Data Recovery- Top Solutions For Data Recovery

Hard disk crashes – prevention and cure

“Even the best hard drives crash,” says Ben Carmitchel, president of ESS Data Recovery, Inc. “Usually, at the most inopportune moment. If your drive hasn’t crashed yet, it will.”

This statement might seem pretty annoying, but instead of being disappointed by the poor reliability of hard drives, we can learn how to prevent this from happening. According to a survey conducted by New York-based Ontrack Data Recovery, the vast majority of people don’t know what to do when faced with this problem. Some computer users panic while others abuse their computers physically by hitting the device or even throwing it out of the window! However the best course of action is to calm down as there are many solutions for data recovery provided that you take timely actions.

Carmitchel says that over 90% of the cases they get are completely recoverable. When the crash is due to logical hard drive failure (caused by a virus, human error, software malfunction, system driver conflict), the chances of data recovery are better and it will cost you less. When the hard drive failure is physical (malfunction of the hard drive itself due to overheating, power surge, natural disaster, etc), the data recovery depends on the extent of the damage and it’s more expensive and time-consuming.

What to do if your computer crashes

1. Write down any error messages, exactly as they appear. This will help the technical support person find the problem faster. Information about the make, model, the hard drive, the processors, memory, etc. will be also very helpful.
2. Next, restart your computer, and then open any documents you were working on to see what, if anything, was lost. If you were working in Microsoft Office Word, for example, you might see a pane with recent versions of the document that were saved before or during the crash.
3. If your computer won’t start, or it starts but Windows won’t start, try starting your computer using Last Known Good Configuration. This is a Windows startup option that uses the most recent system settings that worked correctly.
4. If using Last Known Good Configuration doesn’t help, contact your computer manufacturer’s technical support team.Don’t reboot your computer if you hear grinding, clicking or whirring noises from it.This is a signal that the head mechanism that reads the data physically crashes into the spinning platter that stores the data. Rebooting repeatedly just scratches the platter again and again, making recovery much more difficult. At this stage it is important to take timely measures to recover the data. Neglected hard drives may suffer additional damage, especially in cases of floods and electrical shocks. The longer you wait, the more the recovery will cost.
5. When removing the hard drive, earth yourself by touching a building earth computer while the computer it’s plugged in to remove any static charge you might have. Do this before you touch the hard drive. Usually the computer chassis will be connected to building earth. Hard drives are extremely sensitive to static shock, and a single jolt can make your recovery a lot more costly. Be careful not to jar the hard drive at all, and unplug the power to the computer before unplugging the drive itself. After removing it, put the drive in a static-free bag.
6. You can send the hard drive to a company to recover the data for you. Use at least two to three inches of packing material so that the drive doesn’t get damaged by the shipping companies. Choose a data recovery company that is respected in the field. If the company offers a flat rate for its service, avoid it.These companies treat mainly operating system problems and don’t have much experience with physical hard drive failures. The recovery process might take several days. The prices of this service vary a lot depending on the amount of memory you want to restore, the urgency of your order (between a few hours and a week) and the additional features included in the service like visiting you on-site, in-stock spare parts, dedicated cleanroom (recommended as it’s a place where the drive can be disassembled without potentially being damaged by dust or other airborne particles) etc.
7. Another option is to find downloadable tools for recovering the data yourself. Some of the highly recommended software products for data recovery  are Digital Rescue Premium( 49.99$), Advanced Disk Recovery(39.95$) and RecoverMy Files (69.95$). 

A user of the product Recover My Files shares:

“My desktop computer recently crashed. My wife and I thought we had lost nearly 500MB of data, including document files and the pictures of our son’s first 2 years of life. We went on a frantic search to find a disk recovery company that could undelete files from the hard drive. We found a data recovery service company that would help, but they gave us a quote of $3500 to unformat the drive. Then, I found “Recover My Files”! To my absolute delight, “Recover My Files” did exactly as advertised: it recovered all of my files, including the pictures of our son’s first two years! It saved our family over $3400!”

There are free data recovery tools as well. The top ranked free data recovery tools are: TestDisk, Recuva, PhotoRec, Restoration and Undelete Plus. 

Prevention of hard drive crashes and data loss

• Make sure that your PC is properly ventilated – the fans are running well and there isn’t a lot of dust built up around the fan. Keep the PC in a cool area of the room.
• Use a surge protector power strip, or even better a UPS to protect your PC from excess power in the power supply.
• Use a registry cleaning device on a regular basis and defragment your PC once in a while.The registry folder sorts, stores and keeps track of all the valuable information on the software and hardware. Hundreds of its files are used by the computer to accomplish each task. That sometimes creates confusion leading to improper saving of such files. As a result these files often get corrupted. It’s one of the most frequent causes for computer errors and computer crashes. Once you download a good registry cleaning device and schedule it to clean your computer at least once a week, your computer will run more efficiently with fewer error messages and not crash as often. 
• To prevent data loss, back up your files regularly using CDs, DVDs, external hard drives, zip drives or even internet backup services.

About the Author

Maria Dimitrova, Content writer at anotherway.org