Data Recovery Tools
The industry leader for data recovery tools is without question ACE Laboratory, ACE Labs provide the PC-3000 product suite. It is unlikely to find a data recovery company without at least one of the PC-3000 products. These tools are highly advanced, provide an unparalleled level of access to devices to the user; they are however technically challenging to use needing a very high level of knowledge about how each type of device works . As with all data recovery tools they require a significant financial investment to purchase. We have heavily invested in the Ace Laboratory ecosystem believing it to be the only way to provide the highest level of service available to our customers.
Schematics and Boardviews.
The increasing complexity of the electronics on devices and the rise of solid state media means effective troubleshooting requires significant device specific knowledge. Unfortunately the documentation that would assist us, such as schematics and wiring diagrams are not being released by manufacturers.
Our only solution to this is to spend considerable time in reverse engineering the physical printed circuit boards of a donor device. Every component on the device needs to be identified, data sheets collected and every connection on each component recorded and numerous measurements taken.
We can then use this information along with hi-resolution scans on the device in our PCB CAD software to produce what is known as a boardview. These boardviews provide essential information to help us quickly track down missing voltages or electrical shorts in future cases.
Mechanical Hard Drives.
PC-3000 is both a hardware and software solution for recovering data and communicating directly with drives using vendor specific commands. Each hard drive family has a set of specific tools allowing specific tasks to be undertaken gaining access to problem drives. This level of access is not available when plugging a drive direct directly into the controller of a computer. The features and abilities available to a PC-3000 user can not be replicated by a company who have not invested in PC-3000. As with all professional data recovery tools whilst extremely powerful, the software is not simple to use and requires significant training and experience to operate effectively. PC-3000 allows access to the service areas and ROM of a drive where problems and errors in the firmware can be identified and corrected. Without tools like PC-3000 all that can be done with a drive is to hope to clone it.
SSD and M.2 Sata Drives
These drives pose a new problem for data recovery experts and tools have been slow to appear. ACE laboratory have again worked tirelessly to provide an option for us. PC-3000 SSD gives data recovery experts options to work with supported drives in a special safe mode giving access to control areas of the drive, essential for communicating with a none responsive drive. The tool provides virtual translators which replicate the functions of parts of drive allowing access to a customer’s data which would otherwise be impossible because of faulty hardware. Support for different drives is increasing regularly as the ACE Labs team reverse engineer the SSD drives.
USB Drives, SD Cards and Micro SD
PC-3000 Flash and it’s accessories are a relatively new addition to the range allows us to recover data directly from the NAND chips used to store data. We can do this either via a chip off procedure for the more common TSOP and BGA memory chips or via the technological pads or points on a monolith. Working with the chips this way gives us the absolute maximum chance of data recovery, modern ECC and security features can make these very time consuming and technically challenging recoveries.