By Steff X
Once you have selected the right company to entrust your data with, it is time to scrutinize them with the requirements below to ensure that you are getting a good deal.
When making the major decision to get data recovery services, know your rights. Ask what is their data recovery success rate. You do not want to be going through evaluation and shipping for nothing even when it is paid by the recovery company.
No obligation free evaluation fees. Your data recovery company should be able to tell you how likely your data is to be recovered based on the damage on the hard disk.
Then, if you should decide to give the data recovery provider the go ahead, they will clone the system and begin attempting to retrieve the data that is on your hard drive. This is for safety purpose that another recovery attempt can be done if the first one fail.
Complimentary shipping to and from their facilities. Specialists do not require your entire computer to recover your data. All you got to do is simply ship your hard drive to them and they will retrieve the data from it.
Extra precaution should be taken when shipping your hard drive. For example, if it is damage by water, it should be shipped wet by covering it with a damp cloth. Also, you might want to put it in a shock proof tight container so that the hard disk do not get damage even more is handled roughly during shipping. However, avoid using styrofoam container when shipping as it can create static electricity that can damage the data.
If your computer is still under warranty, a data recovery attempt may void the warranty you have with the manufacturer. Honoring a drive manufacturer warranty may cause delays in recovering the data. If they do not provide you a clear warranty statement, you may have to purchase a new hard drive after your data is recovered.
Does your data recovery company offer 24 / 7 telephone-based personal support? Better still, this number should be toll-free too. Apart from that, a 24 / 7 online case status reporting ensure that you can track the progress of your case and a dedicated case manager can answer all the questions and ease all the concerns that you may have.
Laptops and notebooks can also have data recovered from them, but the process is different as the parts were way smaller. The main difference is that these computers require smaller tools in order to recover the data due to its mini size. Ask your data recovery company if they can handle this.
Can your data remain confidential? Ask this question when selecting a trustable company. Going to an established company with good credibility will help in this situation.
How will your data be returned to you? Depending on the volume, your data can be returned in the form of a CD, DVD, loan or replacement hard drive. A free disc is usually the norm. As a basic requirement, your data should be returned on media that you can easily access and integrate into your existing system.
Make sure that your newly restored data is covered by a warranty. If you later find any problem with it, you can always refer back to the data recovery company.
A clear time frame for getting your data back. Although data recovery can be done in as little 24 hours to 5 days, the evaluation process can take several days to weeks, and it may or may not be successful after all.
9/04/2008
Top Data Recovery Tips
9/03/2008
Online Backup For Beginners
By Simon Zimmo
Whether you are a new business or you have been trading for many years, there is a very good chance in this computerised age that you will be using a pc, computer or laptop to assist you with running that business. What you may not realise, is the greatest threat to the survival of your business, is losing the data stored on your hard drive. Online backup is the most cost effective and efficient way of protecting your crucial data.
Originally, online backup was only within the budget of large multinational corporations, but nowadays it is highly affordable for not only the one man business, but even the everyday computer user. Many store valuable work, their financial statements, irreplaceable photographs and digital media files; the loss of which to many people would be priceless. So, secure back up of our hard drive is essential in even our every day lives and no backup is more secure than online backup.
Whether you need to back up a single laptop, or an entire network of machines, there is an online backup solution that will meet your needs. The simplest method is to use a company who uses software, which will allow you to configure what you would most like to back up. All data is encrypted, so from the moment it leaves your computer, it is impossible for it to be accessed by anybody, not even the online backup company will be able to view the contents of your data.
Therefore you can safely backup everything you would not like to loose, for the business you can backup all your financial documents, bank statements, wage details, stock holding, VAT and tax documents; and even your e-mails and address book. All these will be safely stored in secure and remote premises, so in the event of any of a multitude of potential disasters, your data will be available and restorable instantly online.
Likewise for the home computer user; 1,000s of computers and laptops were stolen last year; plus everyday, new virulent and damaging viruses circulated the Internet, causing unrecoverable damage to data. Coupled with hardware failure, power surges, fires and floods to name but a few; proves that nobody is immune from data loss. So, online backup is a crucial insurance and is extremely worth looking into.
Once you have set up an account with an online data backup company and have configured the free software, the rest of the process is transparent and requires little or no interaction from you. For your peace of mind you can elect to be notified by email of the successful online backup, which will usually be made at the most convenient or beneficial time to yourself. You can then relax knowing that your critical data is being saved in a safe and secure manner; and it is easily accessible by you, whenever you may need it.
So if you select the right online data backup service, you can sleep soundly at night, knowing that your precious data is being stored remotely in a building with the highest levels of security.
9/01/2008
Small Business Data Back Up
By Nick Pegley
Is it going to happen tomorrow, next week, in six months, or a year from now? It will happen eventually - your company will have data loss from an individual computer or a server. Are you prepared for this inevitable situation?
According to American Data Recovery:
* Companies lose more than 12 billion dollars a year from data loss
* 78% of this loss is because of system and hardware failure
* 11% is caused by human errors
* 60% of the businesses that lose data close within 6 months of the incident
The need to back up important data is something understood by business. However, they are often not aware of the fact that bad configuration, maintenance, or incomplete procedures and policies can mean large expense after a data disaster.
