Best Data Recovery Softwares Blog » File

New, Hot Item! Fast Seller! Get 70% Commission! File Eraser.

roger — Sat, 28 May 2011 00:35:06 +0000

New – Hot! Fast Selling Software! 70% Commission. Proven High Conversion Rates. Priced tested to Sell in volume! — Hi-Demand Advanced Data Eraser assures computer privacy. Supports Win Xp, Vista, 7. Affiliates, http://www.datatician.com/affiliates.php
New, Hot Item! Fast Seller! Get 70% Commission! File Eraser.

File R/d | Recover Deleted Files Or Permanently Delete Them

roger — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 04:10:32 +0000

File Recovery and Delete – File R/d allows the user to browse and search drives for deleted files and preview the results for free using the highest rated technology in the background. Recover and permanent deletion of the found data is available at cost.
File R/d | Recover Deleted Files Or Permanently Delete Them

Data Recovery Software – Deleted File Recovery – 75% Commissions

roger — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 03:06:06 +0000

Deleted File Recovery combines simplicity of use and speed with the most powerful data recovery engine, together with a unique capability of on-the-fly viewing while the search is being conducted.
Data Recovery Software – Deleted File Recovery – 75% Commissions

UNBEATEN CHALLENGE QUESTION-How to recover or dyscypt Encrypting File System (EFS) encrypted data?

roger — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 03:11:10 +0000

I lost my computer data encrypted by Windows Encrypting File System. Knowing that I have all .PFX and user passwords, I deleted Windows completely. New installation did not provide access to data despite successfully importing .PFX certificates. Data thumbprint did not match to my saved .PFX certificates thumbprints.
For recovery I used data recovery software “Advanced EFS Data Recovery”. It shows almost all scan keys decrypted but fail to recover any EFS encrypted data. At this point I strongly feel that Microsoft should have made recovery possible in the presence of user password and .PFX certificates which are generated by Windows at one point of time after installation. I think I deserve PHD degree on this observation since thousands of people lost their EFS encrypted data.
Is there anyone in the world could tell how to decrypt this data? It is challenge question which remained unbeaten.
TAHIR JAMIL
Mobile: +92-300-4880490 Phone: +92-42-6110642
URL: http://ideals.110mb.com

Ntfs Data Recovery, How To Recover Data Stored On Ntfs File System Partition?

roger — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 02:07:32 +0000

NTFS file system is the most commonly used file system of our PCs nowadays. Sometimes the data stored on NTFS file system partition may be deleted, lost or NTFS partition may be formatted, corrupted, etc. The better understanding of NTFS will help you recover your NTFS partition and data more easily.

NTFS is an abbreviation of NT File System. The first two characters – NT means that it is the standard file system for Windows NT, including: Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

NTFS’s specialized features improve its reliability, such as:1. Use of a B-tree directory scheme to keep track of file clusters.

2. The information about a file’s clusters and other data is stored with each cluster, not just a governing table (as FAT is)

4. An access control list (ACL) that lets a server administrator control who can access specific files

5. Integrated file compression

6. Support for names based on Unicode

7. Support for long file names as well as “8 by 3″ names

8. Data security on both removable and fixed disks

There are two methods provided for recover NTFS partition data :1. When you find the NTFS partition is inaccessible (the symptom is usually that the PC suggests that the partition is not formatted) or partition is lost when you are partitioning.

For this circumstance, your partition table is damaged by some errors, virus, and intentional active or unknown reasons. The data stored on the hard drive are still located where they used to be. You can recover your NTFS partition table, and then get back your data.

2. When everything is going well, but just loosing data because of the deletion (no matter it is caused by intentional active or unintentional active).

For this circumstance, you can retrieve data from data recovery soft ware or manual data recovery. http://www.diskgetor.com/ntfs-data-recovery.htm

Manual data recovery, compare with the data recovery soft ware, its higher price and long time waiting make itself to be the second choice.

