Lost Data? What To Do And What Not To Do

By James Wallis

Your PC has a hard drive problem and the sensible thing to do is not to turn on the computer. At this point, there are many options before you:

Install a new drive

Run the new drive and view your data

Or call a data recovery company

Every data recovery company uses the File Scavenger data recovery tool to retrieve lost data caused by hard drive or system drive failure. The first thing done by the company is to obtain a file listing of all the data lost. This enables the data recovery company to write the data on another drive. In addition, it also prevents overwriting and reformatting of saved data. It is important to remember that once in functional mode drives have a tendency to save additional information saved on other files existing on the same drive. Overwritten or reformatted new data on the existing saved data ensures permanent loss. Scavenger cannot retrieve data which has been overwritten or reformatted.

If it is a system failure, the data recovery company has to follow these essential steps:

Protect the source drive having the lost data

Install the data recovery tool of File Scavenger

Activate Scavenger to retrieve lost data

Search the source drive and save the data to another newly installed drive

However, if it is a pictorial data drive failure, one needs to use the ‘Emergency Boot Media’ data recovery tool available within the computer. Lost data on media drives can be recovered due to pattern recognition. Each byte pattern signifies the shape and size of saved data. This pattern is correlated to the missing data. This eventually helps data recovery experts in sorting out and retrieving lost data in its pure raw format. Data loss is never permanent. Usually, data recovery firms use programs such as Ontrack Recovery to retrieve more than 95% of lost data. However, this retrieval usually occurs on the lines of physical data recovery.

On the other hand, if data loss occurs due to surface contamination or damage, any PC user can retrieve the data using desktop data recovery tools. These are located in the computer and require a licence to run it. Sometimes, the file does not run due to a few damaged or bad spots. Data recovery tool, Scavenger, uses transparent algorithms to retrieve data from damaged partitions. But data saved on the magnetic layers of a drive are not retrievable. More than 85% of files which have been accidentally deleted or corrupted due to a virus can be retrieved using logical data recovery. However, the most important element to consider before embarking on the process of data recovery is the time frame.

How long before the data recovery program is initiated?

How long will the data recovery program take?

Usually, data lost in the recycling bin of the computer due to the accidental deletion of files including reformatting or overwriting of files can be recovered if the damage is reported as soon as possible i.e. within two days of the data loss. In most other cases of system drive failure, the damage has to be reported at once to ensure more than 98% of data recovery.

The other component to consider is the time frame. This is dependent on the complexity of the data. Data recovery programs such as Easy Recovery and Data Advisor have to be installed on a hard drive or run from a portable storage device such as a memory stick, removable drive, CD or floppy disk enabling data recovery within a couple of hours.

But the simplest advice is to prevent data loss. This can be done by:

Having a backup

Documenting all important data on paper

Keeping all digital media and not treating them shabbily i.e. avoiding surface contamination.

About the Author: James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. For more information on Data Recovery see

fields-data-recovery.co.uk

Source:

isnare.com

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