Atola Insight

Disk Diagnostics

The importance of accurate hard drive diagnosis

Hard drive diagnosis is the first step taken in all data recovery cases. Accurately assessing the state of a hard drive and the exact points of damage will determine the approach taken to complete the recovery and effectively. Without proper diagnostic information, a technician might further damage a hard drive or to get the maximum amount of data from a hard drive. The Atola Insight is the most accurate hard drive diagnosis product on the market because it gives the user the most tools to examine damaged hard drives.

Click here to skip to this section’s FAQ at the bottom of the page

Diagnose hard drives that cannot be recognized

The Atola Insight is able to accurately diagnose hard drives that cannot be recognized or identified by any computer system including imagers or data recovery products. In cases where the Atola Insight cannot recognize the hard drive, it can still diagnose the drive by sending low-level commands into the HDD and interpreting electrical currents

Start with Automatic Checkup

The Atola Insight’s automatic diagnostic function evaluates the state of the hard drive, identifies specific errors and then recommends steps for moving forward with HDD recovery and data extraction. For Atola Insight users, this is the starting point for most data recovery cases. The operator simply mounts the damaged hard drive to the DiskSense unit and clicks one button to start the automatic checkup. Real-time status updates are displayed throughout the diagnosis and a full diagnostic report is then generated in less than 10 minutes.

The automatic report identifies damage in the following areas:

• Circuit Board (PCB)
• Motor
• Heads
• Media Surface
• Firmware Area
• Partitions and File System

Watch this video tutorial about automatic checkup:

Examine media surface and head status with Media Scan

Media Scan #1

The Atola Insight’s Media Scan function displays read-speed for any range of sectors in both milliseconds and megabytes per second. This information enables the operator to assess damaged sectors and read/write heads by analyzing read delays. The color-coded graphic display lists the current read speed, average speed throughout the scan, and number of read errors found (info is updated in real time). The scan can be set to read sectors in linear (forward) order, backward order, or in a “Fast Scan,” which only reads Error Correction Codes to save time.

Examples:

Media Scan #2
1. The Media Scan #1 screenshot shows a cluster of sectors with longer read time (slower speed). This indicates that the sectors were read successfully, but the hard drive may have made several re-reads and ECC corrections.
2. The Media Scan #2 screenshot shows a pattern of severe read delays and several unreadable sectors. This specific type of pattern strongly indicates head failure, where blocks being read by some heads show no delays and blocks being read by other heads are unreadable or show significant delays.

Note: The Atola Insight is also able to identify head damage through its Automatic Checkup function.

Current Monitoring

The Atola Insight comes equipped with a Dual Oscilloscope that monitors the 5 volt and 12 volt currents being drawn by the hard drive in real time. This feature gives the operator the ability to track the electrical behavior of the hard drive throughout the entire data recovery process. Any major changes or inconsistencies can then be identified as soon as they occur. This tool is very important to data recovery technicians for the same reason that a heart-rate monitor is important to medical doctors. When a patient is in unstable condition, the doctor must be able to keep track of the patient’s vital signs and know immediately if a complication occurs.

You can also watch this video tutorial:

Diagnose hard drives with multiple errors

It is common for a hard drive to have multiple errors in a data recovery case. In some cases, the Atola Insight will identify multiple errors at once. In others cases, only one error will show during the first diagnostic scan and further errors will become visible as the recovery process goes on. For example, if a hard drive has experienced failure in both the PCB and firmware area, only the damage in the PCB will be identified at first because the PCB is needed to relay electrical signals from the hard drive in order to detect firmware damage. Once the PCB is repaired, the HDD will need to be diagnosed a second time in order to identify the damage to the firmware area.