Diskgetor data recovery software is powerful NTFS partition data recovery Software. It can also recover deleted, lost, damaged and formatted data from other types of file system hard drive or partition, for example: NTFS. Even if you have written new data into that hard drive or partition, DiskGetor Data Recovery still find its directory tree from hard drive. You may have a try.

You can find more information at: http://www.diskgetor.com/

Due to the promotion of Windows NT, NTFS file system becomes the most widely used now, thus you may need the information about how to recover NTFS partition data. http://www.diskgetor.com/ntfs-data-recovery.htm

What is the Best File Recovery Software For Windows? – Lost File Recovery

roger — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 20:37:42 +0000

The best file recovery software for restoring deleted files should have the ability to recover all your deleted files and folders. Data files, graphic files, multi media files, zipped files and emails should all be easily and quickly recovered with the power of such an application. There are causes for files getting deleted accidentally – systems and software failure, virus and disk drive corruption plus careless deletion of files or folders. What ever the file deletion reason is the application should act as a safety net for home users and professionals alike to save their deleted files.

After a file is deleted it typically moves into the recycle bin and later is erased from there also. But the file contents persist in the drive till it is overwritten by other content. The best file recovery software algorithm looks for file content that is still there on disk and gathers them to make up the recovered file. Even if some of the content has been overwritten this application should be built to put together a partially recovered file which you can use as a starting point to rebuild your lost content. It should be easy to use and you will not need to possess any technical expertise to use this software.

Online downloading of the application should be available at an affordable cost. Not only this – if you are dissatisfied with the product for any reason you should get your money back. A downloadable demo version for users to understand the application features would be an added advantage.

Some features a good restore software application should have:

To find the best file recovery software, just visit the link below.

Did you? Do you want to restore the files with best file recovery software? You can restore lost files with data recovery software. It’s completely free to download and risk free.

http://expert-product-reviews.net/data-recovery.html

About the Author

Ally Wood is a professional software reviewer and has worked in CNET. Now she is working for her own review software company to give feedback to the software creator and has done deep test in data recovery software. After reviewing the most popular file recovery software, she has written complete review on a review site for you that can be accessed for free.

http://www.expert-product-reviews.net/detect-registry-error.html

How to use data recovery software after file has deleted

roger — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 02:33:05 +0000

Given the plethora of questions about the recovery of deleted files (which I shall call Undelete), I would do a story that explains why we do not recover all the deleted files and that the defragment regularly brings in that context.

I must save my recovered file on another physical disk or logical after data recovery.

This is because a deleted file is not really what are the areas it occupied that are made available. If one wants to retrieve a deleted file, you are strongly advised to write to another medium, same logic, so as not to overwrite areas of the file. That is to say that if you have 2 drives (C and D) but are actually a single physical disk, you can save on a file deleted D on C, and vice verse. I often see people asking how to retrieve a file or data recovery from corrupted disk , they are not ad hoc program. In this case, we must take all precautions. For those who surf to find an Undelete program, which the download on the same disc, there is very little chance that they recover their files. Ideally, it should already have the program Undelete hand. If this is not the case but you have a 2nd PC with Internet access, please use this one to download the program Undelete and set it on a floppy disk.

If you’re networking, you may be able to recover a deleted file on another PC (I have never tried but a priory, it should work). If you only have one PC with Internet access, then download the file to a floppy or other disk that you want to retrieve the file. Be careful when installing, it could crush the areas you want to just recover. There Undelete programs that do not require installation, I think especially Restoration can run from a floppy disk, it needs only 400 KB when unzipped and no d ‘ installation.

