Data Recovery Blog

F-Response is an easy to use, vendor neutral, patent-pending software utility that enables an investigator to conduct live forensics, Data Recovery, and eDiscovery over an IP network using their tool(s) of choice.

F-Response Main Features:

F-Response is a single executable (“exe”) that requires no drivers or installation components;
F-Response does not require a reboot, therefore mission critical servers can be reviewed with F-Response without an adverse impact on operations;
F-Response works with all RAID disks, physical drives, logical volumes, and physical memory (32 & 64 bit);
F-Response works with all Computer Forensics, eDiscovery and Data Recovery software packages, simply put, if your package reads from a hard drive, it will work with F-Response;
All F-Response software includes unlimited installations for a period of one (1) year from the date of purchase, software will cease to function at the end of the license duration unless renewed;
F-Response Enterprise Edition includes a license for F-Response Consultant and Field Kit Edition;

F-Response Enterprise Edition Mission Guides:

[NEW]Using the F-Response Accelerator (CE and EE Only)
[NEW]Leverage manual connections along with F-Response Consultant or Enterprise for a large scale collection
[NEW]Connect to Android (ARM) target(s) disk using F-Response Enterprise Edition
[NEW]Deploy F-Response Target code without the use of the F-Response Enterprise Management Console
Connect to a remote Linux target(s) disk using F-Response Enterprise Edition
Connect to a remote Apple target(s) disk using F-Response Enterprise Edition
Connect to a remote Windows target(s) disk using F-Response Enterprise Edition
Connect to the F-Response Boot CDROM using F-Response Enterprise Edition
Programming the F-Response Enterprise COM Object

F-Response Mission Guides were designed to simplify the process of using F-Response software in new and unfamiliar scenarios. Mission guides offer a possible solution to your task, working with you each step of the way through instruction that is direct and to the point. Much smaller than a manual, Mission Guides give you the exact information you need to get you connected and underway as fast as possible.

Computer Forensic

Computer Forensic Tool: EnCase Forensic

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM14 years ago4 years ago04 mins

EnCase Forensic is for forensic practitioners who need to conduct efficient, forensically sounds data collection and investigations using a repeatable and defensible process. EnCase Forensic lets examiners acquire data from a wide variety of devices, unearth potential evidence with disk level forensic analysis, and craft comprehensive reports on their findings, all while maintaining the integrity of their evidence.

How EnCase® Forensic Works:

1) Obtain Forensically Sound Acquisitions
EnCase® Forensic produces an exact binary duplicate of the original drive or media, then verifies it by generating MD5 hash values for related image files and assigning CRC values to the data. These checks and balances reveal when evidence has been tampered with or altered, helping to keep all digital evidence forensically sound for use in court proceedings.

2) Save Valuable Time with Advanced Productivity Features
Examiners can preview data while drives or other media are being acquired. Once the image files are created, examiners can search and analyze multiple drives or other media simultaneously. EnCase Forensic also features a case indexer. This powerful tool builds a complete index in multiple languages, allowing for fast and easy queries. Indices can also be chained together to find keywords common to other investigations. This Unicode-supported index contains personal documents, deleted files, file system artifacts, file slack, swap files, unallocated space, emails and web pages. In addition, EnCase has extensive file system support, giving organizations the ability to analyze all types of data.

3) Customize EnCase® Forensic with EnScript® Programming
EnCase forensic features EnScript® programming capabilities. EnScript, an object-oriented
programming language similar to Java or C++, allows users create to custom programs to help
them automate time-consuming investigative tasks, such as searching and analyzing specific
document types or other labor-intensive processes and procedures. This power can be harnessed by any level of investigator by using one of Forensics tools, such as the “Case Developer” or one of the numerous built-in filters and conditions.

4) Provide Actionable Data, Report on it, and Move on to the Next Case
Once investigators have bookmarked relevant data, they can create a report suitable for
presentation in court, to management or to another legal authority. Data can also be exported in multiple file formats for review.

EnCase Forensic is trusted by corporations, law enforcement, and government. EnCase Forensic is fast, powerful, forensically sound, and proven in courts worldwide.

