Ask a specialist on Disaster Recovery

What if your data:

It was backed up the SUV on your laptop?

Your laptop spent two days in a sunken ship sank to the bottom of the Amazon?

Firefighters saved on your computer casing marked by a deposit of burning?


data recovery specialists restore lost data in all the above situations. Rage fires, floods, and Road is all in a day's work for the Knights of bytes.

Michael Peltier is the Senior Datarecovery engineer for data recovery and reconstruction in Tucson, Arizona. He has to tell stories and make suggestions.

Through a Drive

But first some background information. Drive units contain read-write heads that transfer data to the receiving plates. The head flies over the plate, the painfully separated by a thin cushion of air.

Measured in microns, the thickness of a human fingerprint is much higher than the head of the quota. If the head is directedThe contact with the recording turntable, the particles from the head and knocked to the plate and be in the air cushion, which scrape the plate caught the recording medium. The unit can be damaged in less than 15 minutes or it could take several days.

Peltier pointed out that customers will use "a few drops of oil" in the disc, because the motor does not rotate. The case was saturated with oil and the oil prevents the head of a fly. The recording surfaceground was clean. "A few drops! Would have to add a barrel!" Peltier said.

Then there was the time she discovered a family of ants had taken up residence in a hard disk enclosure.

Causes of loss

However, obsolescence is the typical offender. All drives eventually fail, but a heterogeneous collection of conditions that lead to premature drive failure - heat, water, shock, power failures, viruses or environmental pollutants.

While the fire can damage the heatoverheated equipment is the most likely cause. If the ambient temperature (eg room) temperature too high, changes in air pressure reduces the thickness of the cushion of air. The read / write head touches the platter and record corruption occurs.

Strong shock or vibration to cause damage similar.

Environmental contamination usually occurs when the seal that goes around the unit is damaged. (Not all units have these seals). The seal is damaged, or particles in the airCigarette smoke found its way between the head and the pot to grind out the recording medium.

Water damage occurs due to impurities in the water is corrosive to metals contained in the record, that microscopic pitting.

Voltage drop also caused damage. sudden loss of electricity or lightning can drive RPM (revolutions per minute) to lose. This causes the air pressure decreased, which in turn, the head of the quota.

Viruses canCreate chaos corrupted by software.

Prevention

Peltier suggests the following practices, the chances of data recovery will be increased:

The backup and store the backup data offsite.

Do not apply power to a damaged hard disk. Power reduces the ability to collect data.
Turn immediately if the unit offers grinding, scraping or popping noises. continue to write to the media, the level of corruption will increase, and pointers to destroy or "RosettaStones, which use data recovery to recover data.

Utilities such as Scandisk and Norton Disk Doctor are useful to restore the repair of small problems, but if you are a serious problem, reduce the probability that a data recovery specialist. Peltier said that these programs sometimes interpret the geometry wrong. "Then it sets what it thinks is disk space available for the operations of notebooks and may end up overwriting the actual data, isthere. This makes quite a mess. "

Say "No" if Scandisk or another utility that asks whether to try to do to repair the damage. Windows users can find out the extent of damage, using the command prompt and run the disk check without the / f. "If there are 4-5 errors can roll the dice and set Scandisk. If there are hundreds or thousands, are connected to a data recovery professional."
large files are more at risk of corruption than smaller files. If possible, separate the worksmaller files.

Do not open the container. A speck of dust can destroy hundreds of areas, and just loosening the screws can set the unit to service orientation, so that the card is no longer recognized.



Data Recovery

File Recovery can not be guaranteed, but if the right conditions, can be accomplished much. Peltier once 7566141f recovers lost data from a formatted hard disk. The deleted files or formatted drives can "shadow" behind the data and disasterrecovery specialists can sometimes retrieve this data.

If you ever need a Data Recovery Specialist, Peltier suggests asking the company or individual flights with experience, references, in which the pricing policy in advance, and look for a "no data, no charge" policy . "If someone pays a fee of diagnosis, there is the possibility that they will tell you that they will receive with your best shot, the data is saved to the diagnostic fee. Without a diagnostic fee, youSo who are working in your best interest. "

And, oh yes, we talked about doing a backup?