Backing up your logical drives and partitions can be somewhat of a daunting task. It is much easier to have software do it for you. Just a few clicks of the mouse and your data is backed up all in one neat tidy little space on your hard drive. From there it can be passed on to a CD, USB storage device, or other form of data backup storage.
If you need plenty of storage space available for your data, you may opt to go with some less traditional means of data backup. This may include DVDs or an offsite server. Both provide large amounts of storage when compared to a CD which only holds around 800 mb. Of course USB sticks are coming down in price and available in large capacity form for very little money.
Tape drives were at one point the de facto standard in data backup devices, however now they are more for servers than home computer users. Because tape drives offer more space and can be erased and rewritten many times gives the person that is backing up the data peace of mind that he does not need change the disc or worry about if it will fit.
Of course when backing up your data, its important to know, what is actually a necessity to backup and what is basically garbage. For most users, photos and critical system files top the list. However every user is not the same. Lets say you are a videographer, some of your video files need to be saved or you could risk losing them. Or for a photographer, images or pictures can be lost. And for writers, Losing that masterpiece novel you’ve been working on for two years can’t be a good thing.
But what about critical system files? Do you know which ones you’ll actually need and which ones you do not? Most users don’t know. My recommendation would be to use a disk image manager that will record the entire hard disk in case something goes wrong. Be sure to read the documentation on how to recover from such an event. Because if something were to happen, you’ll need to know how to get what you’ve got backed up back onto your new hard drive.
Backup your data and keep it in a safe place. Once you’ve backed up all your data. Or the most critical files at least, you may need software to install everything back onto the new hard drive. That’s why it’s very important to keep this information handy and out of harms way.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Recover From Computer Failure With Windows XP Restore Point
Have you ever done something to make an improvement and later regretted it?It would be awesome to be able to go back in time and undo the the thing that were supposed to make an improvement.
While life in general will not allow us to return to an earlier time to make changes, we computer users do have such an option should we experience problems with our Windows XP operating systems.
If you update or install the wrong device driver for your video card, and you delete accidentally delete a critical Windows file, so what. You can simply use Windows XP's Restore Point feature and, Tada, you're back on track and recovered that deleted file.
Restore Points are snapshots of the state your operating system was in during that time.Windows XP automatically creates a restore point when it senses a major change in your operating system.And Restore Points are created every 24 hours as a safety measure.But you can create a Restore Point manually any time you feel there is a need.
If you have a change of some sort that causes problems with the operating system, you can tell Windows XP to revert to any Restore Point established before the problem occurred.After the rollback, every change in the operating system that happened after that Restore Point is eliminated.
Restore Points are generally used when you experience such pc problems as extremely slow performance of the system. Your computer responds far more slowly that it did before you installed or updated something.
Other times to run Restore Point is when your system stops responding after an update or installation. Be sure to create a Restore Point before making any significant change to your computer's software or configuration.
To set a Restore Point, click on Start, point to All Programs, click on Accessories, System Tools, and then click on System Restore.When the System Restore windows appears, click on the button labeled "Create A Restore Point" and click Next.
Enter a description of the restore point, something like "Before scanner device driver install" and click the Create button.A notification will inform you that a Restore Point was made.Now click the Close button and you're all set.
Reverting to a Restore Point is as easy as create one.Click on Start, point to All Programs, click Accessories, System Tools, and System Restore.When the System Restore window appears, click on the "Restore My Computer To An Earlier Time" and then click on the Next button.
Choose the date on which you set the Restore Point and click the Next button.Review the information presented and save any open files.Shut down any other programs that may be running.
Click on the Next button and now your computer will restart. As it restarts, it will present a message informing you of the restore point. Click OK and you're done.
After reading all about setting and reverting to restore points, you should make a known restore point if you have not done so already.Whatever you do after reading this article, don't say I'll get to it soon.Familarize yourself with this feature and create a restore point one.
While life in general will not allow us to return to an earlier time to make changes, we computer users do have such an option should we experience problems with our Windows XP operating systems.
