PC-3000. Best PC configuration for ACE Lab products in 2026

Posted on 02/03/2023 by ACELab team

Recently, users have been asking about the most comfortable hardware configuration for using PC-3000 Portable PRO, PC-3000 Flash, PC-3000 Express, PC-3000 UDMA-E. A lot of engineers are still working on computers with Core i5 4400 and 6-8GB of DDR3 RAM, but this configuration is outdated and if you want to recover huge NAND Flash cases with 64-512Gb capacity, or working with complicated RAID configuration, you should get faster Personal Computer. We decided to compile a short list of configurations of different price categories, which should be enough for any complicated case.

All modern CPU based on Intel 8-14GEN and the recent models of Core Ultra – are a really great option for working machine. At the same time, AMD Ryzen CPU starting from 3GEN are also a perfect CPU for making a good working stations. It’s recommend to use as many cores as you can get (like 8 and above), but pay attention to the CPU architecture – old Core i9 with 8 cores will be slower than newer Intel Core i5 with 6 physical cores. The best options will be provided below.

Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Data Extractor, PC-3000 Flash, PC-3000 HDD, PC-3000 SSD | Tagged , , , , , , , | 20 Comments

PC-3000 HDD. How to fix the Second Level Translator (T2) in the PC-3000 7.2 Software Version

Posted on 12/22/2022 by ACELab team

Hello Friends! As you know, the Second Level Translator (T2) is a very critical FW part which affects HDD normal work and data access. Previously, if the T2 was damaged, we  had to use RAW recovery in PBA mode in order to get access to the files. In the PC-3000 Software Version 7.2.x, we can do more to recover the T2 and get data access. Let us review this new PC-3000 feature in the article below. Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, PC-3000 HDD | 5 Comments

PC-3000 SSD Extended. Ramaxel and Lenovo Utility

Posted on 12/20/2022 by ACELab team

Hello friends!

If you’re familiar with SSD data recovery, you should have already faced different types of controllers and know that Marvell-based drives are one of the most complex to work with.
The main thing is that every single manufacturer dealing with Marvell controllers writes their own firmware for each SSD model. It adds a lot of additional issues for our engineers trying to find the solution for such drives. As you know, to be able to work with the drive that has some FW issues we need to have a special utility developed for this particular model of the drive.

Beginning with the PC-3000 software version 7.1.x, a couple of drives based on  88SS1093 has been added. We already had some drives with this controller in the support list but because of the complexity of such controllers adding new drives has been not so easy. Our engineers managed to find out how to work with Ramaxel and Lenovo modifications of this controller, and in this article, you will see what steps should be taken if you need to recover data from such SSDs. Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Data Extractor, PC-3000 SSD | 2 Comments

How to use PC-3000 Portable III/PRO incorrectly and lose your warranty

Posted on 12/13/2022 by ACELab team

The ports of PC-3000 Portable III/PRO (Port 0, 1, 2) function using high-speed PCIe-1, 2 and SATA-1, 2, 3 protocols thus providing for the data transfer rates up to 5 and 6 Gbit/s respectively, i.e. effectively the data transfer rate reaches the SHF radio frequency range imposing particular requirements on the transfer lines (PCB conductors, interface cables, detachable connectors). To ensure correct functioning of such high-speed serial interfaces, every part thereof including the Host (microcontroller), Interconnect (transfer line), and the Device (the drive), should be in balanced alignment with each other.

Figure 1. Data transfer line

Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, Data Extractor, PC-3000 HDD, PC-3000 SSD | Tagged | Leave a comment

PC-3000 SAS. List of supported hard drives

Posted on 12/12/2022 by ACELab team

       

PC-3000 SAS can work with SAS and SCSI drives (requires an additional third-party SCSI adapter).

PC-3000 Portable III with SAS Adapter and Utilities is able to work only with native SAS drives and does not support old IBM families.

Continue reading →

Posted in Data Extractor, PC-3000 HDD | 8 Comments

PC-3000 HDD. List of supported HDD families (7.6.x)

Posted on 12/12/2022 by ACELab team

 

Continue reading →

Posted in Data Extractor | 1 Comment

PC-3000 for HDD. How to unlock SED on WD SMR drives without a special board

Posted on 07/28/2022 by ACELab team

Hello dear friends,

In June 2022, we released a new PC-3000 software version 7.1.x,  and one of the main features in this update is the SED unlocking option for new WD SMR families.

It means that now you don’t need to buy a special unlocked PCB to get the Service Area access on these drives anymore!

In this article, we describe how to use this option in practice.

Continue reading →

Posted in Data Extractor, PC-3000 HDD | Tagged , , | 6 Comments

PC-3000 Flash. Determination of Some Chip Parameters by ID

Posted on 06/07/2022 by ACELab team


There are situations when you are reading a chip and see a detected Chip ID but it cannot be applied in the Task. As a result, it doesn’t allow to read the dump from the memory chip. Such behaviour may be if:

► The chip has physical damages or was overheated during the unsoldering process
► The memory chips reference book doesn’t have reading parameters for a certain Chip ID.

The information below will be useful when adding read parameters for new (unknown) memory chips and is intended for users who understand the main principles of NAND.
If you are new in NAND data recovery, we recommend studying these principles first.
Of course, you can try to find a datasheet for a certain memory chip and take reading parameters from there. But sometimes there is no possibility to find that datasheet or some parameters are missing there (not described).

Reading parameters detection is an investigation process and requires some specific knowledge. In this article, we’ll overview some ideas that can be helpful for you during this process. Anyway, we strongly recommend to contact our Technical Support Department if you get an unsupported NAND ID during your data recovery process.
Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, PC-3000 Flash | Leave a comment

PC-3000 Flash. SanDisk 200 GB mSD recovery

Posted on 03/31/2022 by ACELab team

Hi everyone,

Today we are going to talk about the monolith cases produced by SanDisk, namely presented in the variations of 200 GB and 400 GB models.

Such cards were released a few years ago and remained the mSD cards with the highest capacity for years until the 256 and 512 GB modifications replaced them.

Nowadays, SanDisk Flash drives are one of the most complicated cases. Usually, they have a lot of additional issues and features that are typical only for SanDisk modifications.

Continue reading →

Posted in Articles, PC-3000 Flash | 3 Comments

Western Digital: Time-Limited Error Recovery

Posted on 01/26/2022 by ACELab team

Bad sectors may appear because of the bad quality of the heads or due to small scratches on the surface of the platters. This problem is pretty up-to-date and sometimes, when you don’t have an opportunity to replace the heads or open the HDA on the Hard Drive, the only way to get the data is to be patient and reread all bad sectors one by one with different time-out settings in the Data Extractor.

But what to do if the WD disks have a lot of BAD sectors, and it is necessary to force the disk to complete the image?

Continue reading →

Posted in Data Extractor | 2 Comments