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.
RAID 5 Video Demonstration: Salvaging Data with a Stale Drive
In this RAID 5 video blog, Brian Gill breaks down one of our recent RAID 5 data recovery cases. Our client sent in a 3 drive RAID 5 array for data recovery. One hard drive was perfectly healthy. However, two…
Clicking Seagate Hard Drive: When Backup Isn’t Backup
Here at Gillware, it isn’t uncommon to see a client come to us with a clicking Seagate hard drive filled with family photos and other files they need us to recover for them. Many people back up all of their critical data—and…
Deleted File Recovery Case Study: Western Digital RAID-1 Mirror
This client had two 500 gigabyte Western Digital WD5003ABYX-01WERA1 hard drives linked together in a RAID-1 array. Important database files had been erased from the array, and the client needed our deleted file recovery services. A RAID is a “redundant…
Samsung Spinpoint with Accidental Reformat
In this data recovery case, our client came to us with a logical matter. The client had a Samsung external hard drive formatted for use in their PC. When they had plugged it into their Mac, they accidentally allowed the Mac to reformat…
Seagate Barracuda with Motor Failure
In this data recovery case, the client’s drive had multiple failure points. However, the primary reason this Seagate desktop hard drive was not detected was because the hard drive spindle motor had seized. The hard drive spindle motor is responsible for spinning…
RAID-5 Server Recovery Case Study: Corrosive Fluid Damage
The client in this peculiar RAID-5 server recovery case had pulled three 72-gigabyte SCSI hard drives (two Fujitsu, and one Maxtor) from their RAID-5 server. Some kind of fluid had been dumped on the server box containing the client’s drives. At first,…
Samsung Spinpoint HD204UI with Failed PCB
Data recovery involving a failed hard drive PCB used to be simple many years ago, when hard drives had simpler and less sophisticated designs. There was a time when any two hard drives made by the same manufacturer, with the…
ZTE N9132 “Prestige” Prepaid Boost Mobile Chip Off
In this post, we’re taking a trip away from the Gillware Data Recovery lab and over to the Gillware Digital Forensics lab. This case is an example of the kind of work our newly formed branch does for law enforcement agencies…
Deleted ThawSpace Partitions with Faronics Deep Freeze
What is a ThawSpace? The Faronics Deep Freeze software takes a snapshot of the user’s machine, “freezing” it at that point in time. Every time the machine is rebooted, it reverts to its frozen state—none of the changes to the disk…