EnCase Forensic Related Links:

Website: http://www.guidancesoftware.com/forensic.htm
Resource: EnCase® Forensic for Law Enforcement (PDF)

Data Storage

Most Popular 2TB Internal Hard Drives on Amazon.com

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM14 years ago3 years ago05 mins

When was the last time you bought a new 1tb or 2tb internal hard drive? It used to be a simple decision three years back, pick the cheapest Seagate or Western digital based on the drive capacity that you need and you are all set to use and enjoy it for many years.

Not so anymore, especially if you need a high capacity internal drive. There are so many newer models and sub versions that it becomes a major pain if you buy the wrong drive. I have gone through this pain in the last few months and hence did a quick write up on the various options based on my own experience in my blog and reproduce the same below:

Some factors to consider if you need a new internal hard drive:

1. Usage: Is this a drive that is going to go into your computer and be used once in a while for data access? Or is this going to go into a enclosure that will be on many hours in a day (say for media player, FTP server or a backup server). Or do you need it as a primary boot drive in your primary computer ?

2. Heat: How much heat will the enclosure create? Is it a nice computer cabinet with plenty of fans to circulate air or is it a small NAS/USB enclosure with hardly any fan movement ?

3. OS and Raid: What operating system (Windows 7, Windows XP and Linux) will be used to access the drive ? And will you have some form of Raid ? Yes, it seems like a idiotic question, but trust me, this has a bearing on the choice of drive.

Once you have answers to the three questions above, you can pick the right drive from below:

Popular Manufacturers: Western Digital, Seagate, Hitachi

Most popular 2TB hard drives on Amazon.com:

Western Digital 2 TB RE4-GP SATA 64MB Cache Bulk/OEM Enterprise Hard Drive
(Price: $282.99 Price on Amazon.com: $242.99 Model: WD2002FYPS )

Western Digital 2 TB AV-GP SATA Intellipower 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive
(Price: $190.99 Price on Amazon.com: $129.99 Model: WD20EVDS )

Hitachi Deskstar 3.5-Inch 2TB 7200RPM SATA II 32MB Cache Internal Hard Drive
(Price: $182.77 Price on Amazon.com: $124.99 Model: 0S02861)

Seagate Barracuda XT 2 TB 7200RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch Internal Bare Drive
(Price: $298.99 Price on Amazon.com: $169.99 Model: ST32000641AS)

Western Digital 2 TB Caviar Black SATA 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive
(Price: $320.99 Price on Amazon.com: $186.22 Model: WD2001FASS)

Seagate Barracuda LP 2 TB 5900RPM SATA 3 GB/s 32 MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Hard Drive ST32000542AS-Bare Drive
(Price: $202.99 Price on Amazon.com: $99.99 Model: ST32000542AS)

Western Digital 2 TB Caviar Green SATA Intellipower Bulk/OEM Desktop Hard Drive
(Price: $159.99 Price on Amazon.com: $99.99 Model: WD20EARS )

Hope this helps someone who is looking for the same information.

Data Storage

Hitachi Hard Disk Drive Business is now Western Digital

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM14 years ago4 years ago03 mins

March 7, 2011 – Hitachi transfers hard disk drive business to Western Digital.

Western Digital will acquire all shares of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies’s holding company, Viviti Technologies Ltd. The proposed combination will result in customer-centric storage company, with significant operating scale, strong global talent and the industry’s broadest product lineup backed by a rich technology portfolio.

Under terms of the agreement, WD will acquire Hitachi GST for $3.5 billion in cash and 25 million WD common shares valued at $750 million, based on WD closing stock price of $30.01 as of March 4, 2011. Hitachi will own approximately ten percent of WD shares and hold two seats on the WD board of directors. Steve Milligan, president and chief executive officer of Hitachi GST, will join WD’s existing senior management team as president.

