A2zDataRecovery

Hard disk drives are used everywhere, PCs, Laptops, Servers, RAID systems, Servers and more. They are mechanical devices with platters that spin and use a movable read/write head to write information to the platter or read from it. Normal wear and tear, sustained heat and strong impacts can physically damage the disks. Power fluctuations and system crashes can corrupt the file system or data causing logical damage. More typically, human actions such as accidental or deliberate deletions, virus attacks and improper actions can result in data loss. Then there is the less frequent, but still present, risk of natural disasters like a tornado, fire, earthquake or floods.

The potential for hard disk data loss is too serious to be ignored. The risk becomes even more with the more advanced systems (and smaller devices) that compress everything to microscopic levels. How do you cope with the risk?

Hard Disk Data Backup can Simplify Data Recovery

A systematic program of data backup can reduce data recovery costs and also prevent serious data loss. Such a systematic backup program will involve:

• Deciding on the periodicity of backup, which can even be real-time to a remote server, or a weekly exercise done locally
• Storing the backed up media to a separate location even if the backup is done locally
• Testing the integrity and recoverability of backed up data
• Ensuring that backup will be done without fail, say by scheduling it to less busy times every day and making it the responsibility of someone other than regular operators

When a back up is available, data recovery often becomes a simple task of restoring the data.
Hard Disk Data Loss Scenarios

Hard disk data loss can occur owing to logical or physical damage. Logical damage occurs when the file system is left in an inconsistent state. This can result in behavior such as the following:

• The system does not boot or booting is unreliable
• Obviously wrong sizes are reported for the disk or files, such as a negative size
• Applications do not load and the system appears to have entered an infinite loop
• Files disappear from the directory listing

What happens in logical damage is that the system is unable to access or read the data on the disk as intended. Instead, it reads them wrongly leading to all kinds of strange behavior. The damage can usually be repaired by file system repair software such as the CHKDSK of Windows, FSCK or Linux Disk Utility of Mac OS. There are also third party data recovery software that often does a much better job.

Physical damage to the hard disk can occur owing to read/write head crashes (in a healthy device, the writing and reading is done without the head actually touching the disk platter; a crash occurs if the head touches the platter during operations) or failure of the drive motors. In the case of physical damage, data recovery software will not be adequate to recover the data. Instead, the faulty components would need to be repaired or replaced, in addition to repairing any logical damage that too might have occurred.

Warning about actual or imminent physical damage can occur in the forms of:

• Unusual noises when the hard disk drive operates, such as clicking, whirring or buzzing noises
• Strange error messages that begin to appear
• It becomes difficult to use the computer in a reliable manner with problems like the Blue Screen error

If you experience any of the above types of problems, you should immediately stop using the computer and contact a data recovery specialist on how to proceed to prevent the data becoming too expensive to recover (or completely unrecoverable).

Hard Disk Data Recovery Procedures

Logical file system damage can usually be repaired by using data recovery software tailored to the specific file system, such as NTFS, FAT, Mac OS X or Linux file systems. To ensure maximum recoverability, you should stop writing more data to the disk once you suspect that some damage has occurred. Contact a competent person who can ask you a series of questions and determine the type and extent of damage. This person will then be able to advise you how to proceed.

In the case of physical damage, there is little that the end users can do. The disk will need to be opened to remedy the problem and this can be done only in certified dust free clean rooms (both to prevent damage from minute dust particles in the environment as well as to avail the manufacturer’s warranty). Specialist hard disk data recovery firms will be able to service the disk in Class 100 Clean Rooms and use specialized tools to diagnose and remedy the hardware and file system problems.