From a long time I am writing on data recovery services
to make aware Internet surfer from the data loss and how to get back from lost data of your computer

Data Recovery Software: – File Recovery Remedies Never Put Up Any Question-why Did You Lose Your Data?

roger — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:36:25 +0000

Get amazed to see the users who have lost their data? Don’t boast on your power and intelligence to keep data. The data loss can strike anyone; even a deletion of file can cripple you. If you trust blindly on your operating system for its work, remember that could crash, probably at the time when you were least expecting it. The creepy programs, like viruses, worms, Trojans etc., can enter into your system, for more details visit to www.quick-selling-software.com even when the advanced anti-program is working for your system as each time the nasty programmers take advantage of system’s holes to enter in.So for the regular computer users, protecting their information is becoming harder by the each passing day. Regardless of your best efforts, your own behavior can become responsible for departing your file.But say thanks to technology that it avails you the file recovery help under the hood of data recovery software. These can rebound the situation if the worst happens to your data. These file recovery remedies never put up any question-why did you lose your data? These simply relieve you with file recovery. Just like your lovely hunting dog, the data recovery software smells the lost data to pull it out from the broad boondocks of hard drive.The file recovery software can make you experience of being the tech geeks with the interactivity they provide. You need not to ship your system off, but can recover the lost file sitting at your workplace.How they work?The data recovery software work on the principle that none of the data departs the hard drive, until your operating system overwrites it. This is only the file system’s action which frees its pointer from the table, for more details visit to www.pure-profit-software.com so as to distract the operating system for non-existence of data. File recovery approach through the software includes extracting the lost file pointer and making it accessible. Some file recovery products may be data loss case specific, giving you results only in few data loss incidents. So for complete file recovery, the comprehensive software should be in hand.The data recovery software must be complete from each quality perspective, you can think of. The read-only nature, suitability for all data loss cases, powerful set of features etc, are counted in the common file recovery need.Users have reported the file recovery products, tagged with Stellar Information Systems Limited, as the most superior ones. The software are present for the different operating systems and have the high scanning feature.Performing the safe play with the data, these data recovery software fight against each data loss situation like accidental deletion, virus attack, hard drive formatting and even the hrshest file system corruption.

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Face the giant data Recovery Company, HDD repair tool File extractor is the reinforcement for SMEs

roger — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:45:24 +0000

In 2009, Chinese domestic IT giant Lenovo launched the ” Lenovo data recovery services”, formally announced enter into the data recovery services market, after only six months, in facing the competitive menace of this IT giant, some small and medium data recovery services companies suffer the unbearable burden, out of data recovery services market, the remain data recovery services companies are in difficult developing, actively explore a way survive in the data recovery services industry.

Updated data recovery services technology and HDD repair tools is the first step

http://www.disk-recover-data.in/hdd-tools.htm

In today’s data recovery services market, business no longer stop at the original “stay-in” service, has changed to the formal and professional direction. Facing to Lenovo’s intervention, those weak data recovery services companies are urgent for discarding old file recovery software, using HDD repair tools with leading data recovery services technology, making itself in an invincible position in the war of data recovery services industry. It is understood that prices of professional HDD repair tools available in the market are higher than 2000 US dollars; this is a financial problem and also some financial collection risks for small and medium data recovery services companies to update the HDD repair tools.

SalvationDATA new HDD repair tools – File Extractor

How could those data recovery services companies efficiently update HDD repair tools, quickly recover the invest cost in the condition of insufficient funds, Facing with this market embarrassing, SalvationDATA, which is the leading enterprises committed to the R&D of HDD repair tools, released the powerful HDD repair tools File Extractor for those data recovery services companies in March 2010. As the Essential edition of DATA COMPASS, HDD repair tools File Extractor succeed to file recovery technology system of DC, enable the small and middle data recovery services companies improve technology of HDD repair tools quickly, a few thousand dollars of the cost price of this HDD repair tools can help those data recovery services companies.

http://www.disk-recover-data.in/index.htm

Many data recovery engineers in practice may found a number of difficult hard disk failure, due to lack of data recovery experience and HDD repair tools, and they early conclude that data recovery is impassable. In fact, data recovery technology needs continue researching and accumulating, but also the need professional HDD repair tools’ support. HDD repair tools File Extractor is not only a easy learning HDD repair tools, for small and medium data recovery services companies of poor data recovery experience, SalvationDATA provides a series after sales services for HDD repair tools file extractor, including file recovery telephone technical support, file recovery QQ technical support, file recovery forums and other various optional technical support services to enhance file recovery technology for those data recovery services companies.