The acquisition of Hitachi GST is a unique opportunity for WD to create further value for our customers, shareholders, employees, suppliers and the communities in which we operate. We believe this step will result in several key benefits-enhanced R&D capabilities, innovation and expansion of a rich product portfolio, comprehensive market coverage and scale that will enhance our cost structure and ability to compete in a dynamic marketplace. The skills and contributions of both workforces were key considerations in assessing this compelling opportunity. We will be relying on the proven integration capabilities of both companies to assure the ongoing satisfaction of our customers and to bring this combination to successful fruition.” – said John Coyne, president and chief executive officer of WD.

“This combination will bring together two industry leaders with consistent track records of strong execution and industry outperformance, together we can provide customers worldwide with the industry’s most compelling and diverse set of products and services, from innovative personal storage to Solid State Drives for the Enterprise.” – said Steve Milligan, president and chief executive officer, Hitachi GST.

Hard Disk Repair

New Hard Drive not detected by System

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM14 years ago4 years ago011 mins

Question: If you installed a new disk but the system can’t see it.

Ten steps to solive Hard drive not detected or recognized by system.

Step One
The easiest thing to check: did you attach a data cable to an appropriate port on the motherboard and a power cable to the power supply? The power cable is sometimes forgotten.

Step Two
Just where exactly is the system not seeing it? In the OS, in the BIOS, or “What is BIOS?”

If “What is BIOS,” go to step three
If “It’s not seen in the BIOS,” go to step four
If “It’s seen in BIOS but not in the OS”, go to step five

Step Three
You asked, “What is BIOS?” When you first apply power to the system, or boot, it starts running a tiny little program called BIOS (it’s an acronym, do you really care what for?) that resides on the motherboard. You will start seeing text messages, and one of the earliest will say “Press <someKey> for Setup.” <someKey> may be Esc, Del, F10, or something else; don’t ask me why it wasn’t standardized.

Anyway, press that key. The startup will continue for a while, and then it will send you to a really primitive-looking setup screen that depends on what your motherboard is, so I can’t give you an exact example here. Look in your Motherboard manual. Somewhere in it, you will find a list of hard drives. On my Asus P5P55D Delux, it looks like this:

If you don’t know which of them is which of your drives, just count them. Are there enough to account for the new drive (if you had one before, do you see two now)?

If “It’s seen in the BIOS,” go to step five. Else, go to step four.

Step Four
“I don’t see it in the BIOS.” Well, that’s nasty. Some, very few, BIOSes require that the drive controller be enabled, or even the particular port be enabled. Look through your BIOS or your manual to see if this is the case. Dell systems are particularly obnoxious this way.

If you can’t get the BIOS to recognize it, exit this checklist and post a question, giving such information as your therboard make and model, disk make and model, and the fact that it is not detected in BIOS. Sorry.

If you do get the BIOS to recognize it, go to step five.

Step Five
“It’s seen in the BIOS.” But your OS does not see it. You do have an already running OS, don’t you? If not, well, I haven’t written that part yet.

Brand-new drives need to be partitioned and the partitions formatted. If you know how to do this, skip to step six. Otherwise, read on.

Log in to your Windows OS (yes, I’m only covering Windows) with an account with Administrator privileges and open the Control Panel. Select Administrative Tools, and from there select Computer Management. In the new window that opens up, navigate down the tree on the left to Disk Management. It should look something like this:

See how on the bottom panel on the right there is one “stripe” for each of the hard (or solid-state) drives? Well, let’s look for your new one there. If you can’t figure out which is the new one, shut down the machine, take out the new drive, start up the machine, and open Disk Management again. Print out a copy of it. Then put the new drive back in (please, shut down first!) and re-open Disk Management. It’s the stripe that wasn’t there before.

If the new drive is not seen at all, you have a different problem. Please skip to step ten.
What you will probably see is your new drive represented as a single block of unallocated space. If not, it’s time once again to leave me and ask for more specific help. If that is what you see, because it is a brand-new disk it has to be partitioned and formatted, as I mentioned above. Here’s how you create one big partition so that all of the space on the drive shows up in one new drive letter in Windows Explorer.

** If you do these operations on the wrong disk you can erase all of the data on it. Be sure that you either have backups or have the identified the right disk. Or both. **

Right-click anywhere in the big block or Unallocated Space that represents your drive. Choose the action New Partition (or New Simple Volume in Windows 7). You want to create a Primary partition (or Simple Volume) that takes up the full amount of available space. If you are going through the Partition Wizard, at this point you will also choose to format the partition as NTFS, with the Default “Allocation Unit Size” and a Label like “New Big Disk.” Choose Quick Format if that choice is offered.

