Do You Need
Data Recovery Help?

If your computer cannot read its hard disk, you might need professional data recovery help. Tampering with a physically damaged disk could result in data loss. If the permanent loss of your files would disrupt your life, seriously consider sending your hard drive to a recovery specialist.

There are two broad categories of disk damage, physical damage and logical damage. You can you know your disk is physically damaged if the hard drive is making any type of clicking or grinding noises. Logical damage means that the software pointers on the disk have been corrupted to the point that the files are unreadable.

Software will not make unusual disk noises go away

When the hard drive starts making unusual noises, but you are still able to read some files, it is a sign that the drive only has a limited number of reads left. There is no software that will make the noise disappear. It is best to use the limited number of reads to make a disk image. If you are at all unsure about this, consider sending your hard drive to a professional data recovery service.

Software file recovery tools should only be used on a physically healthy disk. When a file has been accidentally deleted and it is no longer in the recycle bin, a file recovery utility can get that file back for you. A file recovery only works if the file has not been overwritten by a newer file. This means that you should not write to the disk that has the file you want to recover. File recovery utilities may also be used to reapair disks where the file systems ha been logically corrupted by a virus.

Preventative Maintenance

These computer maintenance actions will make disk data recovery easier or prevent a data recovery problem altogether:

• Have a weekly or daily hard drive backup schedule. You can avoid the necessity of paying for a professional data recovery service merely by restoring the backup onto a new disk.
  
  
• Run a disk defragment program at least monthly. A defragmented disk will not only run more efficiently, but it is also easier to recover.
  
  
• Use firewall and virus protection. This can save your data from a malicious hacker or virus.
  
  
• Become informed of various computer security issues.
  
  

Professional Data Recovery Services

Hard drives are sensitive devices and disassembling them requires a clean room. A clean room is necessary when opening a drive because the disk surfaces can easily be damaged by extremely small particles of dust and dirt. A Class 100 clean room is considered adequate for this type of work.

Find out if the company you’re considering has a supply of spare parts. Some recovery operations might require the replacement of broken parts. If the company doesn't have these readily available, you could be waiting several days or even weeks for your data to be recovered.

Some companies will offer to repair your hard drive for a fixed cost. The danger here is that they might tell you the data is unrecoverable if they figure out that it will cost them more than what they are charging you. In general, if a service says that they are unable to recover your files, you ought to get a second opinion.

Data Recovery Principles

Opening a hard drive is an expensive undertaking. It requires a skilled technician and a clean room to avoid damage to the sensitive platter and read/write heads. Before a hard drive is opened, an attempt is made to recover the data. This attempt requires discernment and experience to avoid causing further damage to the hard drive. If the hard drive suffered a head crash, then further reading might actually strip more of the magnetic coating off the platters. Once this coating has been scraped off the platter, it will be impossible for anyone to recover the data that used to reside at the damaged locations. In that event, it would have been better to replace the read/write heads before attempting to read the disk.

Since opening a disk is so prohibitively expensive, it's often worth taking the chance to read the data from a damaged hard drive. In that event, it is best read that data as efficiently as possible since it could be the only attempt left before a total drive failure. The most efficient way to read an entire disk is by using an image copy program. An image copy is sometimes also called a hard drive cloning. This image copy does a block by block read of the entire hard drive, starting with the first block and reading sequentially to the end. This is the best and most efficient way to attempt the data extraction.

File Recovery

You might be able to recover lost data by using downloadable file recovery software. Some companies will let you download and try their software for free but they will require you to purchase the program before it will actually restore your files or disk. This way you can see if the program thinks it can restore your files before you pay for it.

If your drive is making any type of unusual noise, no software will be able to fix it, and it might even make your problem worse. At this point, you will need to decide if the data on your drive is worth the cost of paying someone to fix the disk. Since the cost of this service can vary widely, you can save a considerable sum of money by shopping around.

Some types of problems that can be fixed by software:

• Formatted drive or partition
  
  
• Corrupted partition
  
  
• Virus damaged file system
  
  
• Invalid media
  
  
• Disk boot failure
  
  
• Missing operating system
  
  
• Deleted file or directory
  
  

More Data Recovery Information

RAID Data Recovery

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