in the shower

?!

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gothroach
A great service to the victims of Hurricane Harvey and also a great marketing
opportunity. It seems like everyone wins in this situation (well, except
DriveDavers' competitors), and that's not common.

Having used them in the past for a water-damaged hard drive I'd say a good
portion of those people will get their data back.

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tammer
As an IT person who's ended up having to use Drive Savers a number of times
(don't ask), I can speak to their great service. They're a standout in an
industry of nickel & dimers.

~~~
chinathrow
> having to use Drive Savers a number of times (don't ask)

It's weekend - don't tell :)

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exikyut
I'm in Australia so this question isn't for me, but it might be relevant for
anybody slightly closer.

Could/should people who want to volunteer contact this company and offer their
time? Are there things people with limited expertise in data recovery could
assist with?

It's certainly obvious that quite a few areas in data recovery - like
relocating disk platters, Flash/SSD chip resoldering, etc - need a clean room,
hands that are _proven_ steady, and a good handle on what can go wrong and how
to deal with it. This can't be taught in a day.

Waterlogged media probably means tons of controller board replacements. That's
not a completely unskilled job either, and one I would be cautious about
helping out with.

When I think of waterlogged phones I immediately go worst-case-scenario and
think of Flash chip desoldering because PCB + battery + water == disaster.
Nope. I _don 't_ have the skill for that!

It's (unfortunately) also quite possible that water-damaged media has also
been impacted due to the rough-and-tumble of rescue efforts as well.

Then I think about the software side. Manufacturer and/or in-house recovery
tooling that operates at such a low level (on the same order as BIOS updates
etc) is likely going to require attention to detail and high awareness (and
knowledge of what a proper run looks like) to get an intuitive sense that
something's working or not. Then there are probably "this tool never existed"
NDA things on top of that.

My main consideration is reputation. It's cases like these where a 32-year
reputation is cemented even further - or blown out the door if dozens of
failures are reported at once.

Now I've just thought of all this I feel like I've answered my own question in
the firm negative - but I'll ask anyway, since others (particularly those near
one of the ~18 (!) drop-off locations -
[https://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/contact-
drivesavers/](https://www.drivesaversdatarecovery.com/contact-drivesavers/))
may benefit from knowing "no, definitely not useful" or "yes, these jobs are
very hard to get wrong if you know the basics".

~~~
userbinator
These are almost certainly physical recoveries, so definitely requiring very
specific skills and training.

But it wouldn't hurt to ask. Maybe they would much appreciate things like
cleaning off the exterior dirt and otherwise washing drives in distilled
water.

(One of the tips I've read is that if you have wet electronics that can't be
immediately dried thoroughly, flush thoroughly and then keep them submerged in
distilled water to prevent further corrosion.)

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eh78ssxv2f
This is definitely a great gesture, and will probably require a lot of labor
on their part. I wonder why they did not restrict it to households with income
below a certain level? That way they would have received both the positive
publicity as well as reduced the free labor they need to provide.

~~~
crypt1d
> That way they would have received both the positive publicity as well as
> reduced the free labor they need to provide.

not everyone has an agenda. perhaps this was just about helping people.

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gist
Off topic, I am wondering what will happen to drivesavers business model given
mechanical hard drives are on the way out.

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damnfine
I am sure ssd and flash recovery will keep them plenty busy.

~~~
exikyut
And recovering from phones (same thing as flash pretty much, but with
different mechanics in terms of getting access)

~~~
baobrien
I'd imagine that phones are usually the easiest to recover, assuming the
storage is not encrypted and the flash chip is not physically damaged. Just
pop off the flash memory, pop into a socket, and go to town. No dealing with
controllers or servo track or anything.

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Bromskloss
Seen as a market mechanism, it is really weird that when a service is most
needed, it becomes free.

