By Christine Harrell
Although some of us yearn for a time before computers, we live in a digital world. Many of us own computers not for our own benefit, but because our friends, children, and grandchildren insist on using email and digital photographs to communicate with us.
However computers fail. They stop working or get attacked by viruses or even get burned up in a fire. When that happens, many of our memories go with them. Letters from loved ones, pictures of your family, that video of your daughter's wedding can all be gone in the blink of an eye.
The good news is that all of these treasured items can be saved. When a computer is backed up, a copy of the information is made and stored somewhere else. If the computer is damaged or even completely destroyed, the information remains safe.
Computer Backup Options
In the past, computers were backed up onto tape cassettes. This was an inexpensive and easy way to make many copies of information, but was used mostly by businesses. Tape backups require buying a special tape drive that has to be installed in your computer so aren't common among non-business computer owners.
Tapes are still used for backup data storage but there are other options. Most computers today come with drives that can write to CDs or DVDs. When this capability was first introduced, it was an expensive and slow process and tape backups were still common. As the technology has improved and the price has come down, this has become one of the most common types of backup.
However, each disk can hold only a small fraction of all the information on your hard drive. A full backup could take a dozen disks and someone has to be available to swap disks as needed.
The Advantages of Online Backup
Now that internet connections have become so fast, many people are opting to use online backup for their remote backup needs. With online backup, all of your information is saved to another computer over your existing DSL or cable internet connection. There are no tapes, CDs or DVDs to buy, no extra equipment to install, and your data is saved without any intervention from you.
The connection used for your backup is encrypted so no one can eavesdrop on your data and read it as it is sent. The remote computer your data is stored on is protected against intrusion and only a password you choose can get access to your information. Even the company that operates the online backup service can't get to your data.
A big advantage to online file storage is that it is "set it and forget it". After you install the backup software on your computer, you tell it how often you want to back up and it will automatically do it without your intervention. This way, if disaster strikes, your precious memories are safe and you can rest easy!
8/23/2008
Protect Your Precious Memories With Online Backup
8/21/2008
CHKDSK - Life-Saver Or Disk-Drive Killer?
By Zach Schapel
CHKDSK is an often misused utility that resides on almost every Windows Operating System. The basic usage of the program is to check your disk for errors (notice the acronym), and also to attempt to locate damaged sectors if you enable the correct configuration. The total process could take anywhere from a few minutes on up to a few days, again, depending upon the configuration that is used at the command prompt. There are a few basic questions that you should ask yourself before attempting to recover data from a damaged drive with this utility:
How valuable is the data contained on the drive?
What would I do if the data is damaged beyond the point of repair or retrieval?
How large is the disk drive in question?
What is the cause of the damage to the hard disk drive?
The first question, about the value of the data, also relates to the second question. If the data contained on a drive is so valuable that you cannot bear with the thought of losing it, CHKDSK might be a bad idea. It can be a useful utility, but unfortunately, it has the basic limitation of running your drive for an unnecessarily long time period. Additionally, CHKDSK will write files straight back onto your hard-drive, which is most likely already damaged. If there is any sort of damage beyond file corruption, there is a very strong risk that valuable data can be lost permanently. It is advisable to seek the expertise of a data recovery professional, who can make this assessment for you. A large amount of the time, hard drives experience mechanical or electrical failures, which CHKDSK will fail to fix. In these cases, the utility will actually serve to make the problem much more complicated, and in the worst case scenario, unrecoverable.
Another limit of the CHKDSK utility is the issue of hard-drive size. Large hard drives will take an extremely long time to scan, sometimes up to a few days. When a hard-drive has experienced some sort of severe malfunction, every second can make a difference. Time spent scanning the drive and spinning the platters can ultimately result in worse damage or complete failure of the drive. The cause of your hard-drive malfunction can also be a major deciding factor in whether or not to use CHKDSK. As mentioned previously, the utility cannot repair mechanical or electrical problems to the drive. These sorts of repairs must be completed by a qualified professional in data recovery to preserve data and minimize damage.
Judgment should be exercised on a case by case basis, but CHKDSK can become a powerful tool if used properly. Unfortunately, it is very difficult for the average computer user to determine whether their situation merits its usage, so it is advisable to seek the help of a professional data recovery company.
Data Recovery - Choosing a Credible Company
By Alex Paster
Losing your valuable data or information can be catastrophic! In today's day and age making a daily backup simply isn't enough; your backups still end up being transferred to a hard drive or another storage media device. These storage devices can fail due to numerous circumstances, most of which are related to end users fault. In some situations hard drives can fail due to poor manufacturing but in most cases improper storage such as extensive heat, cold, dust, etc. is responsible for the failure. With these kinds of malfunctions software recovery is not possible as the hard drive either doesn't
spin or cannot read anything from the platters (disks). This is when you should seek help from an experienced data recovery specialist.
Finding a reliable and experienced data recovery provider is a must! If your hard drive ends up in an inexperienced company, you could lose your data forever. Most individuals seek help from a local IT, before contacting a data recovery company. Make sure that you or your IT does NOT open the hard drive chassis; if opened in an improper environment, the dust particles from the air could damage your platters and make the data unrecoverable. Drives have to be opened in a Class-100 clean room, which utilizes a dust free environment. Therefore, when seeking a data recovery specialist be sure to ask if they have a clean room facility.