When it is through working (2 minutes to 2 hours), if you look in Windows Explorer you will now have a nice new drive letter with all of your new space. Enjoy! You are done. Leave this checklist.

Step Six
OK, you could skip all the detailed instructions on partitioning and formatting. One of two things happened. If you succeeded, you are done with this checklist. If, on the other hand, the Disk Manager did not show the new, unpartitioned drive, you have to go to the dreaded Step Ten.

Step Seven
There is no step seven. Or eight or nine, for that matter. I just used ten earlier to make sure that I had enough room.

Step Ten
On some motherboards, there is more than one controller. Some SATA ports are controlled by the Southbridge, and disks attached to them should always show up in Disk Management. There may be more that are controlled by an additional controller chip on the motherboard. As of January of 2011, that includes any SATA 3 ports.

Before the OS can see a drive attached to these ports, you have to load the driver for the controller chip. It was on the CD that came with the motherboard, or you can read your motherboard manual to find out what the controller chip is and download the most current version for whatever OS version you are using. Install that driver and reboot, and the drive will magically appear in the Disk Management pane (once you re-open that pane). You can go back to step five.

Note: This quick guide applies to internal hard drives added to an already bootable system only.

Hard Disk Repair

Useful Solid State Drive Articles

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM14 years ago4 years ago02 mins

Solid State Drive Buyer’s Guide
Should you consider upgrading to a solid state drive? Weigh all the pros and cons and evaluate the cost and value of doing so by reading this guide.

The Ins And Outs Of Solid State Storage
The benefits introduced by solid state drives are undeniable. However, there are a few pitfalls to consider when switching to this latest storage technology. This article provides a rundown for beginners and decision makers.

17 SSDs Rounded Up
Which SSD should you buy today? Seventeen flash-based drives battle across a benchmark suite that include throughput, I/O performance, consistency, power consumption, efficiency, and the best overall bang for the buck. The time is right to upgrade.

A look at the NAND itself. How an SSD works at the lowest levels:

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo/ […] 9&Itemid=1
http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/ […] hp?t=65372

Write caching, wear levelling and the importance of partition alignment:

http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo/ […] 2&Itemid=1

A broad overview of everything SSD (including TRIM):

http://www.anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3531
http://anandtech.com/storage/showdoc.aspx?i=3631 (A follow-up of the previous Anandtech article. Touches on a few more details, but it’s more of a review of OCZ drives than a good overview of SSDs. Worth reading if your SSD has an Indillinx controller.)

More links will be added here when I find them or when somebody else points me to them.

Data Recovery

Data Recovery: Just Do It!

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM14 years ago4 years ago010 mins

Read the following tips on how to diagnose your hard drive crash and determine which recovery options are available to you. Differing causes of drive failure require differing solutions.

To find out if your drive is suffering from a physical crash or software problems, look at the lights on your hard drive. If there’s no light activity at all, or if you don’t hear or feel the disk spin inside or hear strange buzzing or different sounds than normal inside the casing, your disk crash is, in all probability, due to physical problems.

Option I: Hard Drive Boots

If you are still able to boot up your system, try booting from your recovery disk.

Many PC packages come with a disk recovery system. If you are able to boot from your recovery disk, click the START button on Windows and go on command line mode. Try running chkdisk or defrag to see if this fixes your hard drive. Oftentimes, formatting problems and disk fragmentation leads to drive crashes/corrupted disks.

After you have defragged your problematic drive, run your antivirus program and see if it cleans out any viruses. In many situations, viruses can corrupt your operating system or key drivers leading to system crashes. See if this takes care of the problem.

If your data is located in undamaged folders, copy them onto a CD or USB drive and make a list of all your applications. Make sure you know where to download your applications or where you stored the original copy.

If you cannot find your data, or it was stored in a corrupted location, don’t panic! To recover your data, try one of the many data recovery softwares available on the Internet today. These software packages help you restore your disk partitions, folder structure, or even recreate folders so you can find and recover your data.

