Will Ascenzo
Will is the lead blogger, copywriter, and copy editor for Gillware Data Recovery and Digital Forensics, and a staunch advocate against the abuse of innocent semicolons.
Toshiba Canvio Data Recovery: When Software Can’t Fix a Hard Crash
Our client braced themselves for the worst when their Toshiba Canvio external hard disk clattered to the floor, wrenching itself free of the USB cable tethering it to their computer. Fortunately, when they went back to plug the drive in,…
Power Outage Data Recovery: Gray Screen of Death
How a Power Outage Can Kill Your Hard Drive Your hard drive uses an array of complex, sensitive devices to store, read, and write data. Those devices—the hard disk platters and the read/write heads—are the most at risk when the…
External Hard Drive Repair: WD My Book Not Recognized
The client in this data recovery case had a Western Digital My Book that had stopped working. They would plug the external hard drive into their computer, but Windows would not recognize the device. Upon closer inspection, the client noticed…
The Story Behind Hard Drive Beeps and Computer Beep Codes
“Why Is My Computer Beeping?” A (Brief) Look At Computer Beep Codes We tend to associate beeping with electronics. Even your computer will beep—but when it’s coming from your computer or your computer’s hard drive (external or internal), it’s not…
Samsung 850 EVO Data Recovery Case Study: In Short Supply
Unlike hard disk drives, which can make a lot of noise when they kick the bucket, solid state drives live and die in near-complete silence. This can make it hard for a layperson to have even the faintest clue what’s…
Iomega StorCenter IX4 Data Recovery Case Study: RAID-10 Failure
The client in this RAID data recovery case had a four-drive RAID-10 array that had failed when two of its four hard drives died. The RAID-10 array had lived inside an Iomega StorCenter IX4 NAS device. With half of the drives…
Dell Server Data Recovery: Dell T420 “State Foreign” Error
The client in this data recovery case came to us to get data recovered from their crashed Dell T420 server. This Dell T420 server used a RAID-5 configuration. It had eight two-terabyte Seagate hard drives for a combined total of 14 terabytes of…
Dead Hard Drive Recovery: Breaking the Spin Cycle
Updated: 1/17/2019 What do you do with a dead hard drive? You can use it as a paperweight, a doorstopper, or a bookend. You can even make it into a clock. But before you do any of those things, you should…
How to Celebrate Clean Out Your Computer Day 2017 (Without Getting Tortellini in Your PC Tower)
On the second Monday of every February, you can celebrate “National Clean Out Your Computer Day”. This year, that Monday falls on the 13th of February. National Clean Out Your Computer Day was started by the Institute for Business Technology…