The appearance of portable HDD repair tools File ExtractorIn addition, this new HDD repair tool – File Extractor also has many leading file recovery techniques built-in, such as intelligent bad sector read/leap function, ShadowDisk technology, HEPSS, disk imaging, specific data extraction, source drive write protection, automatic data copy, etc. All these functions in this HDD repair tools file extractor are the crucial weapons for professional data recovery services providers to increase the file recovery success rate and work efficiency by 300%.

Information Security Industry was born in Network Era

Privacy and confidentiality of data is particularly important for customer in the network era, select a HDD repair tools provider of the technology leader in professional data recovery services is the most important prerequisite to ensure customer data security. With ten years HDD repair tools R&D experience in logical data recovery and physical data recovery, SalvationDATA has becomes a synonym of data recovery industry, it released dozens of HDD repair tools and equipment with independent Intellectual property, in the world nearly 6,000 professional organizations choose it as the trusted HDD repair tools. This year the company’s new HDD repair tools – File Extractor make small and medium data recovery services companies cost little, but get the world’s leading file recovery technology and brand support. With strong R & D team, SalvationDATA HDD repair tools File Extractor will set off a wave of revolution on HDD repair tools.

Data Loss and data recovery- file recovery tool to HDD repair tools- how to prevent data loss

roger — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:47:49 +0000

File recovery and HDD repair tools the most flourishing filed in the modern IT business world because data loss happens every day. Data loss is inescapable and can be reported everywhere whether due to human error, software corruption, hard drive failure or other data loss causes. Data loss has serious implications for business. Data loss can lead to costly downtime for sales and marketing and reduced customer service while customer databases are restored or rebuilt. Lost financial data can lead to lost contracts and stock value, or worse. File recovery and HDD repair tools is common because 6% of all PCs will suffer an episode of data loss in any given year, 31% of PC users suffer data loss of all their files due to events beyond their control. From the statistical analysis of DataLossDB(see picture ), It is accepted that data lose prosper the whole data recovery and file recovery industry.

Why data loss is so common in the modern life? And how does data lose? First it should mention the growth of data storage is that the cost per megabyte has plummeted over the past twenty years, hard drive capacity was increased 200-fold in ten year (see picture).Companies are relying more and more on data in a distributed environment and “paper files” is less used than a computer. Most important files are store on a small disk, if the hard driver is corrupt; you have to resort to file recovery.

Data loss can due to any reasons, but file Recovery engineers classify hard drive data loss in two main categories:

Logical failure – the hard drive is in working order but some files or data cannot be accessed for logical reasons such as a lost partition or accidental reformatting, the logical file recovery software can solve those problems.

Physical failure – the hard drive is not functioning. The most common causes are head crashes and motor failures so both file recovery and data recovery are needed.

To start a file recovery business, firstly should understand the reasons cause data loss. There are two types of Data Loss in data recovery.

Logical Data Loss: Hard drive that is physically functioning, recognized by the system BIOS, and where critical data is not accessible, this is likely to be experiencing a logical failure. Logical Data Loss is the most common damage in file recovery. Logical data Loss is caused due to:

Human error, including accidental deletion of files;

Virus attack;

Software malfunction;

Power surge.

Physical data Loss is a hard drive cannot accessible by software such as the system BIOS, Windows’ Disk Management, or other disk utilities it can be considered as truly dead and in need of data recovery, Physical data Loss happens due to various reasons such as:

Hardware failure (electrical, mechanical component), including damage by power surge and drive failure.

Natural disasters like floods, fire, lightning.

Accidental dropping of disk to the floor also may cause hard disk getting damaged physically.

Statistical investigate from file recovery companies can give us a clear understand of data loss reasons.

Statistical investigate from file recovery and data recovery services companies show that data Loss could be concluded as following reasons: Hard drive failure is the most common cause of data loss, accounting for 38 percent of data loss. Drive read instability includes occasions where media corruption or degradation is about 30%. Software corruption, which might include damages, caused by system software or other program (e.g., virus attack), accounts for 13 percent of data loss incidents. Human error accounts for 12 percent of data loss episodes. This includes the accidental deletion of data as well as incorrectly partitioning the hard drive.