If you cannot recover your data with data recovery software, skip to options III. Make sure to exhaust all your options before you go and seek professional help since professional data recovery assistance can come with a hefty price tag.

Once you have your data and your applications ready for reinstallation, “wipe” your disk and reinstall your OS. Make sure that your OS is patched with all its current updates.

Option II: Hard drive doesn’t boot but the drive still has blinking lights.

In this situation, plug in a spare working hard drive into a USB port or on a vacant controller slot on your motherboard. In the case of inserting a new master drive into your desktop PC’s chassis, make sure you rearrange the controller jumper on the main board so that it recognizes the new master / slave settings of your hard drives. Upon boot up, get into the boot settings of your computer and set up the new drive as the MASTER and the non-booting drive as the SLAVE.

Once you’ve booted, run your recovery disk and run chckdisk/fdisk and defrag on your slave disk. Follow the rest of the steps and options outlined in Option I above.

Option III: Hard drive is physically damaged!

If your drive has physically crashed, you may still be able to recover your data, even if physical damage has occurred.

Physical hard drive damage usually involves problems with the disk motor or the disk reading head is physically misaligned and fails to work. Sadly, physical damage often means that some of your data might be permanently lost. Just because your hard drive has suffered physical damage, don’t automatically assume that the only solution left is to go seek professional help. Try the tips below first before seeking professional data recovery.

Can you still boot but your PC is really slow? If this is the case, install and use data recovery software to isolate your data and load it onto a storage device like a USB stick. Once you have archived your data and make an inventory of your installed applications, take out the drive and replace it with a new drive.

Does your hard drive make a weird noise? Strange noises are indicative of hardware problems. However, if your drive still works regardless of the noise, install and use data recovery software to find and move your data before you replace your drive.

If none of the options above don’t apply, it is time to seek professional data recovery assistance. Professional data recovery services are not cheap. The cost goes up based on the amount of data you want recovered. Since this situation involves the outlay of substantial amounts of money, here’re some tips to help you select the right data recovery company.

Tips for finding the right data recovery companies:

Do a search for data recovery on the Internet. See if there are existing unbiased reviews of your service provider. Avoid services that have too many negative comments from many differing sources.
Check your online business better bureau to see if the company you are considering is a member in good standing or have some complaints against it.
Ask the company if they have any guarantees. Legitimate data recovery companies DO NOT give guarantees as to how much data they can recover. It is okay if they give estimates. However, it is suspicious if they give out guarantees.
Ask if you can pay by credit card. Credit card payments give you some measure of protection because you can chargeback your card if the data recovery service turned out to be a rip off.
Get a clear idea of WHEN you will get results. Many companies drag out results over several weeks. Make sure you see eye to eye with the service provider regarding deliverables and timelines.

In closing, a hard drive crash, as traumatic as it can be, is not a death sentence. Make sure you are aware of your do it yourself and professional data recovery options. Keep the options above so you can save time and money. One final note: always remember to back your data up either yourself or by using a data backup software. Do it early. Do it often. Just Do It!

Hard Disk Repair

Hard Drive PCB Parts

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM14 years ago3 years ago06 mins

The goal of this post is to show you how a hard drive Printed Circuit Board(PCB) built. What are its main parts, how do they look and what are these parts names and abbreviations. As an example we are going to disassemble 3.5″ SATA drive.

To make it more fun we going to tear to pieces pretty new 1TB Seagate ST31000333AS hard drive. Let’s take a look on our “Guinea pig”.

Hard Drive PCB Main Parts:

The fancy piece of green woven glass and copper with SATA and power connectors called Printed Circuit Board(PCB). PCB holds on place and wires electronic components of HDD.

Now let’s remove PCB and see electronic components on the other side.

Hard Drive PCB Parts:

The heart of PCB is the biggest chip in the middle called Micro Controller Unit(MCU). On modern HDDs MCU usually consists of Central Processor Unit or CPU which makes all calculations and Read/Write channel – special unit which converts analog signals from heads into digital information during read process and encodes digital information into analog signals when drive needs to write. MCU also has IO ports to control everything on PCB and transmit data through SATA interface.

