Atola Imager

Selective Head Imaging

The value of imaging head-by-head

A hard drive with a damaged read/write head requires a special imaging approach. This is because the sectors in the range of the damaged head will be much more difficult to read than then rest of the HDD sectors. Trying to read sectors with a damaged head adds a lot of time to the process and can cause more damage to the hard drive by crashing the head into the spinning platter. Using the Atola Imager, a technician can identify a damaged read/write head and then adjust the imaging approach to start by reading from good heads and then going back to the damaged heads.

Select heads for imaging

Once a damaged head is identified, it is usually time to image/duplicate the hard drive. The technician would go to the Imaging tab and set the parameters. By clicking “Select heads to use” in the “Heads” section, the technician can specify which head to image from. This feature is very powerful, but the setup is quick and easy.

When the imaging process starts, the screen displays colors for each head to clearly show how well each one is reading sectors in its range.

Avoid the need to swap heads

Some hard drives are more difficult than others to perform a physical head swap. In some cases, this is because the design of the hard drive. In other cases, it is because donor parts can be difficult to find or it can take multiple tries to find a working part. Whatever the case, physical recovery cases can be time consuming and expensive, and being able to image head-by-head can often save a technician the need to attempt a head swap.

This gives businesses using the Atola Imager an advantage over their competitors by being able to quote lower prices and faster return times to their customers!