Cases recovered in Brussels

An 8 TB LaCie d2 Professional external enclosure with a USB-C connection was no longer recognized by the computer after being dropped, and a slight abnormal noise was coming from the drive. The LaCie d2 Professional houses an 8 TB Seagate IronWolf Pro ST8000NT001 hard drive, which no longer allowed access to its data via the USB port. The customer had dropped the device. No backup was available.

The diagnosis required removing the Seagate hard drive from its LaCie enclosure. On the printed circuit board (PCB), the ROM memory was spread across two separate chips: these were read using a programmer, then imported into the PC-3000 system and reconstructed into a single ROM image. Using the PC-3000 Portable Pro, the drive was then configured for head-by-head reading, with each read head processed separately to preserve data integrity.

A 1 TB Maxtor M3 Portable external hard drive (Seagate ST1000LM035-1RK172) had inaccessible data, even though the enclosure appeared to be in perfect condition. The customer, based in Luxembourg, could hear the drive running but was no longer able to open his files. Another lab had already attempted data recovery, without success. The data at stake was limited but precious: family photos that existed only on this drive, with no backup.

The diagnosis ruled out a simple logic issue and revealed a weak read head as well as a locked ROM module, which was preventing the disk from functioning. The ROM was first unlocked on a PC-3000 workstation to restore access. A head map was then created in Data Extractor, followed by a map of the data sectors that were actually occupied. Only the data useful to the customer—the family photos—were imaged in read-only mode, taking care to protect the fragile read head to maximize readability.

An HP ProLiant ML350 G6 server with a RAID 1 of two SAS drives became inaccessible after a reboot. The first drive had failed weeks earlier without any alert, and the second eventually gave out, blocking access to a transport company's critical data.

We performed a sector-by-sector copy of each drive to preserve the originals. By comparing the images, we identified the most up-to-date drive and then extracted all the data.

A 128 GB Kingston DataTraveler USB drive contained an old Outlook PST archive that the user had accidentally deleted. This file contained several years’ worth of work emails and did not exist anywhere else: no backup copy had been kept. The flash drive remained fully functional and was recognized by the system, but the archive was no longer visible. The challenge was to recover a single, large PST file without writing anything to the drive.

A complete image of the drive was first created on a server using Data Extractor in read-only mode, in order to work on a copy and preserve the original. By analyzing the used and free space, we were able to locate and reconstruct the deleted, slightly damaged PST file. Since the raw data was intact, the repair was performed at the logical level: the ScanPST utility built into Microsoft Outlook corrected minor inconsistencies in the file’s structure.

A 5TB Seagate hard drive was making an abnormal noise, indicating a head crash. The company contacted us urgently on a Saturday, without an appointment.

Head stack replacement in a cleanroom, followed by reading and extracting the data to a healthy drive. The intervention was carried out the same day, with no extra charge for the weekend.

An architect from Venice brought us a SanDisk Extreme SSD whose partition had become inaccessible. An initial attempt at recovery using TestDisk had made the situation worse: the tool had written corrupted data to the first partition, making it difficult to access the original files.

Before performing any operations, we created a bit-by-bit (sector-by-sector) copy of the entire disk so that we could work exclusively on the image and preserve the original media. Analyzing this image allowed us to locate the actual starting point of the HFS+ partition and reconstruct its structure.

The external hard drive was no longer recognized by the computer and emitted faint clicking sounds.

We converted the USB interface to SATA and unlocked the ROM using PC-3000. A head map was created to extract data first via the healthy heads, then via the failing head.

RAID 5: First disk failure. When rebuilding after its replacement, a second disk failed, resulting in a total crash and the loss of the volume.

Cloned all disks and identified the configuration. A virtual array was assembled using PC-3000 RAID Edition, restoring bad sectors from parity data.

A 2 TB Seagate ST2000LM007 that started clicking and was no longer detected. Abnormal noise on power-up, urgent recovery.

Opened in an ISO 5 cleanroom, head stack replaced with a compatible donor set, then platters imaged and data extracted on a PC-3000 bench.

256GB iPhone 12 Pro with corrosion-damaged motherboard, broken screen, phone wouldn't turn on. Photos and personal data to be recovered.

Corrosion cleaning, motherboard repair (micro-soldering) and screen replacement, then data extraction from the phone.

A Synology DS920+ NAS (RAID 5, 4×4 TB) with two of its four disks failed: the volume no longer mounted and the data was inaccessible. A RAID 5 normally survives only a single disk failure.

Imaging of both failed disks, analysis of the failure chronology (to identify the last active disk), virtual reconstruction of the RAID 5, then extraction of all the data.