In file recovery filed, there are some distinguishes on broad sense file recovery and general file recovery, as well as file recovery, data loss is also have the broad sense data loss and general data loss, broad sense data lose including stolen laptop, stolen document, web and hack(see picture )

What we usually mentioned is general data loss which can find back the lost data by file recovery and data recovery.

Thus data loss is so common in daily life, which industry is the worst industry that the recoverable data loss? Data from file recovery and data recovery services companies show that customs form the Government, Healthcare and Education are the most valuable client. The Statistical picture from file recovery companies can give us a clear understand of the structure proportion (see picture )

Here need a clear mind on recoverable date loss and unrecoverable data loss. File recovery engineer point out that data loss will result in one of two outcomes: either the data loss are recoverable with the assistance of file recovery technician, or the data are permanently lost cannot find back. Each data loss incident must take into account both possibilities. The ability to recover data depends on the cause of the data loss. The permanent loss or theft of a laptop whose data have no backup will result in permanently lost data. In addition, fire or flood damage can also make the possibility of data recovery very remote. For other causes of data loss, file recovery technicians are becoming more adept at restoring inaccessible data. Taking into account all causes of data loss, evidence suggests that in 83 percent of the cases, data may be recovered.

To start a file recovery process, firstly should understand how data is stored on a hard drive. When information is written to a drive, the location of the information is stored in a file that resembles a table of contents for a book, on computers running DOS and Windows operating systems, the File Allocation Table (FAT) or the Master File Table (MFT) holds this information. When a file is deleted, the FAT or MFT table is updated to tell the computer the space on the hard drive is available, however the actual data is not deleted until it is overwritten with new data. This is why you read about computer forensic teams, the FBI, and other law enforcement being able to recover data to solve crimes or incriminate individuals. Using file recovery tools and HDD repair tools, you can restore files that were accidentally or otherwise deleted. In more severe case, services such as Drive Savers are used to recover data that has been physically or electronically destroyed.

Hard drive failure is the largest single explanation for data loss. Hard drive failure may be related to mechanical, electronic, or firmware failures. Hard disk failure occurs when a hard disk drive malfunctions and the stored information cannot be accessed with a properly configured computer. A disk failure may occur in the course of normal operation or due to an external factor such as exposure to fire or water or high magnetic waves, or suffering a sharp impact, which can lead to a head crash. Mechanical failures occur when physical components of the device itself begin to wear or malfunction. Electronic failures occur when the printed circuit board begins to produce errors. Finally, many hard drive failures are related to out-of-date, corrupt or buggy firmware. Firmware is the controlling software that is built into the hardware device itself stored on disk platters of the drive. Like most software in use today, firmware may become damaged or corrupt over time. This is a very common failure for modern drives because of the complexity of firmware design.

As same as data loss type, there are 2 types of hard drive failure: logical and physical.

In case of logical failure, data cannot be accessed because data structure on the disk is damaged. It happen as a result of an accidental deletion of important system files, partitions/volumes, accidental hard drive formatting or deletion of hard drive, application conflicts, operating system corruption or virus attack) But the mechanically the hard drive is intact and working properly. Often, the drive still gets recognized by the BIOS, but would not boot. In this case, some problems can be solved by file recovery software, but other problems only resort to quality HDD repair tools or data recovery hardware.

If the hard driver had a mechanical or electrical hard drive failure, file recovery software won’t help. Only data / file recovery experts with HDD repair tools can retrieve back the information and even repair the hard drive. However, for all cases of data loss there are certain actions you should avoid to maximize chances of data file recovery. Physical hard drive failure is unavoidable, sooner or later. As a rule, hard drives either crash at the beginning of their life or may last for years.

