January 1, 2009

Dispelling the myths of Data Recovery

A lot of myths surround the concept of data recovery. You hear people having it out with their computers when they accidentally deleted important files from their hard drives. Or you see someone post in data recovery forums asking how they should go about reloading data that was lost when their computer crashed. So-called data recovery "experts" would reply, "You made back-ups, didn't you?" And of course, you didn't, so there goes your final history project down the drain.

The theory is: What's gone is gone.

But in most cases of data recovery, that is not entirely true. As long it was not overwritten physically, data once saved into the system is never completely gone. Whether it was accidentally deleted, corrupted by a virus, or the disk was formatted, data will stick to the system like gum to a shoe. This is the small fact that the whole concept of data recovery is based on.

What really happens with data loss is that the files are simply inaccessible by usual measures. For instance, your file about, say "The Annals of American History," was deleted accidentally. This doesn't mean you're going to have to do the research all over just to pass that final exam your psycho professor will give you on Monday. The file is still in the drive only a signature byte has been added to the beginning of its file name.

Now, here's the tricky part. The file will remain in the drive but once you save some new input, the new data will take the space occupied by the signatured file. So if you loose any files, make sure that you don't put in any more data so you can keep that deleted file intact, and therefore, available for data recovery.

So with data recovery, you just have to remember one thing: Never input new data right after you accidentally delete a file.

Lesson learned? Now, we move on to the next important myth to dispel.

Installing this one data recovery software won't hurt, won't it?

The answer is simple: NO. Although data recovery software is the in-thing right now and self-running it on your drive might seem like a plausible solution, DON'T install it into your drive. You can still use your downloaded version of data recovery software but run it on a separate, healthy drive.

Remember Lesson #1: Never input new data into your drive. A simple 1 MB of data recovery software can reduce the chances of data recovery success in reloading data into an uncorrupted drive.

Data recovery experts are "experts" in recovering and reloading data.

Yes, they are, but even experts scratch their heads in the face of a really physically damaged drive where not even the remotest possibility of data recovery is possible. And they can't completely restore data 100 %. They're experts, not gods.

So what is the best way to overcome data loss? Answer: Always have back-up files.