Data recovery is defined as the process of salvaging or recovering data from digital storage media which is inaccessible using normal methods. This can be the result of a failure due to mechanical, electronic or logical data corruption. When your data becomes inaccessible from any storage media you are using, such as a hard disk drive, solid state device, tape cartridge or a RAID system, you will need data recovery.
Over the years’ storage media devices have tended to become faster and more reliable, but a sudden change of conditions can cause the device to fail or behave in an inconsistent manner. Such a failure could, for example occur due to a rapid change in temperature, a power surge or an impact event. Data may also become inaccessible through user error or logical data corruption caused by a software issue. When a failure occurs, such as those mentioned before, data recovery is the recommended solution.
Logical Data Corruption
This type of failure is mostly due to such events as a damaged operating system installation including a bad driver, failed operating system upgrade, restore point failure or even a change to the hardware which the operating system handles incorrectly. Such issues, often lead to the system crashing or rebooting in turn may damage the file system.
Although most modern file systems make use of journaling and able to repair some damage, if it becomes too severe, it may fail and in some cases even make the problem worse. Corruption of a file system can also occur if the device is removed while data is being written to it, such as pulling a USB cable out. Such problems are best resolved using the DiskEng data recovery services.
Physical Failure
Although hard disk drives are more reliable than ever, there are still only two types, those which have failed and those which will fail if used long enough. The majority of physical failures occur due to the drive operating in extreme environmental conditions or mishandling during transportation or installation. Extreme environmental conditions cover among many possibilities, high temperatures, low temperatures, fire or water damage and power surges. Hard disk drives also suffer wear and tear during their lifetime, which is left long enough result in unreadable bad sectors being returned to the operating system.
The components of a hard disk drive are sensitive to their environmental conditions as well as susceptible to damage through impact events or ineffective anti-static precautions when installing the drive. Any of the four basic components of a hard disk drive can suffer a problem, but the majority of failures are due to damage to the controller board, read/write head stack or the spindle motor. The hard disk platters may become damaged, but this is usually a result of one or more failures to the other components. These failures should only be handled by a professional data recovery company, who can take the correct action to avoid causing any further damage.
Should I Do Now?
Losing access to your data is generally an extremely worrying time, often occurring at an extremely inconvenient time. It is important not to take a snap reaction which could result in causing further damage, which could result in a total loss of data, or make the data recovery process much more complex than it should be. Any action you take which could change the data should not be undertaken. It is best to seek professional advice before as the incorrect action may make your data unrecoverable.
Professional Help is Essential
The data recovery engineers at DiskEng are trained to follow a strict set of guidelines, subject to our quality control policy, so that the integrity of your data is ensured at all stages of the data recovery process. All procedures and any new techniques if required discussed beforehand, all of which must be recorded and accounted for at each step of the recovery process. This ensures that the recovery process is consistent and no risks are taken which could result in additional damage occurring to your media.
To this end, your data recovery specialists have an extensive range of knowledge about the internal components of all storage devices and the data structures used on the media and the file systems. All DiskEng tools and techniques have been developed in-house, from the hardware devices through to the software tools. Using our extensive knowledge of all storage media, DiskEng problem world class data recovery solutions, which are available 24/7 365 days a year, from our engineering laboratories. If you require data recovery from your laptop, desktop or RAID server, contact DiskEng now to talk to one of our data recovery speclialists.