Most instances of hard drive failure do not destroy all of the data on the disk and much of the data on failed drives is often recoverable. Both consumer applications and professional file recovery tool and data recovery tools are available to recover lost data. Which alternative to choose depends upon the value of the lost data? The more valuable the data on the failed drive the fewer non-professional recovery attempts should be made. Non-professional file recovery tools and system software often fix errors by overwriting the file system on the drive. Though this may repair the file system, it permanently destroys the data. Disks with highly valuable data should be sent to a professional file recovery service. File recovery firms found that 15% of all non-recoverable data loss situations were created by prior non-professional file recovery attempt.

The most thorough professional file recovery services are able to retrieve data from drives with mechanical, electronic, and firmware failures. Broad sense data recovery includes drive restoration, disk imaging, and data retrieval. First, during the drive restoration phase any existing damage on the hard drive is repaired. This includes mechanical problems such as failed heads, electronic problems such as failed PCBs, and firmware issues. These repairs are made by replacing individual drive components with donor parts and fixing firmware. A second phase is disk imaging where the contents of the drive are retrieved, e.g. retrieving bad sectors or handling other read instability issues, and copied to a healthy drive to reduce the probability of further data loss on the original drive. Finally, the data is retrieved from the new healthy drive. During this phase the drive file system is restored, all files are verified for integrity and repaired. It should be noted that many professional file recovery services focus almost exclusively on data retrieval. However, without adequate attention to drive restoration and disk imaging any data retrieval effort will likely encounter serious challenges and may lead to further drive degradation and data loss.

What are the common Reasons of Hard Disk Drive failures?

1. Electronic Component Failure

2. Motor Failure

3. Read / Write Head Failure

4. Media Damage

5. Firmware Corruption

6. Logical Failure

7. Age and Usage

8. Faulty air filter:

Electronic components may fail due to voltage transients, heat or poor handling. Substitution, repair and re-programming is generally required in order to recover data stored on the hard disk. PCB assemblies are however hyper tuned at the manufacture stage and specialist re-programming and calibration is subsequently required to restore the hard disk to a working condition.

Hard disk motor spindles have fluid bearings; sometimes this fluid leaks or becomes overheated and in-effective. The motor will then seize and the hard disk platters fail to rotate. Platter and component re-location to another hard disk assembly is required to affect a repair and restore data.

Read / write heads are aerodynamically designed to “fly” at nanometer distances above the surface of the platters. Ceramic thin film sensors at their tip detect magnetic information (data) stored on the surface of the platter. Occasionally the atmosphere in the hard disk enclosure will become contaminated or vibration will cause the dynamic of the head to be disturbed. This disturbance will cause the read /write process to malfunction resulting in bad data read write cycles and eventual failure.

This type of failure usually manifests itself as a distinct clicking noise as the head actuator makes failed repeat attempts to locate data at the same platter track location.

Media Damage

Amazingly all computer hard disk magnetic storage media is manufactured imperfect but to acceptable and controllable levels. During normal operations imperfections will sometimes increase above the predefined acceptable level. This can be due to heat, vibration, head crash, shock or other factors. The operating system will flag errors or fail to boot and data files will then become in-accessible. Read/.Write head replacement and file repair will allow data file structures to be examined and assessed as to their validity.

Hard disk firmware holds precise parameters relevant to the configuration of the assembly at the time of manufacture. Occasionally the firmware becomes corrupt or will “roll back” to an incorrect set of parameters. Under these conditions the location of the stored data as reported to the operating system will be lost. Simple restoration of the correct parameters will allow the hard disk to function correctly. What causes this corruption? Operating system to drive software bugs, control bus protocol failure, it is difficult to determine but failures do occur.

Data files are stored at logical locations that relate to a number of physical locations on the surface of the hard disk platters. These logical locations are held in tables by the operating system and indexed when running specific software applications. Operating system errors, reloads or incorrect upgrade applications will sometimes corrupt these tables and data will become in-accessible. This is generally referred to as a logical failure. Logical errors can be repaired with file recovery software available from the internet. Be cautious however – if you are intending to run a fix utility on your disk you can inadvertently damage these tables irreparably and your data will be unrecoverable. This is especially true when running Scan Disk and Chick disk on a damaged hard drive.

