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.
Samsung M3 Data Recovery: Recovering Encrypted Files from SecretZone
Our client in this data recovery case had been the proud owner of a Samsung M3 external hard drive. Then the external drive took a tumble off of their desk and hit the floor. In a matter of seconds, our…
Overwritten File Recovery: Identity Crisis
The client in this data recovery case study came to us to help them get back a number of photos they’d accidentally overwritten. They’d had a handful of photos in one folder, and a handful of photos in another folder,…
There Be Dragons in the Cloud—What Can We Learn from Amazon S3?
On February 28, 2017, Amazon Web Services’s servers decided to celebrate Mardi Gras in an unusual way. A problem in one of AWS’s massive data centers in northern Virginia led to widespread outages, with far-reaching consequences. Amazon’s web hosting services…
“No Operating System Found” Boot Error
“No Operating System Found”—Anatomy of a Hard Drive Boot Error When you get a “no operating system found” error message, your computer is telling you, in very plain English, what it is seeing. You booted it up, it looked for…
Cloudbleed: What It Means for Users and MSPs
On February 23, 2017, Cloudflare, an internet company providing essential infrastructure and services to thousands of websites, announced it had found and rectified a bug in its software source code. The so-called Cloudbleed bug allowed data to “leak” from sites relying on…
Windows 10 Data Recovery: Corrupt User Profile
There are some days where it just feels like technology has developed a vendetta against you. Our client in this data recovery case was having one of those days. Their Windows 10 PC had been acting up. The final straw:…
Toshiba Canvio Data Recovery: When Software Can’t Fix a Hard Crash
Our client braced themselves for the worst when their Toshiba Canvio external hard disk clattered to the floor, wrenching itself free of the USB cable tethering it to their computer. Fortunately, when they went back to plug the drive in,…
Power Outage Data Recovery: Gray Screen of Death
How a Power Outage Can Kill Your Hard Drive Your hard drive uses an array of complex, sensitive devices to store, read, and write data. Those devices—the hard disk platters and the read/write heads—are the most at risk when the…
External Hard Drive Repair: WD My Book Not Recognized
The client in this data recovery case had a Western Digital My Book that had stopped working. They would plug the external hard drive into their computer, but Windows would not recognize the device. Upon closer inspection, the client noticed…