For those who grew up in the IT world since 1985, Novell is a resounding name.
It used to be THE server system, with followers that are on par with the Apple fans.
Who thinks that this system is no longer with us is mistaken.
On average, we receive such a system once a year, and it usually causes quite a headache because Novell uses its own compression algorithm.
We recently received a 60GB hard drive that had a spindle seizure.
This means that the motor shaft is stuck and the platters can no longer rotate. Now many will think 'oh well, then you should just place those platters in another drive'.
Unfortunately, we are far too often confronted with users who think this and try this themselves.< /p>
They forget that the alignment of the platters is very critical, and the slightest shift can result in the data being no longer readable. Add to that the fact that many people insert these platters with their bare hands and in a normal environment (read: not a cleanroom) and a catastrophe is not far away. We usually have to disappoint the customers after this maneuver.
That is why cutting the platters is the very last option that a DR expert will choose.
Luckily our customer was smart enough to remove it himself to stay. In this case, we moved the platters to a working disk according to the rules of the art, and we managed to clone the disk for 90%. This system consisted of three partitions, of which only the first two contained data.
The unreadable sectors were in the last partition.
To make a long story short: After cloning We were able to remove the customer's data from the disk with our tools, decompress the data, and deliver it to the customer so that he could continue with his business.
It was again quite a challenge, which required a lot of effort. ended well.