{"id":1342,"date":"2016-08-17T09:50:21","date_gmt":"2016-08-17T09:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensicscorp.com\/blog\/?p=1342"},"modified":"2024-12-11T19:01:16","modified_gmt":"2024-12-11T19:01:16","slug":"extracting-data-from-damaged-hard-drives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/blog\/software\/extracting-data-from-damaged-hard-drives\/","title":{"rendered":"Extracting Data from Damaged Hard Drives"},"content":{"rendered":"

Damaged hard drives are unique objects of computer forensics<\/a>. The main reason – they usually die suddenly. A hard drive can be damaged physically, or, for example, during unwanted desktop (or laptop) rebooting, making digital evidence inaccessible. This fact can keep bad guys from covering their traces – and it’s very important for us. Our lab gets up to 40% of damaged (both logically and physically) drives every month. Here we’ll speak about extracting data from such drives.<\/p>\n

<\/span>FTK Imager and EnCase Forensic<\/span><\/h2>\n

If a hard drive has a fatal logical damage or a few bad sectors, you can image\u00a0it using FTK Imager or EnCase Forensic. This software will miss bad sectors writing zeros instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Physical Evidentiary Item (Source) Information:[Device Info]<\/p>\n

Source Type: Physical<\/p>\n

[Drive Geometry]<\/p>\n

Cylinders: 4,864<\/p>\n

Tracks per Cylinder: 255<\/p>\n

Sectors per Track: 63<\/p>\n

Bytes per Sector: 512<\/p>\n

Sector Count: 78,140,160<\/p>\n

[Physical Drive Information]<\/p>\n

Drive Model: HITACHI_ DK13FA-4 USB Device<\/p>\n

Drive Serial Number:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 D0W784<\/p>\n

Drive Interface Type: USB<\/p>\n

Removable drive: False<\/p>\n

Source data size: 38154 MB<\/p>\n

Sector count:\u00a0\u00a0 78140160<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ATTENTION:<\/p>\n

The following sector(s) on the source drive could not be read:<\/p>\n

77855232 through 78140159<\/span><\/p>\n

The contents of these sectors were replaced with zeros in the image.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[Computed Hashes]<\/p>\n

MD5 checksum:\u00a0\u00a0 ab0775b04c0e81c314172280d1490372<\/p>\n

SHA1 checksum:\u00a0\u00a0 64b7cea951b97637429fd6fc21a7d2fc03acf1d6<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Figure 1. FTK Imager log fragment<\/em><\/p>\n

But if the drive is damaged badly, these pieces of software won’t help you.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Victoria [1]<\/span><\/h2>\n

Victoria is a free utility that can be used with all kind of drives, including HDD, SSD and Flash. Version 4.0 of this tool started to work under Windows (up to Windows 10, both 32 and 64). Victoria analyses drive’s state in details and can fix almost any problem. While other utilities can read only SMART, Victoria can start self-diagnostic tests for drives.<\/p>\n

By default, all its destructive functions are disabled, so it’s impossible to destroy data on the drive. Victoria can work in two modes: POI and API.<\/p>\n

<\/span>POI mode<\/span><\/h3>\n

In this mode, the utility works with drive’s controller via special driver – porttalk.sys. That’s how it sends any ATA commands to the controller passing OS and standard drivers. Using this mode takes lots of time, but it has more chances to help. It doesn’t work on 64-bit systems, though.<\/p>\n

<\/span>API mode<\/span><\/h3>\n

In this mode Victoria interacts with drive’s controller via standard drivers. Scanning and bad sectors remapping in this mode is faster, but you can’t set or remove\u00a0ATA-passwords, and you don’t have access to Host Protected Area.<\/p>\n

\"Victoria_1_weare4n6\"<\/p>\n

Figure 2. Victoria 4.47, API mode<\/em><\/p>\n

Victoria uses four methods and three types of drive testing (twelve modes in total). In each mode, it counts the number of bad sectors and writes it to log file. In PIO mode, Victoria shows info about logical structure even if the drive isn’t detected in BIOS. Victoria can also test and fix SMART errors. Also, you can use it to remove or set ATA-passwords (we’ll write about it in our following articles).<\/p>\n

\"Victoria_2_weare4n6\"<\/p>\n

Figure 3. Victoria 4.47. Drive reading graph<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span>Write-blockers capable of extracting data from damaged drives [2]<\/span><\/h2>\n