Age and Usage:

As with all mechanical devices, after a certain amount of normal use, they wear out. The motor and bearings don’t last forever. The time for a hard drive to wear out could be much longer than your computer’s lifespan or you can accelerate the process by running your computer constantly without spinning down the disk. This happens often in desktops that are left to run overnight as well as in servers which run constantly by design.

Faulty air filter:

The air filters on today’s hard drives equalize the atmospheric pressure and moisture between the hard drive enclosure and its outside environment. If the filter fails to capture a dust particle, the particle can land on the platter, causing a head crash if the head happens to sweep over it. After a hard drive crash, each particle from the damaged platter and head media can cause a bad sector.

What to Do When you Experience Hard Drive Failure

http://www.disk-recover-data.in/index.htm

Evidenced, hard drive failure is the most common source of data loss which can lead to negative consequences for any business. Unfortunately, hard drive failure is inevitable. It is not a question of if a firm’s hard drives will fail, but when. However, with proper planning and a strategic response hard drive failure does not have to lead to data loss. Below we offer seven recommended strategies for dealing with hard drive failure.

If the failed drive is the system boot disk, immediately unplug the computer and remove the drive. Do not attempt to reboot from this drive. Depending on the nature of the data stored on this drive, one may wish to make an initial attempt at data recovery before sending the drive to a professional data recovery service. However, if the data on the drive is mission critical, we recommend immediately contacting a professional data recovery service.

If the disk does not contain mission-critical information, one may attempt to retrieve the data without the assistance of a professional data recovery service. However, do not execute any system software, such as ‘chkdsk’ to repair the file system unless you can afford to lose the data completely. System software is intended to repair a disk’s file system, not to recover data. These tools will most likely overwrite lost data.

If the failure is definitely related to the file system (e.g., deleted files, OS failure, or virus attack…), and not physical, electronic, or firmware failure, data retrieval software may be able to recover the disk’s data. We recommend first installing the drive into an external USB enclosure for this process to reduce the disk utilization during boot up. Once the drive is recognized by the Operating System, immediately begin the data retrieval. Do not save any files to the target disk or install programs as this would likely overwrite lost data. Though this strategy is often successful, there is a chance the OS will overwrite some lost data while updating or writing system files to the drive thus resulting in data loss. Therefore we do not recommend applying this recovery method on drives containing mission-critical information. If this strategy does not recover your data you should contact a professional data recovery service for assistance.

Never open a drive case. It may only be opened in a clean-room environment. Any other exposure will eventually result in the physical destruction of the disk’s magnetic layer and the complete loss of data.

Never attempt to swap PCBs from a healthy drive to a failed drive. Modern hard drives are manufactured with unique configuration parameters based on the tolerances of the individual components at the disk’s manufacture. Applying PCB/ROM to a disk for which it was not manufactured may destroy the drive and make it non-repairable. This is true even if the two drives share a common manufacturer, model, and manufacturing date.

Do not attempt to “repair” bad sectors or to read data from bad sectors by using data retrieval software on a failing disk. Doing so will either overwrite the underlying data or result in data loss. Note: as described above professional imaging tools retrieve bad sectors to a healthy disk rather than repairing or skipping bad sectors from a failing disk.

In cases of water, fire, or vandalism damage, do not attempt to power up a system that contains critical data. Doing so may destroy the disk’s magnetic layer and cause the data to be non-recoverable.

While data loss affects everyone who uses a computer, it is especially problematic for those who use word processing software. There is nothing more frustrating than losing the important documents that you’ve spent so much time creating — especially if you’re like most users who create documents directly on the computer and don’t have the benefit of a handwritten copy. If you’d like to reduce your chances of requiring data recovery, consider giving some of these free or low-cost tips a try.

The way to prevent data loss

1. Never store your documents on the same drive as your operating system

While most word processors will save your files in the My Documents folder, this is the worst place for them. Whether it is a virus or software failure, the majority of computer problems affect the operating system, and oftentimes the only solution is to reformat the drive and reinstall the operating system. In such an instance, everything on the drive will be lost.

