How Data Recovery Works

Losing your valuable data, either by damage to your computer or accidental deletion, is an upsetting situation. Whether the lost files contain sensitive personal information, treasured photographs, or data for your small business, the loss can be devastating.

Your data doesn’t have to stay lost, however. Data recovery services specialize in restoring files that most people wouldn’t think would be recoverable. Keep reading to learn how data recovery services work.

Why Data Recovery is Possible

The files stored on your computer are all written onto the hard drive, which consists of thin, round platters coated with a shiny magnetic data storage medium, much like the shiny coating on the thin ribbons contained inside VHS and cassette tapes. Just like in a VCR or a tape player, a head inside your computer’s hard drive reads and writes the data onto the magnetic storage medium.

When you delete a file on your computer, it is not actually erased from the hard drive. The hard drive simply changes the marker on that space from “occupied” to “vacant.” The data itself is still there until it is written over. Think of it as a home video that you have decided you don’t want anymore. Until you actually tape over it, it’s still there.

Even once data is written over, it can still be found. This is because the data that is written over it is usually imperfect, leaving traces of the original file. With the proper tools, these traces can be located, deciphered, and – usually – reassembled into complete files. However, the more times an old file is overwritten, the more difficult it will be to retrieve it – so the sooner you contact a data recovery service, the better.

What the Data Recovery Service Does

When you contact a data recovery service, usually the first thing they will want to know is how the files you want to recover were lost. You might have accidentally deleted the files, or the data might have become corrupted. In a worst-case scenario, your hard drive might have sustained damage, ranging from relatively minor damage such as hard drive crash, to serious physical damage such as flooding or fire. However, the data recovery service most likely won’t be able to give you a quote until they have inspected the hard drive, so you will also need to drop off or mail your hard drive to them.

Before the data recovery service begins work on your hard drive, they will make an exact copy of the drive. All work will be done on this copy, to avoid doing any more damage to the drive itself.

Using the copy of the original drive, the data recovery service then uses a variety tools and techniques to try to recover the lost data. Every hard drive creates a sort of table of contents at the very beginning of the drive; by retrieving old tables of contents, the data recovery service can tell where the files you need would be located on the drive, making it easier to make sense of and restore written-over data.

Once the data has been restored from the drive, the data recovery service checks to make sure the files they have recovered are complete. Again, they can use old tables of contents from the hard drive to check for holes in the files. Once they have ensured that the data is all there, they will back it up to CDs or another storage medium, and send it back to you.

Data Recovery Service Alternatives and the Risks Involved

There are many data recovery software packs available online. These may be pretty tempting, but remember that depending on what you need done, they may or may not satisfy your needs. And even if software can fix your problem, using them without a professional’s guidance may inadvertently create more problems, not only ensuring that you will have to use a data recovery service, but also creating more work for them (and therefore a higher price for you).

A common type of data recovery software is “undelete” software, which enables you to restore files that you have accidentally deleted. However, remember that when you delete a file the hard drive marks it as available storage. In other words, anything you do after deleting that file – whether downloading undelete software, saving another file, or even just shutting your computer down as normal – can overwrite the data, rendering it impossible to recover without a data recovery service.

A way around this is to download the undelete software to a separate drive, such as an external drive or even a USB drive. Unless you know what you are doing, though, you should probably call a professional right away – the longer you wait, and the more you tinker with your computer, the more likely you are to create the need for major data recovery in order to restore your deleted file.

Another type of data recovery software is one designed to find and/or fix lost or corrupted files. Again, the hazard is that every piece of data you write to the disk could overwrite the file you are trying to restore. Since the file is lost or corrupted, you cannot trust that the hard drive will know not to overwrite it. Again, immediately contacting a professional is probably the best course of action.

Data Recovery Services Protect Your Important Information

Because of the nature of a hard drive or another type of memory storage, data loss is not necessarily permanent. An experienced data recovery service can easily help you restore your valuable photos, financial information, or small business data. However, don’t forget that when your valuable data has been deleted, lost, or damaged, time is of the essence if you are to get it back: The longer your computer runs, and the more often it writes to the hard drive, the worse the situation gets.