Businesses should consider these four important points when backing up and recovering important data:
What Kind of Data Needs Which Kind of Back Up?
When backing up and retrieving data from desktop computers and servers, there are many options. The method you select will depend on the type of data that you are backing up. If the information is updated or changes frequently, as in spreadsheets, email, and Word documents, tape back up may be your best solution, as this lets data be retrieved gradually within a specific date range. For info which is static or changes on rare occasion, an archive to DVD or CD could be the best idea. It's best to back up the laptops and desktop computers at your business with removable media such as a Zip drive. Most importantly, back up should be scheduled to occur automatically, or most likely it won't happen at all.
What Needs to be Backed Up?
When creating a plan, businesses should start with their most important information. You can determine what is most important by asking yourself what your company would need to get everything up and running in the shortest amount of time after a data loss situation. This most often includes production and manufacturing, prospects and clients, human resources, finance and accounting data, and email, artwork, and drawings.
Test, Verify, and Restore
In many cases the most overlooked element in the process is data verification and testing, omitted due to the associated cost.
Below you will find some best practices for back up solutions:
Weekly: Instead of just reviewing the back up logs, examine the back up and verify file list using a restore view.
Quarterly: Test your restoration process beginning with the most recent tape. Examine several types of files, including Word documents, an Excel spreadsheet, and the admin mail box. Choose different dates for all the files you restore.
Yearly: Be sure the system is secure by performing a total system restore onto a hard drive or blank server.
How Can a Business Avoid a Data Disaster?
Here are some scenarios to avoid when you are forced into a data recovery situation:
* Storing the tapes on-site
* Having no access to a tape drive, hard drive, and cables which are compatible when the tape drive is completely destroyed
* Using old tapes which are stretched and can't write the data cleanly
The back up plan at a company should be a part of an overall business continuity and disaster recovery plan to be most effective.
Data Backup Strategies - Backing Up to a CD
By Andrew McNaught
You are reading this article which probably means you own a computer. Most likely you have some very important documents and other files on your computer and it could be disastrous for you to lose these. This is why you need to consider it a backup strategies such as backing up to CDs.
Despite computers being very sophisticated, as with any electrical components there always susceptible to failure of some sort. This could mean losing forever perhaps some precious pictures are important documents unless you consider backing them up. There are many ways you can do this, and the method we discuss in this article is one of the cheapest.
CDs can be picked up for only a few pennies each and each CD stores up to 700 MB of data. Unless you have thousands of music files or video files that you need backed up, this may usually be enough for one person. You may have heard of two different types of CD you can use to backup, these are CD-R and CD-RW. The advantage of CD-R is that it is cheaper, however with CD-RW you can use the CD over and over again.
Depending on your needs, backing up to a CD may not be the best option or it could be ideal. If 700 MB is much too small for your needs you may need to consider other data backup strategies. For example, DVDs hold around 5 GB of data but these are more expensive and if you have an older computer it may not have the required optical drive to burn DVDs. For users requiring to backup large amounts of data external hard drives are becoming cheaper and can store vast quantities of data. The other option is online backup but then your data is not as easily accessible as with for example CDs.
Taking this into account, most modest users should find CDs an ideal way to backup their important data. If however, you fail to make a backup of your data and your hard drive crashes you may need to look into data recovery procedures.
Andrew McNaught has been an expert in IT for over 10 years and is the webmaster of Technology Central where you can learn more about data recovery and other technology matters.
Data Recovery Guide - Do's and Dont's
By Manish Talreja
If you are a little tech savvy or at least have been using the computer from the last few years then there is very little chance that you will not be familiar with the term "data recovery". Most of dread this thing all our life as when data corruption or data loss takes place we loose our plenty of valuable info which for some maybe their baby photos while for some other their business profiles and all.
But data loss or corruption does not necessarily mean that you have lost that data permanently. Experts have managed to recover data in 8 out of every 10 cases. So before throwing that hard drive away always check with a expert to see if you can recover your valuable info back.
Let us now analyze some of the causes of data loss or data corruption:
• Disasters.
• Virus.
• Physical damage.
• Software corruption.
• Power surges.
Most of these factors are not in your hand and are not controllable by you. So now I would give you some tips in case you experience data loss or data corruption:
• In case of data loss do not try to recover the data yourself without the supervision of any data recovery expert as it may lead to further deterioration of data and may eventually reduced to less chances of data recovery.
• Do not try to open the hard disk as it may get damaged further due to environmental hazards.
• Do not expose the hard disk to extreme temperatures.
• If the hard disk is making any noises then simply turn off your computer and do not use it until you consult a data recovery expert.
• Do not scan the hard disk in any case.
• Avoid installing any new software.
These precautions will aid the data recovery expert and will increase the chances of successful data recovery.
Also one of the basic rule when you are using a computer or any form of hard disk is to have regularly updated backups so that even if you cannot recover your data you still do not suffer any major financial losses.
If you take care of the few things mentioned in this article and act accordingly then data loss would not be such a huge problem for you as others hype it to be.