Installing a second hard-drive in your computer is a relatively low cost way to take care of this problem. A second internal hard-drive will not be affected if the operating system is corrupted, and it can even be installed in another computer if you need to buy a new one; further, you’ll be surprised at how easy they are to set up.

If you’re skeptical about installing a second internal drive, an excellent alternative is to buy an external hard-drive. An external drive can be attached to any computer at any time simply by plugging it into a USB or firmware port.

Many external drives also have the added benefit of one-touch and/or scheduled back ups — you simply specify the folders and the software will take care of the rest. I use Maxtor’s external 200GB hard drive, which not only has ample room, but is easy to use (compare prices).

If another hard-drive is not an option for you, then save your files to clearly labeled floppy disks, but beware: computer manufacturers are moving away from including floppy drives with new computers, so you might have problems in the future retrieving data from floppies.

2. Back-up your critical files.

Back-up your critical files. With the ability to store data on CDs on a weekly or monthly basis, a small investment in a stack of CDs will save you from loosing your critical documents, files, priceless images and MP3s. Back-up your do it regularly and always verify your back-up by restoring the data to your computer.

Just storing your files in a different location than your operating system isn’t enough; you need to create regular backups of your files, and let’s face it, even your back up is subject to failure: cds get scratched, hard drives break, and floppies get erased.

It makes sense to increase your odds of being able to retrieve a file by having a second back up of it; if the data is truly important, you might even want to think about storing a backup in a fireproof vault.

3. Install Anti-Virus program.

Run some sort of Anti-Virus Program. Viruses get into your computer a variety of ways; by reading an infected attachment in your e-mail, by sharing files (which are already infected), and by visiting websites that take advantage of security flaws to compromise and destroy your data.

4. Beware of email attachments

Even if you’re certain they don’t contain viruses, email attachments can cause you to lose data. Think about it: if you receive a document with the same name as one on your drive, and your email software is set to save attachments in the same location, you run the risk of overwriting the file that’s already there. This often happens when you’re collaborating on a document and send it via email.

So make sure you set your email program to save attachments in a unique location, or, barring that, make sure you think twice before saving an email attachment on your hard drive.

5. Beware of user error

We don’t like to admit it, but we often engineer our own problems. Take advantage of safeguards included in your word processor, such as versioning features and tracked changes. Common ways users lose data are when they’re editing a document and accidentally delete portions — after the document is saved; the portions that are changed or deleted are lost unless you’ve enabled features that will store changes for you.

If you don’t want to mess with the advanced features, use the F12 key before you start working to save the file under a different name. It isn’t as organized as some of the other methods, but it is a useful trick nonetheless.

6. Quit all programs before shut down.

Shut down your computer. Always quit your programs before shutting down your computer. When you quit a program, it saves vital data and then exits the program. If you just turn off your computer without properly exiting your applications and closing your files, you run the risk of loosing your data.

7. Never shake or remove the covers on hard drives or tapes.

Please don’t disassemble your hard drive. In nearly all examples of this, data is usually not recoverable once an inexperienced person attempts to ‘investigate’ where that ‘strange clicking noise’ is coming from. Leave the diagnostics to a data recovery specialist who has experience with all types of hard drives and knows how to perform a successful data recovery.

8. Beware of diagnostic programs.

While it is a good idea to check the health of your computer running diagnostics software, be careful with allowing such programs to repair data files it may find. Check Disk can be your friend, but also may make it more difficult to recover data from a hard drive which has had such diagnostic programs run on it.

9. Be aware of your surroundings.

Keep your computers and servers in safe and secure locations from accidentally getting knocked over, dropped, or spilled on. Laptops, while convenient to use, are often dropped and require hard drive data recovery. Just because it is a nice day and you are casually working by the pool with your laptop, don’t assume that the guy jumping into the pool realizes his tidal splash will not only soak you…but ruin your laptop and require data recovery for your critical data.