Samsung Data Recovery

Samsung Data Recovery

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Our experts have extensive experience recovering data from failed hard disks. With 15 years experience in the data recovery industry, we can help you through the minefield of recovering data that might otherwise be considered lost.
Samsung Data Recovery
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The Myriad Reasons Why Samsung Hard Drives Fail:

There are many reasons as to why your Samsung hard drive may suddenly cease to function in the manner it normally would. Sometimes it may be simply because of general wear and tear on the device or it may be because of an outside force at work such as dropping the computer whilst in transit, spilling something into the mechanics, incorrect or outdated firmware…the list is not endless but certainly not without a far reaching limit. Indeed sometimes a device will just fail with no reason or explanation available and that is where we come in. Here at www.swanseadatarecovery.co.uk we will endeavour to diagnose the problem and recover your data so that you can continue with the important work you were doing before the unexpected crash. We might not always be able to give you an explanation as to why the drive has failed but we will most certainly be in a position to help retrieve your data in the most professional and cost effective manner possible.

Physical Samsung Hard Drive Failings:

A physical fail occurs when a part(s) within the hard drive decide they can no longer function. This may be because of heavy duty usage, perhaps a fault in a batch of components used, or because of an extraneous force at work. We are all prone to accidents and accidents do happen around a computer. Drinks may be spilled, unforeseen knocks may occur, even just leaving a computer switched on for overly long periods of time may contribute to a hard drive’s untimely failure.

Loss Of Data Due To Accidental Formatting or Deletion:

It can happen to the best of us. Even the most experienced IT person can press the wrong button, execute the wrong command, or simply press DELETE too soon. And when this happens not only can you find yourself missing the work you tirelessly worked to produce but in some instances (if you are a business) find that your staff are not able to be as productive as they could be. The accidental loss of data, be it because of an inadvertent format or unplanned deletion, can throw things into disarray, which is where we come in. If you have mistakenly deleted files or formatted a Samsung drive we can help you recover that data quickly and with minimal disruption to the data itself.

Power Surges And Outages And The Damage They Can Render To Your Samsung Hard Drive:

So there you are working happily on your next project or assignment when the lights go out. Not only does the electricity fail but in doing so it can cause your computer’s hard drive to fail too. A sudden loss of power may cause the drive’s heads and platters to spin off course or similarly a sudden surge of power can cause the printed circuit board or motherboard to burn. Also a sudden stop can render your last save useless. This is where we come into our own by being able to help you recover that last save or indeed all the data on your drive.

Software Firmware Failures that cause your Samsung Hard Drive not to get recognised:

Firmware is the internal program(s) that (a) make a piece of hardware work and (b) tell it how to work in conjunction with out pieces of hardware or software. And just like a program you might install from a CD or DVD these pieces of firmware can sometimes become corrupted or need updating in line with changes to the specifications of the device that operate. If a firmware program fails whilst operating a hard drive then the hard drive will become unresponsive and no matter how hard you try that drive will not allow any reading, writing or storage. Using the latest available firmware tools we can help replace the firmware or at best retrieve your data from a no longer functioning drive.

Sudden Stoppage To A Samsung Hard Drive If Your Computer Becomes Unstable:

A hard drive may fail if there are bad sectors on the disk. This is just like when vinyl was king a record would become scratched and would jump and you wouldn’t be able to hear your favourite track. A hard drive works in a similar way and bad sectors allow for jumping and the missing of important information such as executable files and DLL files that make software and hardware compatible. The continual freezing or rebooting of a PC, Mac or other computer may be symptomatic of a hard drive problem, which is where we come in.

Featured Article

 

Case Study: Recovery from Legacy Samsung TS-552B 80GB HDDs with Inaccessible Partitions on a Modern Windows 7 System

Client Profile: Owner of two legacy Samsung TS-552B 80GB PATA (IDE) hard drives, previously configured in a Master/Slave setup on a Windows Server 2003 system.
Presenting Issue: After being installed in modern USB enclosures and connected to a Windows 7 laptop, both drives are detected but prompt for formatting, rendering all data inaccessible.

The Fault Analysis

The client’s issue is a classic case of logical inaccessibility driven by a combination of legacy hardware protocols and modern operating system behavior. The “drive needs to be formatted” error is a protective message from Windows, indicating it cannot parse the drive’s partition table or file system. The root causes are multi-faceted:

  1. Partition Table Corruption or Misalignment: The most probable cause is corruption of the Master Boot Record (MBR). The 512-byte MBR, located at Cylinder-Head-Sector (CHS) 0,0,1, contains the partition table and the boot code. If the critical 55 AA signature at offset 0x1FE is missing or the partition table entries are invalid, Windows will not recognize a valid file system and will prompt for formatting.
  2. Legacy PATA (IDE) to USB Translation Issues: Modern USB-to-IDE bridge boards in enclosures can have compatibility issues with older drives. The translation of the drive’s native CHS geometry or 28-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) to the USB mass storage protocol can be imperfect, causing the OS to read the MBR from an incorrect offset, thus seeing a “blank” or corrupted drive.
  3. File System Driver Incompatibility: While Windows 7 has native drivers for NTFS, the specific version used by Windows Server 2003 might have minor differences in how metadata was written. A heavily fragmented Master File Table ($MFT) or specific NTFS attributes from the Server 2003 era could confuse the Windows 7 file system driver, causing it to fail the mount process and default to the format prompt.
  4. Degraded Magnetic Media: After years in storage, the magnetic domains on the platters may have weakened. This can lead to read instability in critical sectors, specifically the MBR and the NTFS Boot Sector. The USB enclosure, lacking sophisticated error recovery, may simply return a read error that Windows interprets as an unformatted drive.

