Category Archives: raw drive

WD MyBook Live drives wiped – Data Recovery

Earlier this week ‘rumors‘ started spreading about WD MyBook Live NAS devices were remotely instructed to return to factory settings. Well, this is no longer a rumor, it is happening. I write this blogpost as I learn new stuff about this issue so nothing of this is written in stone and I will update and… Read More »

USB Flash drive not detected after fall

Will a USB flash drive survive a drop? Modern USB Flash drives are quite solid and will most likely survive a fall due to their monolithic design. Older USB keys typically consist of several components micro soldered to a flimsy PCB. Apart from the smaller chip (the controller) and the large chip (NAND flash memory),… Read More »

USB flash drive keeps freezing / disconnecting – Recover Data

A USB flash drive constantly freezing and disconnecting is most likely a sign of degraded NAND. NAND has a finite number of erase/write cycles, the cheaper the NAND used, the smaller this number is. Also certain conditions can lower the number, such as the drive being exposed to heat.  Despite numerous sites recommending you run… Read More »

Why is photo repair more expensive than photo recovery?

In this post I’ll try to explain why photo repair is relatively expensive compared to photo recovery. Why is it many photos can be recovered at a fraction of the cost of repairing just a few images?

Unstable SD card with bad sectors data recovery – freezing, locks up, read errors, disconnects

Recovering your precious photos from a SD card can be challenging enough after accidental file deletion or formatting. Recovering data from an unstable SD Card may prove to even more difficult. Recovering data from an unstable SD Card Many file, photo and data recovery tools available focus on file recovery. Their efforts focus on discovery… Read More »

My r/datarecovery subreddit FAQ

For over 20 years I have been developing, been involved in development of and supporting data and file recovery software. Some very specific incidents sparked my interest in data recovery and then I wanted to find out how data was stored and lost on and from hard drives. The first tools I wrote were DOS tools… Read More »

Professional grade data recovery software on a budget

Who does not want it, professional grade data recovery software on a budget when you have an immediate need for it? Forget Stellar, forget the Disk Drill and RecoverIt! Although I have been and still am an enthusiastic advocate for ReclaiMe File Recovery, I try to keep an open mind and test other tools regularly.… Read More »

RAW data recovery

RAW can mean several things with regards to data recovery; ‘You can recover your RAW photos from a SD Card with a RAW file system using RAW file recovery’. With regards to file and photo recovery, RAW data recovery can refer to three different things: The recovery method; RAW vs. file system based recovery It… Read More »

Is ReclaiMe still the recommended all-round data recovery tool?

The best all-round data recovery tool for end users. Every now and then I test against updated versions of most popular file recovery software out there. Until now updated versions of Stellar, Clever Files (Disk Drill), Easeus, Minitool etc. did not make me change my mind. In fact, some of the updated versions feel like… Read More »

Recover photos from Android Micro SD Card

Probably Android phones are the most common devices to take photos with nowadays often stored on a Micro SD Card. Consequentially many lost photos will be on Android devices. Photos can be on: Internal memory (Micro) SD Card Although many want you to believe it is easy to recover the lost or deleted photos and… Read More »