Data Recovery 101

Let’s start of by asking the question, what is data recovery? The following is taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “Data recovery is the process of salvaging data from damaged, failed, corrupted, or inaccessible secondary storage media when it cannot be accessed normally. Often the data are being salvaged from storage media formats such as hard disk drives, storage tapes, CDs, DVDs, RAID, and other electronics.” Recovery may be required due to physical damage to the storage device or logical damage to the file system that prevents it from being mounted by the host operating system. Although there is some confusion as to the term, data recovery can also be the process of retrieving and securing deleted information from a storage media for forensic purposes or spying.

This is a lot of information to take in so let’s break it down a little bit. In the past or if you take media to your local computer store and tell them you cannot access your data nine times out of ten they will tell you your data is lost or they know of a company (called a clean room) that can try to recover your data for a hefty price. Most likely they do not want to help since they have no clue as to how to recover your data and they just want to sell you new stuff.

Media as stated in the definition above is any material that has data or information on it as follows:

• Hard disk drives, (they are found inside your computer). This device holds the following information.
• Operating System
• Software Programs
• Your data, (documents, pictures, music, etc.) CD’s, DVD’s, Raid Drives, Floppies, USB Stick, Tapes, Zip Disks, Jazz Disks, etc.
• Software Programs
• Backup Files
• Data (see 1c)

When a hard disk drive crashes or you cannot access other media. And you computer technician states your data is gone. What do you do? PANIC is the first thing that comes to mind then you think or yell WHERE IS MY DATA? In most cases the data can be recovered depending on what kind of problem the hard drive or media has. If it is just the operating system got corrupted or a major virus wiped the drive and the drive spins up. There is a good chance using professional software will restore the data. Most of the FREE or DEMO software will find the data but the problem, there FREE or DEMO software has limits. Then after you buy the software you can access the data. There is some great software out there and depending on how much money you want to spend you get a great bank for the buck. So depending on what you want to do, i.e. Just restore some files or fix your own data then it will depend on what software you purchase.

Now if you just deleted the data from the hard disk drive or media by mistake or someone did it on purpose (information they did not want you to see or have, this is a whole different article) can be restored by using the recycle bin or software to undelete the files. The only drawback here is if someone deleted the data and then wrote over the area that was storing the data then it is a little more detailed to get the data back.

Some data may look like is gone but it is still there. Here is an example: I have a client that bought a computer that was custom built with a RAID (multiple hard drives that span your data across the drives so that if one drive fails all of the data is not lost) hard disk drive system. One of the drives died and the RAID was not seen. When he took the system back to the computer store he bought it from they told him that all of his data was gone. Now he was very upset since there were all of his pictures from his clients on the drive. He is a professional photographer and he had lots of pictures 745GB worth. He had heard of what my company has done for other clients and our success rate was above 90%. Asked if we could try to recover his data, we picked up his system and fixed the RAID drives. And of course the operation system showed that the RAID was empty. We then used one of our data recovery software programs and within 20 minutes we knew if his data was still there.

With the right knowledge and software all might not be lost when you go to put media into your computer and it is not readable. Remember data recovery can be from just files being deleted by mistake or someone trying to hide evidence. In either case the data can be restored in 95% of the time, and depending on the situation will determine if you can do this yourself or you have to call in a professional to help.

Below is a list of companies we recommend that offer software to recover data.

Recover My Files – $59.95
http://www.recovermyfiles.com/

Get Data Back (FAT & NTFS) – $119.95
http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-products.htm

Disk Doctors – $69.95
http://www.diskdoctors.net/bundle-offers.html

And of course if we can assist in any way please give us a call toll free 866-573-8674 or email Info@DRSSafe.com.

Tags: data, forensics

Category: Technology