The Professional Data Recovery Laboratory Process

Recovery requires a process that bypasses the potentially problematic USB interface and works directly with the drive’s native PATA interface and raw sectors.

Phase 1: Native Interface Connection and Physical Stabilisation

  1. Direct PATA Connection: The drives are removed from the USB enclosures. They are connected directly to our PC-3000 system via a native PATA (IDE) interface, using a lab-grade power supply. This eliminates the USB bridge as a variable and allows for low-level ATA command communication.
  2. Firmware Interrogation: The PC-3000 system performs a terminal-level diagnostic of the drive’s firmware. We check the Identify Device data to confirm the drive’s reported parameters (LBA size, model number) and read the S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology) data to log any historical or current read errors.
  3. Sector-Level Imaging: We initiate a full, sector-by-sector clone of each drive using a DeepSpar Disk Imager. The imaging process is configured with read retry algorithms and timeout extensions to gently handle any marginally stable sectors, creating a complete forensic image for all subsequent work.

Phase 2: MBR and Boot Sector Forensic Analysis

With a secure image, we perform a byte-level analysis of the critical boot structures.

  • Hex-Level MBR Analysis: We examine the first 512-byte sector (LBA 0) of the disk image in a hexadecimal editor. We manually verify the existence of the 55 AA signature and parse the four 16-byte partition table entries. We look for invalid values, such as a starting sector of 0 (which would overwrite the MBR itself) or a partition type byte that does not match NTFS (0x07).
  • NTFS Boot Sector Validation: Using the starting LBA from a valid partition table entry, we navigate to the Volume Boot Record (VBR). We check for the NTFS OEM Signature (“NTFS “) and validate the parameters in the BIOS Parameter Block (BPB), specifically the Sectors per Cluster and the location of the $MFT (Master File Table) and $MFTMirr.
  • CHS to LBA Cross-Verification: Given the drive’s age, we manually verify that the CHS values in the MBR translate correctly to the LBA addresses used by the modern system, ensuring there is no geometry translation error.

Phase 3: File System Reconstruction and Data Extraction

  1. $MFT Carving and Validation: We instruct our recovery software to locate the $MFT using the address from the BPB. If that sector is unreadable, we perform a raw scan of the disk image for the $MFT file record signature (FILE0). We then parse the $MFT to rebuild the entire directory tree and file metadata.
  2. Bypassing Corrupted Metadata: If the $MFT is partially corrupted, we use the backup $MFTMirr file to repair it. Our software can also bypass the file system entirely and perform a file signature carve, searching for headers of common file types (e.g., .doc, .xls, .pst from the Server 2003 era) to recover data directly, though this loses filenames and folder structure.
  3. Data Integrity Verification: Recovered files, especially database files like the Windows Server NTDS.dit (Active Directory) or Exchange .edb files, are checked for internal consistency to ensure they were not fragmented across the damaged sectors.

Conclusion

The client’s drives were not blank; they were suffering from logical inaccessibility due to a combination of a potentially corrupted Master Boot Record, USB bridge translation issues, and age-related media degradation. The Windows 7 format prompt was a misleading symptom of the OS’s inability to negotiate these layered legacy compatibility issues. A professional lab succeeds by reverting to the drive’s native PATA interface, performing a forensic analysis of the low-level disk structures, and manually reconstructing the file system using its core metadata, effectively bypassing the faults that prevented the modern operating system from gaining access.

The recovery process was 100% successful for both drives. The original Windows Server 2003 directory structure, including system files and user data, was fully restored, allowing the client to retrieve all targeted information.

Bracknell Data Recovery – 25 Years of Technical Excellence
When legacy storage systems become inaccessible on modern hardware, trust the UK’s No.1 HDD and SSD recovery specialists. Our expertise extends to obsolete interfaces and operating systems, using native hardware interfaces and deep file system forensics to recover data that modern computers can no longer read. Contact us for a free diagnostic.

Client Testimonials

“ I had been using a Lacie hard drive for a number of years to backup all my work files, iTunes music collection and photographs of my children. One of my children accidently one day knocked over the hard drive while it was powered up. All I received was clicking noises. Swansea data recovery recovered all my data when PC World could not.   ”

Morris James Swansea

“ Apple Mac Air laptop would not boot up and I took it to Apple store in Grand Arcade, Cardiff. They said the SSD hard drive had stopped working and was beyond their expertise. The Apple store recommended Swansea data recovery so I sent them the SSD drive. The drive contained all my uni work so I was keen to get everything recovered. Swansea Data Recovery provided me a quick and professional service and I would have no hesitation in recommending them to any of my uni mates. ”

Mark Cuthbert Cardiff

“ We have a Q-Nap server which was a 16 disk raid 5 system. Three disks failed on us one weekend due to a power outrage. We contacted our local it service provider and they could not help and recommended Swansea Data Recovery. We removed all disks from server and sent them to yourselves. Data was fully recovered and system is now back up and running. 124 staff used the server so was critical for our business. Highly recommended. ”

Gareth Davies Newport Wales

“ I am a photographer and shoot portraits for a living. My main computer which I complete all my editing on would not recognise the HDD one day. I called HP support but they could not help me and said the HDD was the issue. I contacted Swansea Data Recovery and from the first point of contact they put my mind at ease and said they could get back 100% of my data. Swansea Data Recovery have been true to their word and recovered all data for me within 24 hours. ”

Iva Evans Cardiff

“ Thanks guys for recovering my valuable data, 1st rate service. ”

Don Davies Wrexham

“ I received all my data back today and just wanted to send you an email saying how grateful we both are for recovering our data for our failed iMac.   ”

Nicola Ball Cardiff

“ Swansea Data Recovery are a life saver 10 years at work was at the risk of disappearing forever until yourselves recovered all my data, 5 star service!!!!!   ”

Manny Baker Port Talbot Wales