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Cheap Data Recovery

The average computer user has only a vague understanding of how their data is stored. They know they have this “hard drive thingy” inside the computer and they know that’s where their data is kept. That’s about as far as it goes for most users. Many don’t even know what a hard drive looks like.

However, when you are faced with data loss, you quickly learn a lot about hard drives. Not only do you begin to get an understanding about how complex they are, you also find out how expensive it can be to get your data back. At least once a day customers will ask “Why does it cost so much? I only paid $100 for my hard drive”. Yes, data recovery can be that expensive. My answer is simply this, if you had a million dollars sitting in a $50 safe, and you couldn’t get to it…does it really matter how much you paid for the safe? Data recovery should only be sought, if the value of the data exceeds the cost of the recovery.

Data Recovery Costs

On average a reputable data recovery company is going to charge anywhere from $400 to $700 for a logical hard drive recovery. A logical recovery is where there is damage to the file system, or partition table and the data becomes inaccessible. This can be caused by an accidental format, electrical issues, viruses, etc. In some cases physical issues with the drive can also cause this problem, especially if the drive has weak or degrading read/write heads. A logical recovery can typically be performed without having to make any repairs to the drive.

Physical recoveries can be priced all over the place. It really just depends on who you call. A physical recovery actually requires the hard drive to undergo some type of repair before the actual data recovery process can begin. In most cases a physical recovery entails swapping out the read/write heads, repairing the electronics or transplanting the platters. There are a handful of companies out there that are very skilled at performing this type of recovery. A word of caution though, for every one good company, there are probably five dozen others out there that will make the situation worse.

Budgeting Your Data Recovery

If data recovery is not in your budget now, and the data is not time sensitive, one thing you can do is just keep the drive stored somewhere safe. This gives you time to save up money in order to have a competent lab recover the data for you. You should look for a lab that offers free evaluations, and will give you a firm quote in writing before they start the recovery process. That way if the price ends up being too high you can just have the drive shipped back to you, and you would know the exact amount you would need to save up in order to get the recovery done at a later date. It’s not going to hurt the drive, or make the chances of a recovery any less possible if the drive is stored somewhere while you save up to have it recovered. Keep in mind that any reputable company will not charge you anything if the data is unrecoverable. This is one critical thing to verify with any company you contact. Consumers can be caught paying a lot of money for data recovery services, and still not have their data when it’s done. It’s not uncommon for some companies to charge $150 to $300 for parts, lab fees, attempt fees, or whatever they want to call it even on cases where the data is not recoverable.

Things You Can Do Yourself

If you suspect your hard drive has failed there are a couple of things you can try on your own to avoid the costs of shipping the drive to a data recovery lab. First of all, if the drive is clicking, knocking, or making any unusual noises, you are out of options to try yourself. Those cases definitely need professional data recovery service. Regardless of what you read about putting drives in freezers, opening them up, or whatever, anything you do in a case like this can only make the situation worse. If the drive makes any unusual noises at all, it’s best to just immediately power down the drive.

If the drive sounds ok, you may want to try it in another computer. It could be an issue with your motherboard, or even the cabling in your computer. Make sure all connections are secure to the hard drive. If you don’t know what to look for, see if you can find a family member who is knowledgeable with computers to help you.

If the drive is in an external enclosure, like a backup hard drive, and it no longer powers up, remove the drive from the enclosure. Check for signs of an electrical short. If it was severe enough, you will smell the burnt electronics. In a case like this, a data recovery professional would be needed. In most hard drives today, you can’t simply replace damaged electronic boards from one hard drive to another. There is unique, adaptive information that is stored on various chips on those boards and the data won’t be accessible without it.

If there are no obvious signs of physical damage to the drive, then you might want to find another computer or another hard drive enclosure and try the drive in that. It may have been an issue with the drive enclosure that prevented the drive from powering up. If it still has problems, then chances are you are going to need a data recovery professional help you.

Cheap Data Recovery

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