PC-3000 Flash. Block Number Type 1. The Extended Mode

Posted on 01/07/2020 by ACELab team

Hello Friends!

As you may already know, the Block Number building method has the Extended Mode. In this article, we’ll overview how it works on a real-life example.

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3 Ways to Find the Lost Partitions

Posted on 12/10/2019 by ACELab team

People who ask for data recovery services often request to recover data from a “lost” partition. The reasons for such loss can vary a lot: drive malfunctions, unsuccessful attempts to disk space allocation, viruses, etc. 

Today we will try to find out why we cannot see the data in such cases and how we can recover it with the PC-3000 hardware-software systems. The article will especially benefit those of you who just start to make their first steps in data recovery.

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PC-3000 SSD. Sandisk Ultra II, SSD Plus and WD Blue (Marvell CPU)

Posted on 10/17/2019 by ACELab team

Hello friends!

Marvell-based controllers are amongst the most complex in the data recovery field. The thing is Marvell company produces only controllers with templates of drive PCB design, basic (default factory) firmware and recommendations on how the SSD should work.

That’s why every SSD manufacturer uses his own PCB design and every engineer writes his own firmware. In such an environment even two completely identical 88SS1074 controllers from two different drives have a different number of commands, different Techno Mode options, and translator micro-program. This all makes a research and recovery process a very complicated endeavor.

Beginning with the PC-3000 6.6x and PC-3000 SSD 2.7.11 updates,  it became possible to work with some Marvell-based drives that go into BSY state after power on!

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PC-3000 Flash. The Translator Algorithm for SanDisk 4K (8sec) Flash Drives

Posted on 10/08/2019 by ACELab team

Hello friends,

Recently, ACE Lab has announced a new translator building algorithm for SanDisk Flash drives. The new feature is now available for all authorized technical support users. To use this function, please download the PC-3000 Flash software Ver. 7.3.7. from your personal Update Box.

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PC-3000 Flash. Virtual Image Based on the File System

Posted on 10/08/2019 by ACELab team

Hello friends, 

When working on a flash case, the image building is usually a final step of recovery. After all preparations were applied, we are ready to get the File System with a complete folder structure. Usually, to sort blocks and build a final image we use two ways:

  • Image building with Translator (based on translator tables);
  • Image building with Block Number (based on SA block marker);

PC-3000 Flash 7.3.x adds a new, the third way of image building. We call it “Virtual Image Based on File System”.

When it might be used?

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Making Complex Issues Simple: A Unique Method to Extract Data from RAID with Lost Configuration

Posted on 08/01/2019 by ACELab team

Hello everyone!

Today we would like to talk about RAID arrays with lost configuration and how to extract data from them. This article will be useful to both digital forensics experts and data recovery engineers. Let’s start with understanding what a RAID is in the first place.

RAID. What is it?

RAID is a Redundant Array of Independent Drives. The system shows it as a virtual storage device with block access. In essence, RAID is a virtual drive. 

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PC-3000 Data Extractor. APFS. Part 1

Posted on 06/04/2019 by ACELab team

Hello friends,

As you well know file systems play a crucial role in data recovery. And there were a lot of them developed during the past 30-40 years. Some file systems are specific to a particular operating system. For example, HFS and HFS+ have been used in Apple devices for over 30 years.

APFS was developed from scratch and became the standard file system for Apple devices since 2017.

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PC-3000 Data Extractor RAID Edition. Case Study: Surprise from the Apple Company

Posted on 04/02/2019 by ACELab team

Hi everyone,

How often do you use Data Extractor RAID Edition to recover data from RAID arrays? How often do you use statistics to define the configuration and recover data from this configuration?

We won’t dig too much into the merit of statistics for data recovery. Today we would like to tell you about cases where RAW recovery and statistics on RAID members show nothing.

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Easy Way to Find Donor Parts for Your Patient Drives

Posted on 03/26/2019 by ACELab team

To recover data from damaged drives, it’s often necessary to use donor PCB or/and donor heads on the patient drive. But where and how do you get such donor drives?

The easiest way is to use the “Search donor drives” button in the PC-3000 utility. In today’s article, we tell you more about this button and how to use it to find donor parts for your patient drives. Continue reading →

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PC-3000 for HDD. Western Digital repair. How to Fix a Used Drive and Hide Bad Areas in Defect Lists.

Posted on 03/18/2019 by ACELab team

We keep receiving requests about how to restore the drives with bad areas in order to use them in the future. In this article, we are going to review the restoration process of WD Marvell drive which worked in DVR for a long time, got reading issues and was not able to be used for data storage.

Please note that all actions in this article are intended for HDD repair only (NOT FOR DATA RECOVERY).

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Posted in Articles, PC-3000 HDD | 3 Comments