Loss of Data

The loss of data can be due to some kind of physical damage to the device or logical damage to the system. Physical damage may be on account of shocks or exceptional vibrations. Logical damage may prevent a file from being mounted on to the system by the operating system that is hosting it.

If this data is lost on account of accidental deletion or a virus attack or even as simple a procedure as reformatting or repartitioning of the hard disk, it can have catastrophic consequences for the user. An individual may lose all his personal contacts, a corporation its entire statistics and a government its highly classified information. In such a scenario, one has no alternative but to resort to data recovery.

Data Recovery

Data recovery is the method whereby one tries to retrieve lost data from files that may have become damaged / corrupted in a media, generally referring to computers. It is commonplace for data to be recovered from its original source, where it has been lost in the first place.

Data is often recovered from various electronic media. These may be in the form of tape drives or CDs or DVDs or the monopolistic disk drives. Besides securing information that may have been accidentally deleted, data recovery may also be the process of doing the same for forensic purposes.

Recovery from Physical Damage

Physical damage may be owing to numerous factors. It can be scratching off of the metallic layer in the case of CD-ROMs or a mechanical failure of the hard disk or simple breaking up of the tape drives. Irrespective of the media or the causes behind data loss, it can be a big loss for the owners.

If there is some kind of physical damage to the operating system, then some or the other form of data loss can be anticipated. In most cases, the damage extends to the logical file systems also. This is what is called logical damage to the given operating system. It is a must that this is dealt with prior to efforts at any kind of files retrieving.

Techniques

There are various different techniques for retrieval of lost data. Making a disk drive cold in a freezer or spinning the disk drives manually are definitely not the answers to a jammed disk. These, in fact, can cause more damage than do anything good to the disk drives.

Techniques for Physically Damaged Disks

Hardware Repair: At times simple replacement of damaged parts can be a suitable answer to the problem at hand. It may involve either one of the following or a combination or all of the three given procedures.

• PCB Change: This involves removal of the damaged PCB with one from a healthy drive that matches it.

• Platters Change: It may involve removing damaged platters and replacing them with healthy ones.

• Head Assembly Change: It may be that the damage is to the read and write head assembly. In such cases, the original which has been damaged is replaced by a read / write head assembly from an undamaged / new hard disk drive.

• Disk Imaging: At times, it may be possible to extract the raw image of data that is still usable and reconstruct it. However, this can be done only after repair of any logical damage to the hard disk drive.

Techniques for Logically Damaged Disks

Logical damage to a hard disk drive is a more common phenomenon than physical damage. The major cause behind logical damage to the hard disk drive is power outages. This prevents the complete writing of the file systems on the hard disk drive. There are various programmes to address this issue and most of the major manufacturers install at least one utility in the system that can be used in case the need arises.

In any case, no attempt should be made to try and repair a damaged hard disk drive at home. If such an attempt is made, then dust particles might settle on the hard disk drive parts and make them non-usable for the future. Data recovery companies have clean rooms and highly trained professionals for the given job.

Article Source: http://add-articles.com

James Walsh is a freelance writer and copy editor. If you are concerned about data loss and would like more information on Data Recovery see www.fields-data-recovery.co.uk