An Article giving advice on Data Recovery
for people|
Emergency
Computer Data Recovery in Hertfordshire,
Cambridgeshire,North London and Central London, Bedfordshire, Essex,
Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire - an article by
John Lever of Systems
Services based in Hertfordshire UK - Home page for data recovery
Tel : 01763
288 165 john.lever@btinternet.com
If you lose
computer data from your hard
disk drive on a Windows PC or MAC PC or on a USB or Firewire disk
drive, floppy disk or digital camera
memory card - first of
all don’t panic - there is a good chance a data recovery will be
possible. The following website gives more information
on the circumstances in which data can be
recovered : Details on how computer
data can be recovered Secondly our
advice is to stop using your
PC
straight away – continued use of your PC may overwrite data which could
have
been
recovered. I would also advise that you contact a local data recovery
service - Systems Services provides data recovery services and is
on 01763 288165 covering Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire,
Buckinghamshire, Essex, Northamptonshire, In the majority
of cases it is possible to
recover some or all of the files and data you have lost as long as
you
don’t leave it too long. Probably the most
common
problem is deleting a file by mistake. This file normally goes into the
‘Recycle’ bin – it is simply a matter of clicking on to the ‘Recycle’
bin and
then onto the file you need to recover (you will normally be asked if
you want
to recover this file and if you do it will be placed where you deleted
it
from). So what happens
if you have lost data by
clearing it from your ‘Recycle’ bin or formatted your hard disk ? It
should still be possible for a specialist data recovery service to
recover the data in most circumstances. Files deleted
from a system can often be
recovered ; data recovery should be started as soon as possible
after
deleting the file as the area occupied by the file becomes available
for reuse by operating systens such as Windows XP, Windows NT , WINDOWS
98 and WINDOWS ME on Microsoft Windows PCs. Data can also be
recovered if lost under OS9 or OSX on MAC PCs. Recovering data
from hard disks (and other
devices such as memory cards or floppy disks)
you have formatted may be more problematic – but it is still likely you can recover lost disk data unless
you
have used the disk extensively between losing the data and the
attempted recovery (and even then data recovery may still be possible). If your hard disk
or floppy disk starts
getting hardware sector errors on it ie parts of disk which cannot be
used
because they have failed – it is quite often possible to recover data
even in
cases such as this. Data recovery methods can be used which ‘try
harder’ to
read data. In this case you should recover the data and then consider
getting a
new disk - our advice is to treat the data recovery to be of
paramount importance with saving the damaged disk for later use of
secondary importance. If your hard disk
starts
making clicking or grinding sounds and data is still accessible –
recover
important data while you are still able to and get a new disk. If the
disk is
not accessible, data on the disk may still be recoverable using data
recovery
techniques. If your hard disk
dies due to an electronic fault or mechanical fault you may still be
able to
get the data back but the recovery process is generally is more
demanding and
time consuming. In some cases data recovery can be done by replacing
electrical components or assemblies on the disk. Lost data on
floppy disks, CDs
and memory devices (such as digital camera memory sticks) and other
devices may
also be
recoverable by using data recovery services. CDs which seem to be
irrecoverable eg with
children
covering them with jam or family pets chewing them – can sometimes be
‘cleaned’
enough to make full or partial recovery possible. Sometimes a PC
will not boot
perhaps due to a failure of the master boot record (MBR) on the disk.
It is
still likely that the data can be recovered from such a disk. It may
even be
possible to make the disk bootable again – this should only be
attempted after data recovery has been done to recover important data
(to ensure safety of the data). Even if data has
disappeared
ages ago and a hard disk drive has been heavily used – it may still be
possible
to
recover all your important data or fragments of lost data. Data is also
recoverable
using ‘Computer Forensic’ techniques generally in this case, the whole
or parts
of data files, image files or other files can be looked for and
recovered from
disks even if it was thought they had been deleted. Specialist
software
and/or
hardware is needed to completely wipe information from disks to stop it
being
recovered by anyone please see
Erasing sensitive information from disks |