Do not be fooled by companies who promise 99% success ratio. Data recovery is not an exact science and as such each malfunction varies on case to case basis. This makes it impossible for anyone to provide accurate diagnostics or success rate over the phone. Although data can be retrieved in most situations, there are instances when nothing can be recovered. These instances are mainly due to severe physical damage to the platters inside the hard drive. The best way to determine company's success ratio is to ask for references from their previous clients to insure credibility, knowledge and therefore chances of a successful recovery.
Can You Find a Deleted File Even If Windows Can't?
By Michael Porteous
It happens all the time all around the word on business machines and personal computers, a file you may think you don't need any more or one you accidentally delete without looking too closely and then you empty the recycling bin and ... that's it; the file is gone ... Or is it? Can you find a deleted file or is it totally lost? The answer is yes you can find it.
To understand why we must understand how windows and other operating systems find and display files on your computer. Every file and program and bit of data that your operating system can access has what is called a reference or pointer to where that file is stored on your hard disk. This file may not even be stored sequentially on your disk it may be stored in bits and pieces if it is large and the file itself has pointers referencing where the next pieces is and so on. These pointers are absolutely essential for windows to be able to see if a file exists, if there is no pointer to that file then as far as the operating system is concerned it does not exist.
Data on a hard drive when deleted is not lost, the same sequence of 1's and 0's that make up all parts of data and software are still there sitting on the disk it just cannot be found as there is no reference, it is lost not deleted. To truly delete a file the locations where the file is stored must be scrambled so that it does not make any sense to any system, only then is a file unreadable and effectively destroyed.
However when you delete a file it does not scramble and destroy the file it simply removes the pointers that reference it. This means that while windows cannot find your file and never will be able to the file exists and will continue to exist until such a time when that space on the hard disk is used to store other data.
So if you cannot find a deleted file at the moment you will not be able to get it back without some outside help from third party programs that can scan your hard disk and find your files for you. While annoying (or possible job security threatening!) losing a file does not have to be the end of things as it still exists!
8/18/2008
The Basics of Laptop Data Recovery
By Brian J. Link
With the rise of a mobile lifestyle and telecommuting, laptops have proliferated and become almost as common as the home computer. In some instances the laptop has become the home computer. The reason for the popularity is the portability it affords the computer user. And with the ability to take the laptop anywhere, this leads to unexpected damage from the elements and to heavy wear and tear.
Because the laptop was designed for mobility, this makes it more prone to damage. Aside from the regular wear and tear from lugging around the computer, there are greater risks for accidents. Accidentally pouring coffee over the laptop, or dropping it, running the car over the case, or even sitting on the laptop can damage the unit. Physical damage to the laptop case can make it unbootable.
In most instances, the laptop is a secondary computer or is wired to an office LAN, it is prudent to regularly save data to a desktop or a server. In case of loss, a copy of important data is stored at the office or at home. Backup utilities take advantage of this connectivity and can schedule an automatic backup of files to the desktop computer or the office file server.
Frequently, laptops come with a recovery disk CD. The laptop recovery disk CD contains the compressed hard disk contents prior to the laptop use. In case the hard disk fails, or the user wants a full re-write, or re-install of the laptop, the laptop is booted up from the laptop recovery CD and a full reinstall is done. For a laptop data recovery, a full restore from existing backup can be done after the system has been re-installed.
The laptop recovery disk CD is not to be confused with the Windows recovery disk. This is also different from recovery disks from data recovery programs. The Windows recovery disk is used when trying to boot a computer with a corrupted hard disk, or a computer which fails to boot. It repairs the Windows system files. Recovery disks from backup and recovery software vendors allow the user to boot up the disk and do a laptop data recovery by restoring the hard disk data from a backup.
Some laptops have intelligent hard disks that help avert data loss. The Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology (SMART) for hard disks informs the user of probability of a hard disk failure. A laptop with SMART hard disks would inform the user if a hard disk crash is inevitable. This gives the user enough time to back up important hard disk data. It also allows the user the luxury of going to a service center to diagnose the computer before the hard disk fails.
In case of accidental damage, there are laptop data recovery services, which the owner can avail of. These laptop data recovery services are full service repair bureaus which check the computer parts and not just the hard disk. The owner sends the unit to the service center for laptop data recovery, laptop checkup and diagnostics and repair. For laptop data recovery the hard disk is isolated and an image of the hard disk data is created prior to repairing it.
With these service bureaus the laptop data recovery can be done even if the hard disk is completely damaged or is not working. Laptop data recovery can be done for inaccessible drives or partitions, corrupted files or disks, virus attacks, overwrites, accidental file deletion, laptop hardware component failure, hard disk crashes, fire, flood and water damage, media contamination or damage, and accidental formatting or partitioning.
Laptop data recovery may be a longer process than data recovery for a desktop computer. There are more reasons for a hard disk failure or laptop damage to happen. However, for different scenarios of hard disk failure, boot up failure or data loss, there are different laptop data recovery solutions available to the laptop user.
