CBL Pictures: How it started... How it's going
17 February 2022
Some devices in the lab recently for recovery service with many years between them reminded us of a social trend comparing old and new.
CBL Pictures: Easy to See Not-So Hot Fate for Not-So Burnt Hard Drives
27 August 2021
Throwback to this pair of fire-burned drives spotted in the lab whose not-so hot fate was pretty easily determined early into the recovery project.
CBL Pictures: When Fire Damage Makes Hard Drive Recovery Harder
15 July 2021
Technology that suffers the wrath of a catastrophic event like a wildfire is not a pretty sight. Here are some archive photos from the initial findings after wildfires ripped through the community of Fort McMurray, Alberta in 2016 with some pieces that eventually made their way to our labs for recovery assessment.
CBL Pictures: Capsized bits & bytes from a Rowboat Expedition
23 April 2021
An Earth Day throwback with some lost shots from CBL’s recovery for an ocean expedition
First Day of Summer at Drivehenge
22 June 2020
Marking the Summer Solstice from our own version of Stonehenge…
Study: Wide Array of Private Data on Secondhand Drives, a Reminder to Discard With Discretion
15 October 2019
Researchers at the University of Hertfordshire performed a study examining secondhand hard disk drives and found they often contained data from their previous owners.
Raptor Made out of Hard Drive Parts - Lab Catches NBA Finals Fever
10 June 2019
Raptors fever in the lab: techs put heads together to make this. Wishing Toronto’s team good luck!
CBL Pictures: #10YearChallenge #2009vs2019
25 January 2019
Have you seen the social trend popping up the last few weeks using the hashtag #10yearchallenge? We liked seeing these and thought as we completed our 25th year recovering data we surely could also get involved with our own spin. Some of our followers online showed interest in learning more about exactly what was shown in the photo so here’s an expanded breakdown.
Throwback: Gallery of Vintage Computers
24 January 2019
#Throwback Photographer Mark Richards’ tribute to vintage computers of the past ‘Core Memory’ features gems like this old DEC hard drive, and yes, an Apple Macintosh (Happy 35th birthday)
CBL Pictures: Burnt Bytes and Backups
16 November 2017
Recently, we received this laptop for recovery. The fire had ravaged the client’s home, destroying the laptop, and the backup device sitting nearby.
CBL Pictures: Fire Damaged Hard Drives
22 July 2016
When we receive fire-damaged hard drives and computers in need of data recovery service, usually they aren’t in terribly bad shape. As you can see in these photos, unfortunately wildfires in Fort McMurray, Canada incurred extreme destruction on these drives. Sometimes the effects of a disaster are too much for recovery.
More pics after the jump …
How to Demolish Old Hard Drive Data (keeping your data safe, the logical way)
24 March 2016
If you have a computer that you are getting rid of you need to take special care of the data you have stored inside it. Whatever information you have saved on the hard drive inside: photos, documents, financial files, passwords, emails — personal information, does not simply go away if you hit delete or drop stuff in the Recycle Bin.
Ben Popken at NBC did a video showing some low-tech solutions to this problem. He trashes hard drives with everything from hammers and baseball bats, to submerging in water and burning with fire. Watch the video after the jump.
Crikey! That's a Big Hard Drive Teardown
11 September 2015
Look at the size of this hard drive – and we’re not talking about its capacity. No, not the ones pictured here…..watch the video after the jump to see the vintage.
CBL Pictures: Hard Drive Fire & Fusion
11 April 2014
We don’t often see fire-damaged drives that are in this bad shape. In a fire, rising temperatures affect the exterior and...
CBL Pictures: Size doesn't matter
22 May 2013
We don’t see these sort of gigantic hard drives in our data recovery labs often anymore, but it’s no problem…
We Spy Data Loss in the Wild 007
9 November 2012
We couldn’t help but ‘spy’ data loss in the wild. The new James Bond film is arriving in theaters and we noticed this in the trailer. Hard drive gone missing, Mr. Bond?
Data Safety: The Value of Your Data to a Hacker
18 October 2012
We’ve talked about data safety and protection before. Besides the destruction of information from crashes and deletion, threats to your data’s safety come in the form of threats to its security, and that affects your privacy.
Tech columnist Brian Krebs has a great article where he tries to tackle the challenge of explaining why a hacker would want to get into your PC. What’s interesting is that most of the items listed are some sort of data or personal information.
CBL Pictures: Gigabyte to Terabytes
30 August 2012
For fun, here is a comparison of some old storage media with something in our data recovery lab right now.
A Large Piece of Storage Technology History
22 February 2011
Do you know what this is being loaded onto a plane?
All We See Is The Code
27 September 2010
Unless you have experienced a hard drive failure, you may not be aware of the complexity how data is stored. A CBL data recovery expert sees a string of ones and zeroes organized in a perfect pattern otherwise known as your once-in-a-lifetime trip to Paris. It’s all about perspective.
Strobeshnik hard drive clock
8 March 2010
We can definitely appreciate coming up with creative uses of old hard drives here at CBL.
When Dad's Data Needs Recovering
12 June 2009
Okay. Has the search begun yet for a unique gift for your dad, stepfather, or grandfather for Father’s Day?
Does Daddy store his data on a Windows laptop, PC or server?
Does Father upload photographs of family vacations, birthday parties and other events from his digital camera to his...
Bits, Bytes and Blush
15 May 2009
Can data live to see another day after a laptop crashes to the ground?
CBL Pictures: Head Stack Assembly
24 April 2009
Here’s a picture of a head stack assembly removed from a hard drive. It was taken from a multi-platter drive during a recovery. So how do you remove the head stack from a hard drive? Very carefully.
Keep a Lid on IT
5 February 2009
...resist the temptation to tamper with or hand over the drive to anyone but a professional data recovery specialist…
Can you afford to be without your data?
14 January 2009
Hard drives don’t discriminate. Whether the economy is in a recession or a boom, no one is immune to data loss. It’s never a matter of IF data loss will happen; it’s simply a matter of WHEN.
