Computer Data Recovery - Reclaim Your Lost Information.

Sometimes data recovery is possible even when the data appears to be lost.

For Assistance With Lost Data

Computer Data Recovery For a data recovery cost estimate. Please include the type of disk drive, the operating system used to write to the disk, the file system used (FAT-32, NTFS, etc.), the source of the problem if known, and what data you want recovered (directories, files, etc.).

Causes - Why Data Loss Occurs

Some typical causes of disk drive data retrieval problems are:

Damaged Drives

Head Crashes
Fire and Smoke
Water
Dropped

Viruses or Sabotage
Deleted, Erased, or Missing files and directories
Corrupted boot sector

Precautions to Avoid Further Data Loss

If your drive is making unusual noise back up your data immediately if possible and run your disk drive as little as possible until you have recovered all of your important data. Noise is an indication of physical damage. Continuing to run the drive under such circumstances is likely to make matters worse.

If you are having trouble reading important data from your disk drive but still have access to the drive do not attempt to use disk drive utilities to recover the data unless you are sure that you can undo your recovery efforts. In particular you should avoid using any utility that writes to the damaged drive. These utilities can further scramble the data on your disk making recovery more difficult or even impossible.

If you think you may have deleted or erased important files or directories from your disk drive do not save or write to your disk drive until the data has been recovered. The data may still exist on your disk. Writing or saving to the disk may overwrite the data you want to recover making it unrecoverable.

Preventing Data Loss From Occurring

Disk drives of all types are mechanical devices subject to wear. They are more vulnerable than many of the other components of your computer system. They are also the repository for your valuable data. The best form of prevention of data loss is to perform regular backups of your data. The more frequently the backups are performed the less data will be lost in the event of a disk failure. The more important the data the more often it should be backed up. For really important data storage consider disk mirroring where data storage is duplicated on two drives at the time it is written to disk.

Data Retrieval Suggestions

If your disk drive is making loud or unusual noises this is a symptom of physical damage to the drive. If you can still access your data, make a backup of your data immediately. Do not run the disk drive except to back up your data. If you can not access the data on your drive shut the drive down immediately. The longer you run the drive the greater the chance of causing irrevocable damage to your data.

If you are getting hard disk boot failure errors boot your computer from a bootable floppy disk. Attempt to get a directory of your hard disk. If you can get a directory of the hard disk make a backup of your data immediately then see what you can do to repair your boot problem. If your computer does not return directory information check your cmos setup for the hard disk.

If you can not recover the data yourself using methods that you know to be safe stop using the disk and contact a professional. The longer you work at trying to recover the data yourself without being absolutely sure of what you are doing the greater the chances that you will make matters worse perhaps even making it impossible for a professional to help you. Often when data appears to be lost it is really still on the disk somewhere and it is only the normal access to the data that has been compromised. But once the data has truly been erased or overwritten there is nothing anyone can do to recover it for you.

Your disk drive may not be damaged it may be that just the data on it has been corrupted. Try this free tool to recover your data and repair your disk drive.