Data Recovery Software Tips For Novices – What To Avoid
Don’t Panic! You’ve been busy working on that deadline project for weeks and you suddenly find that you have accidently deleted a major document that is essential and full of days or weeks of research results, what do you do? Some people will try data recovery software to start with but this can harm your data surprisingly enough.
There are some important rules to adhere to when using data recovery software for recovering lost files:
Firstly and a big mistake many people make is not to install the software on the same computer you have been using, why? If you have deleted the file when you install any further software or save anything back to the disk, as the operating system will use what it considers free space to load the program you could end up overwriting the document or part of the document you are trying to recover.
Secondly, has your drive been making any strange sounds recently, if the answer is yes your hard drive may be failing so a recovery company would be better suited to recover your data to be on the safe side.
Thirdly whilst in all probability your prime focus will be to get your data back as soon as possible avoid the temptation to suddenly dive right in and purchase some software straight away. Most file recovery software will offer a free trial so at the very least you can do a scan to see if the document is actually still recognisable on your hard disk or even recoverable for that matter.
When you have found your lost data using software you need to put it somewhere. Now this point is very important: Never recover the file to the media that it was lost from doing so can cause the data to be lost permanently as the software is not intelligent enough to determine whether the area that the file is written back to is the same area that the file was located originally.
If the recovery software has already reserved a disk area to write files back to some of the data can get overwritten especially if the drive is heavily fragmented.
If your data is simply too valuable to trust in the hands of software, particularly if you are not familiar with the data recovery software and the manner in which it works, it is sensible to contact a data recovery professional.
The cost of data recovery is nowhere near (or shouldn’t be ) the cost it used to be due to advances in technology and often you will find that once you deduct the cost of any software purchase and deduct the time to learn what you are trying to do the extra cost of having your data recovered by a professional is not too bad at all.
And lastly, if you choose to use a data recovery company, it is always worth ascertaining what will happen if the drive fails during a recovery process, will they be able to fix it themselves in a proper clean room environment or will they need to send it away to another data recovery company?
If they do not have the facilities for hard drive recovery and repair and there is any sign of mechanical failure then a main data recovery services company will be your best option.