<\/span>EPOS Bad Drive Adapter [2]<\/span><\/h3>\n

EPOS Bad Drive Adapter was developed by a Ukrainian company EPOS. It is a write-blocker with the ability to hide drive’s defects from OS, so typical imaging tools can be used for acquisition. It’s really easy to work with it – just connect damaged hard drive.<\/p>\n

\"EPOS_weare4n6\"<\/p>\n

Figure 4.\u00a0EPOS Bad Drive Adapter<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/span>Atola Insight Forensic [3]<\/span><\/h3>\n

Atola Insight Forensic is developed by a Canadian company. It has the same features as\u00a0EPOS Bad Drive Adapter – it’s a write-blocker\u00a0with the ability to hide drive’s defects from OS.<\/p>\n

<\/span>PC 3000 Portable [4]<\/span><\/h3>\n

This unique piece of hardware developed by ACE Lab is capable of extracting data from almost any damaged drives. And with the help of Data Extractor an examiner can create a RAW – image of the drive. The image can be examined with any piece of forensic software.<\/p>\n

\"PC_3000_Portable_weare4n6\"<\/p>\n

Figure 5. PC 3000 Portable<\/em><\/p>\n

PC 3000 Portable includes adapters for different hard drive interfaces: microSATA, SATA, PATA, etc.<\/p>\n

\"PC_3000_Portable_adapters_weare4n6\"<\/p>\n

Figure 6. Adapters<\/em><\/p>\n

Although this hardware is very expensive, it is very helpful. Here is a very good example: a SWAT team stormed suspect’s apartment while he was damaging his hard drive with a hammer. He had 30 minutes to totally destroy the drive. After the incident, we got the drive, changed the damaged system board and used Data Extractor to image the drive. As a result, we got 98% of data. Later, we used EnCase Forensic for examination.<\/p>\n

<\/span>Discussion<\/span><\/h2>\n

When your lab gets damaged hard drives for forensic examination, you shouldn’t bring them to data recovery service immediately. Very often you can extract data yourself using free software or relatively cheap write-blockers capable of working with damaged drives. If your lab has expensive data recovery hardware, like PC 3000 Portable, you can recover data from most hard drives damaged both logically and physically.<\/p>\n

<\/span>References:<\/span><\/h2>\n

1.Victoria 4.47 (Freeware)<\/p>\n

2.EPOS Bad Drive Adapter http:\/\/www.epos.ua\/view.php\/en\/products_epos_baddrive_adapter<\/a><\/p>\n

3.Atola Insight Forensic http:\/\/atola.com\/products\/insight\/<\/a><\/p>\n

4.PC 3000 Portable http:\/\/www.acelaboratory.com\/PortableSystem<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span>About the author:<\/span><\/h2>\n

Igor Mikhaylov<\/a><\/p>\n

Interests: Computer, Cell Phone & Chip-Off Forensics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Damaged hard drives are unique objects of computer forensics. The main reason – they usually die suddenly. 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Professional career has been driven by the intersection of innovation and practical application, particularly in the domains of cybersecurity and cyber crime investigations. He holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science and has contributed extensively to academic and industry advancements through publications, patents, and technological solutions addressing complex real-world challenges. As a professional with over 25 years of experience in the fields of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and digital forensics his career spans roles in academic research, software development, corporate leadership, and expert consulting, giving me a comprehensive understanding of the technical, strategic, and practical dimensions of projects. Expertise spans a wide range of technical domains, including: \u2022 Data Breach Incident Response: Managing immediate responses to cybersecurity crises, including the containment and mitigation of threats \u2022 Corporate Strategy Development: Designing long-term strategies to enhance organizational resilience against emerging cyber threats. \u2022 Expert Testimony: Providing legal and technical expertise in high-profile cybersecurity cases. \u2022 Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning: Designing and implementing algorithms for data analysis, pattern recognition, and anomaly detection. \u2022 Network Security and Data Integrity: Developing solutions to protect critical systems from cyber threats, including encryption protocols and intrusion detection systems. \u2022 Cloud Computing and Hybrid Infrastructures: Creating scalable, resilient architectures for data storage, processing, and security.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/viktor-sobiecki\/"],"honorificPrefix":"Dr","jobTitle":"Chief Technology Officer (CTO)","worksFor":"Digital Forensics Corporation","url":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/blog\/author\/visor\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1342"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16022,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1342\/revisions\/16022"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.digitalforensics.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}