A couple of months ago, i asked around on Mastodon if anybody was able to provide some HDDs with hardware faults. Clicking, Buzzing, Silent. Whatever. I wanted to learn the art of Head Swapping and other shenanigans. Two weeks later, somebody I know, answered my call into the Fediverse, with a drive i could try to get the data from it. I was delighted and scared. Why scared, you might ask.

Storyline It all started with a simple question from my beloved girlfriend: “A friend of mine has problems connecting her external harddrive to her PC. She said she transported the USB drive with the cable attached and now the USB Port looks weired. Can you fix it?”. Okok…No Problem. “No Backup, no pity” doesn’t mean “No Backup, no help” and that should be a fast fix. Popping the Harddrive out of the enclosure, connecting to an external SATA to USB connector, and bob’s your uncle.

Infosec Person.

Security Researcher

Germany