Data Recovery Issues and Approaches
Data recovery allows salvaging data from wrecked,
damaged, failed, or inaccessible storage media when it cannot be accessed using the
normal approach. Often the data is being recovered from storage media
formats such as hard disk drive, storage tape, smartmedia, flash, zip
drive, CD, DVD, RAID, and other electronics. This can be due to
physical damage to the device
or logical damage to the file
system that prevents it from being usable.
Multiple techniques are used to retrieve the data from damaged computers. Sometimes the
platters need to be removed by specialists and placed into a working
drive, sometimes only disk heads need to replaced. Often times there
is nothing wrong with the hardware, as there are cases where for some
reason important bits of information about the partitioning are lost
and while the drive is in a perfect condition, special tools need to
be used to recreate the partitioning without loosing data and have it
working again. You may have used a RAID and several disks are now
corrupted, but you may be able to still recover most of the data.
Finally you may have a perfectly working drive and fine partitions,
but your application data, file or database went corrupted. So you
need to be able to recover those too. Often times you can download
some program to easily repair the problem by yourself (which is
usually quite cheaper than paying a human to do so for you). Though
the availability of such programs may depend on which Operating
systems you use, e.g. there are probably lots of data recovery
programs out there for Windows, but probably not that many for linux
and macintosh. If however it is a hardware problem, most likely you've
have to contact a specialist at the nearest data recovery center.
So many things could go wrong with your PC and other electronics.
Depending on the damage the recovery may be cheap to accomplish, but
sometimes it can be very expensive. One thing is for sure, whenever it
happens you'd always slap yourself on the forehead, saying why didn't
I make those backups. So if
you read this now, before you've lost your data go and back up your
data now! However chances are
that you have found this page, because your data has already been
damaged or corrupted.
The following resources should help you recover your data and
hopefully you will get it all back:
Choosing
a Data Recovery Company (http://biz-intel-center.blogspot.com/2006/05/choosing-data-recovery-company.html)
If this is your first time
choosing a data recovery company, you will want to learn as much
information as possible regarding them Data
Recovery First Aid (http://www.softwaretalks.com/first-aid/)
3 tips to increase your chances
of success A Barbecued
Hard Drive Sent to Ontrack for Recovery (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1911131,00.asp)
Ever thrown a
Western Digital hard drive into a campfire? Well, PCMag's executive
editor Jeremy Kaplan did while on his vacation. Why? He wanted to see
if Ontrack could save his barbecued data Ever
wonder how data recovery companies recover data from dead hard
drives? (http://www6.tomshardware.com/storage/20050530/index.html)
Here's a great article at Tom's Hardware
about the process Data Recovery Services go through in order to
getdata back off of hard drive even if it won't power on. Very
interesting. Data
Protection and Recovery in Windows XP (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/support/dataprot.mspx)
Provides a
technical walkthrough that illustrates how to use important data
recovery and protection features in Windows XP. Also included are best
practices and the steps you need to take to build an effective data
recovery and protection strategy. Secure
Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory (http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/%7Epgut001/pubs/secure_del.html)
Covers some of the methods available to recover erased data and
presents schemes to make this recovery significantly more
difficult. |
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Beginners
Guides: Hard Drive Data Recovery (http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleID=1139)
Killed a hard drive
without backing up? This guide helps you recover the data Stellar Information
Systems Ltd (http://www.stellarinfo.com/)
Engineers at Stellar recover damaged data
(filesystem and file recovery) Drive
Slagging (http://driveslag.eecue.com/)
A fool-proof method to prevent data
recovery The
Lost Art of CD Data Recovery (http://datarecovery.techniscape.com/The-Lost-Art-Of-CD-Data-Recovery.php)
Losing your information
or pictures or music files or other important pieces of data no longer
has to be the "end of the world". With CD data recovery, the lost bits
of information can be completely recovered in most cases. Recovering Scratched
CDs (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/77)
Every user has had trouble with a scratched CD. In
the case of data CDs (CD-ROM), the drive cannot properly read the CD,
giving rise to reading errors. In the case of audio CDs, the CD skips
when we play it. Recovering Dead Motherboards Killed by the CIH
Virus (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/39)
Learn how to reprogram BIOS chips erased by the
CIH (a.k.a. Chernobyl or Spacefiller) virus. The describe procedure
can also be used to recover your BIOS in the case of a bad BIOS
upgrade. |
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Recovery Myths (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/245)
Talks about data recovery myths found
on the Internet Recovering Hard Disks Erased by the CIH
Virus (http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/40)
How to recover hard disks erased by the CIH
(a.k.a. Chernobyl or Spacefiller) virus. Paranoid? Overwrite
Data 35 Times With This Open Source Program (http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/)
If you've
ever downloaded something on purpose or by accident you don't want
anyone to ever get a hold of, this program is for you. Eraser is an
open source data destruction program that uses the Gutmann Method of
throwing on 8 passes of random data and another 27 predefined patterns
to foil recovery experts.
Hard drive recovery utilities: when you can't afford to lose that
data (http://geeksaresexy.blogspot.com/2005/12/hard-drive-recovery-utilities-when-you.html)
How to recover data if your PC has crashed. |
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