The Memory chip is DDR SDRAM memory type chip. Size of the memory defines size of the cache of HDD. This PCB has Samsung 32MB DDR memory chip which theoretically means HDD has 32MB cache (and you can find such information in data sheet on this HDD) but it’s not quite true. Because memory logically divided on buffer or cache memory and firmware memory. CPU eats some memory to store some firmware modules and as far as we know only Hitachi/IBM drives show real cache size in data sheets for the other drives you can just guess how big is the real cache size.

Next chip is Voice Coil Motor controller(VCM controller). This fellow is the most power consumption chip on PCB. It controls spindle motor rotation and heads movements. The core of VCM controller can stand working temperature of 100C/212F.

Flash chip stores part of the drive’s firmware. When you apply power on a drive, MCU chip reads content of the flash chip into the memory and starts the code. Without such code drive wouldn’t even spin up. Sometimes there is no flash chip on PCB that means content of the flash located inside MCU.

Shock sensor can detect excessive shock applied on a drive and send signal to VCM controller. VCM controller immediately parks heads and sometimes spins down the drive. It theoretically should protect the driver from further damage but practically it doesn’t, so don’t drop you drive – it wouldn’t survive. On some drives shock sensors used for detection even light vibrations and signals from such sensors help VCM controller tune up heads movements. Such drives should have at least two shock sensors.

Another protection device called Transient Voltage Suppression diode(TVS diode). It protects PCB from power surges from external power supply. When TVS diode detects power surge it fries itself and creates short circuit between power connector and ground. There are two TVS diodes on this PCB for 5V and 12V protection.

Tips: Hard Drive Failures cased by PCB can be solved by replacing a new one. How to find a matching pcb please refer to: How to find a Matching PCB

Hard Disk Repair

How to break the 2.1TB Barrier With Barracuda XT Hard Drives

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM14 years ago4 years ago07 mins

Until recently, using a hard drive larger than about 2.1TB has been difficult from a technical perspective. Back in the early 1980s when many of the fundamental hardware and software designs for computers were created, no one could fathom a hard drive approaching even 1TB, so limiting the logical block address (LBA) range to 2.1TB was thought to be more than adequate. As a result, operating systems, BIOS controllers, host interface drivers and device drivers have used the same basic limitation of 2.1TB.

Newer versions of Windows (Windows Vista and Windows 7), when combined with a new BIOS called UEFI and when configured correctly, have the native capability of using hard drives larger than 2.1TB. The problem, however, is that UEFI BIOS systems are less prevalent and more expensive than legacy PC BIOS systems. Also, Windows XP systems still represent a sizable portion of the installed base. So what do you do if you want to use one of the new
high-capacity hard drives coming to market that exceeds this 2.1TB limit?

Solution to break the 2.1TB Barrier With Barracuda XT Hard Drives:

Seagate has broken the 2.1TB barrier by developing a creative solution which allows you to utilize all of your hard drive capacity over two or more partitions when the drive is larger than 2.1TB. The new Seagate® Barracuda® XT 3TB hard drive has been released(See another post: https://www.datarecoveryunion.com/seagate-barracuda-xt-3tb-desktop-hard-drive/), and it includes free access to our updated Seagate DiscWizard™ software. This newest version of the popular hard drive utility from Seagate now includes functionality that allows you to easily configure a virtual device driver to access all of your hard drive capacity.1 It’s simple, fast and free.

Step 1. Locate the Software.
If you purchase a Seagate® retail kit, DiscWizard™ software will be included on the CD that is packaged inside. Otherwise, you are welcome to download DiscWizard software from the Seagate website. You can find it easily starting here: www.seagate.com/beyond-2TB

Step 2. Prepare Your System.
Time to open up the system, mount the drive and attach the SATA cable. It’s really quite simple to do. Tens of thousands of people add new hard drives every day! If you need a few pointers, please review some of the internal drive installation tutorials and flash presentations available online at www.seagate.com/support. Remember to handle your new drive with care.

