What is Data Recovery?
Data Recovery is the process of retrieval of inaccessible or corrupt data
from digital media that has become damaged in some way. Data Recovery can be
used to recover data from devices as varied as Hard Disk Drives, Memory
Cards, Tapes, Mobile Phones, Personal Digital Assistants, Floppy Disk’s,
CD’s, DVD’s, Data Cartridges, Xbox’s and many more items.
Data Recovery may be needed for reasons as diverse as hardware failure, (the
tape has been ‘chewed’ up, the hard disk drive has failed, the user has
maliciously damaged the computer or digital device, or it could have
suffered fire or flood damage). All of these instances will require the
services of a professional data recovery company if the data was of such
value (be it sentimental or financial) that the cost of the services are
less than the perceived value of the data which is no longer accessible.
It is not just businesses who are at risk from Data loss. Clients requiring
data recovery come from all walks of life, including large corporates,
smaller businesses, and the self employed to “joe public” who, with the
introduction and subsequent boom in the use of digital cameras etc to record
holidays and special occasions may have lost anything from sentimental data
to critical e-mails, and personal account details. Students are often
grouped under this heading too.
There are numerous ways that Data can be recovered from digital media which
can vary greatly, the simplest method can often involve the running of basic
software on the storage medium in question. This is always a dangerous idea,
because the recovery data could overwrite the very data that is being
recovered. More complex commercial software tools are available which will
do this job more professionally. No software fix should be attempted prior
to the original media being imaged, enabling the recovering company to work
on a ‘back-up’ of the original software. The most professional companies
will also take a second image should there be a problem with the first image
that is being worked on for recovery.
The next problem is what happens when the hard disk or storage device
doesn’t work. For the smaller ‘Data Recovery Companies’, this is a problem,
and it is when the more serious Data Recovery Companies get involved, (such
as Disklabs, http://www.disklabs.com ), who specialise in higher end Data
Retrievals. It is always recommended that the most critical work should be
sent to a true data recovery specialist, (check out the accreditations -
ensure the specialist has ISO9001-2000 Quality Assurance status, and is
certified to ISO BE EN 14644 to ensure that their clean facility is at the
correct level for intrusive data recovery work, find out how long that
company has been trading, and check their testimonials). Once you have found
the company that you are happy with, if the data storage device doesn’t
work, there is a high likelihood that the digital media will require spare
parts, this is where organisations such as 1st Computer Traders Ltd, (
http://www.1ct.com ) are of service. Organisations such as 1CT sell spare
parts for hard disk drives to organisations such as Disklabs, ( http://www.disklabs.com
) enabling them to get the original data accessible for long enough to image
the data onto a stable storage device, enabling that data to be duplicated
again which in turn allows a safe recovery attempt to be achieved.
The data recovery job is generally finished when a list of all the recovered
files is sent to the client. Once the client approves this file listing,
they are then shipped the data of an appropriate media. This can be a hard
disk drive, floppy disk, CD or DVD. Alternatively, if a file is considered
critical, it can be encrypted and then emailed to the client.
It should be noted that in extreme cases it may be impossible to recover any
data, however the bottom line is, as soon as you have lost data you should
power off your device and send it to a professional Data Recovery Company to
optimise your chances of a successful recovery.
Simon Steggles
Disklabs Data Recovery and Computer Forensics Services
www.disklabs.com
www.mobilephoneforensics.com
www.1ct.com
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