Published on 04/06/25 by George Lloyd
This is a more informal personal post about my the wiki, here is the academic verison in the form of my undergrad dissertation.
So the last entry for my blog was a fair amount of time ago cough 18 months, but in my defence I have been busy, with my degree, many of life's fun*citation needed surprises, but the main thing I have been up to is creating the datarecoverywiki.com, which is a completely free (as in freedom and price) and open source, wiki covering data recovery, with how to guide, information of tools and knowledge of how certain storage and file formats work.
I don't have a plan really for this post, it's more of a look I did a thing and here's my mad ramblings if you're interested in the why and how. The more technical stuff will be in my dissertation paper, which will be hosted here once it's been marked, so if you're here for the techie bits here's the link.
Chapter one: the good, the bad and the holy shit why did I decide to do this to myself!
So just to set the scene going into this project in September of last year, my knowledge of data recovery was pretty much non-existence outside ripping firmware out of old routers and other cheap electronics, and the fact that hard drives spin, but anything solid state does not.
I have around 9 months to complete my this project alongside writing the 10k word paper for my actual disstation, and allowing plenty of time to learn a completely new body of knowledge, find research on said body of knowledge comprehend it sufficiently enough that the knowledge can be written down for others to learn from it, including preforming the procedures, activities (not quite sure which one to go with TBH one feels to medical the other too whimsical) Then write about everything, make step by step flow charts and image based guides. All while still being a human being with assignments due, meals needing cooking and the overwhelming urge to leave for Nepal immediately and live as a mountain goat.
Sounds easy right?
The good
So in the spirt of positivity and good mental health, seems wise to cover the good parts first.
- I got to spend 9 months hyperfixatating on data recovery and sharing my new-found information with the World Wide Web at the end of it.
- Created a force for good which hopefully teaches people something about data recovery in the process
- Gained an excuse to buy new tools, then play around with them, especially the laminar flow hood (it is extremely cool that you can do with that thing).
The bad
- The expense is so real, for everything in this project, I could have easily spent over £1000 properly closer to £1500 if I had bought things such as chip readers and their adapters, thermal imaging cameras and the software for repairs. Luckily I had most of the stuff already so I properly only spend a few hundred (thanks student finance)
The holy shit, why did I decide to do this to myself - the enormity of the project only really hit me after I had to stop and take a step back due to deadlines, a rough estimate of the wiki word came to roughly 100 thousand words as of March 2025, I estimate there's properly another 25k thousand words in order to consider the wiki truly comprehensive at least to cover areas to a basic level.
all things considered I think that to research, comprehend and develop the entire of this project in 9 months on top of a life, the rest of my degree and the writing of a 10k disstation discussing this project is nothing short of a small miracle.
Chapter two: Vibes based academia
Writing the actual academic disstation for my degree was properly the most difficult thing I had to, due to the fact I had to explain to an actual professional I respect and admire. That the reasoning behind my project was "this makes my brain release the go do things chemicals and not the get distracted by YouTube every 30 second ones", and not something a little bit more profound or academic.
its simply amazes me what one can do out of sheer spite of those who said other wise.
I believe that it is entirely possible within physcially limits of course that any one person can do any one thing or multiple things should they chose, if the right conditions for them to succeed are met. Take this entire project for example as most of the information has been previously figured out by other talent people, and shared either through video series on youtube,books,academic papers and lets not forget the swampish hell known as reddit.
I hope that this project may help such conditions be met for anyone who thinks of projects they think up, but lack a solid stating point.
Chapter 3: Next steps
- I plan on updating and improving the project for the forseeable future, regardless of engagement
- Currently looking into silicon level repair, could make for interesting future posts
- I do plan on taking a temporary break from the project as, I put a lot of hours into it, I need to do something else.
That is all