Step 3. Install DiscWizard™ Software.
Restart your Windows system. After it finishes its normal preliminary startup routine, install the DiscWizard software application. You’ll see a new icon on your Desktop that looks like this:

Step 4. Think About Your Plan, Start DiscWizard Software and Follow the Prompts.
Not everyone plans to use a drive the same way. You may be adding the new drive as secondary storage, or you may be migrating your old drive (Windows, applications, data, etc.) to your new drive. You may want to split the drive into drive letters. And on and on. DiscWizard software is a very versatile disk management utility—with easy-to-follow menu choices and questions; it will handle anything your system and OS will allow.

Step 5. A Few Words About Drives >2.1TB
As mentioned earlier, there are several capacity limitations that appear at 2.2TB. Any systems built before 2011 and using a drive greater than 2.1TB will need a device driver to access the terabytes above 2.1TB. DiscWizard software will automatically detect and offer to install the appropriate driver for your Windows OS and hardware (Windows 7, Visa or XP, 64- or 32-bit). The driver will mount the remainder capacity above 2.1TB as a new drive letter, usually D:. This new drive is also limited to a maximum of 2.1TB, so this will be repeated as necessary. A future 6.6TB drive will have three drive letters—C: managed by native Windows drivers; D: and E: drives managed by the DiscWizard driver.

The DiscWizard™ Extended Capacity Manager is intuitive and simple to use:

Step 6. Enjoy Your New Seagate Drive and Keep DiscWizard Software Installed
DiscWizard software provides continuing value during the life of your drive. In addition, you can use the software to make image backups of your computer that may be useful if problems arise with your system or data.

Data Storage

Seagate Today Began Shipments of Barracuda XT 3TB Desktop Hard Drive

DATARECOVERYUNION.COM14 years ago4 years ago04 mins

Barracuda® XT Combines Highest Desktop Storage Capacity Ever Available with High-End Performance

Seagate today began shipments of the industry’s most elegant, easy-to-install 3TB desktop drive(Barracuda® XT hard drive) – a product that eliminates the need to purchase extra hardware or software to overcome the 2TB barrier. The Barracuda XT hard drive delivers the highest available capacity for home servers and workstations, high-definition video editing and production systems, high-performance PC gaming systems and desktop PCs.

Seagate Barracuda XT 3TB hard drive for desktop PCs

Legacy PC BIOS designs and device drivers and older operating systems such as Windows XP are incapable of using hard drive capacities beyond 2.1TB. The upshot is that existing desktop drives with more than 2.1TB of storage capacity must be deployed with additional software or hardware and may also require extra device drivers to overcome this limitation.

The Barracuda XT hard drive with free Seagate DiscWizard™ software is a complete, easy-to-deploy solution. DiscWizard software makes it simple to configure the computer operating system and device drivers to access the full 3TB of capacity on legacy systems using Windows XP and PC BIOS and on personal computers equipped with newer versions of Windows or the new UEFI BIOS.

“Seagate is squarely focused on delivering the storage performance, capacity and innovation to ensure that technology transitions remain seamless for our customers, the Barracuda® XT hard drive epitomizes our commitment to providing end-user customers and PC manufacturers with the world’s most advanced storage solutions.” – said Dave Mosley, Seagate executive vice president of sales, marketing and customer service.

The Barracuda XT hard drive combines a 64MB cache that optimizes burst performance in cache-intensive applications such as PC gaming and nonlinear video editing with Serial ATA 6Gb/s – an interface that delivers the highest system throughput – to enable the highest performance available in a desktop hard drive. The 3.5-inch, 7200RPM drive’s 3TB of storage capacity gives desktop PC users the most space ever available for videos, games, photos and files.

The Barracuda XT 3TB hard drive launch comes only months after Seagate introduced the Barracuda® Green hard drive, another Seagate desktop drive that streamlines technology transitions to simplify drive installations for PC makers and consumers. The eco-friendly Barracuda Green hard drive features Seagate’s SmartAlign™ technology to enable all the benefits of the new 4K sector standard while simplifying drive installation. SmartAlign technology works by eliminating the need for utilities often required to ensure optimum drive performance.