If you update or install the wrong device driver for your video card, and you delete accidentally delete a critical Windows file, so what. You can simply use Windows XP's Restore Point feature and, Tada, you're back on track and recovered that deleted file.
Restore Points are snapshots of the state your operating system was in during that time.Windows XP automatically creates a restore point when it senses a major change in your operating system.And Restore Points are created every 24 hours as a safety measure.But you can create a Restore Point manually any time you feel there is a need.
If you have a change of some sort that causes problems with the operating system, you can tell Windows XP to revert to any Restore Point established before the problem occurred.After the rollback, every change in the operating system that happened after that Restore Point is eliminated.
Restore Points are generally used when you experience such pc problems as extremely slow performance of the system. Your computer responds far more slowly that it did before you installed or updated something.
Other times to run Restore Point is when your system stops responding after an update or installation. Be sure to create a Restore Point before making any significant change to your computer's software or configuration.
To set a Restore Point, click on Start, point to All Programs, click on Accessories, System Tools, and then click on System Restore.When the System Restore windows appears, click on the button labeled "Create A Restore Point" and click Next.
Enter a description of the restore point, something like "Before scanner device driver install" and click the Create button.A notification will inform you that a Restore Point was made.Now click the Close button and you're all set.
Reverting to a Restore Point is as easy as create one.Click on Start, point to All Programs, click Accessories, System Tools, and System Restore.When the System Restore window appears, click on the "Restore My Computer To An Earlier Time" and then click on the Next button.
Choose the date on which you set the Restore Point and click the Next button.Review the information presented and save any open files.Shut down any other programs that may be running.
Click on the Next button and now your computer will restart. As it restarts, it will present a message informing you of the restore point. Click OK and you're done.
After reading all about setting and reverting to restore points, you should make a known restore point if you have not done so already.Whatever you do after reading this article, don't say I'll get to it soon.Familarize yourself with this feature and create a restore point one.
Time to Abandon the "Point-in-Time" Backups
In today’s world, data and electronic communications are critical to small business success. If your data was to disappear, what would that do to your business? What would a series of data losses cost your business? What great ideas would be gone, never to come back?
The most common solution for many small businesses is to use tape devices, hard drives and some companies even used CD/DVD disks to back up their sales databases, accounting information, client information and any other data that is important to their business.
The issue with tape and disk-based backup systems is that they are a point-in-time backup. What does this mean? Sometime in the middle of the night, a process is started on your computer or network servers to take all of your data, emails, and system configuration and put a copy onto a tape or disk. This is great to have a copy of your data store on some removable device.
At the very least, you will at least have a backup that is 24 hours old. Is this suitable for your business? Maybe not! What happens if your server crashes and you have a data loss at 5 PM in the evening? OK, now your IT consultant has a tape from last night…great start. What about all the work that happened throughout the day? How about all the intellectual property that was created that day, that big sales proposal that can take your business to the next level or that important annual report that your executive assistant worked on all day?
Now you have the loss of all that intellectual property and a cost factor associated with it. Let’s just look at the numbers relating to one day of data loss in a company. Your company is 25 employees and all of them work on your computer network throughout the day. To be reasonable we will say they work 6 hours on files, correspondence and other important business data. We will assume that the average rate of pay is $20.00 per hour to be on the conservative side.
In this example, your single day loss of productivity just from a salary perspective is $3,000.00 in lost wages. This number does not account for the lost Intellectual Property, revenues relating to the not getting the proposals out in time and any other expenses relating to not meeting your targets. Also this number does not account for what your IT Company will charge you to recover your data from last night’s tape.
There are great solutions to protect small business today from the loss of data, time, salaries and other expenses associated with data loss. The SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection appliance is a great solution for today’s small business. The CDP backup unit will take all of your corporate data and store it on a device that sits on your network and in real time backs up all of your data as changes are made. So now in the example where your server fails and you suffer a data loss, all of your sales information, accounting data, correspondence and other company data is safely stored on the backup appliance.
This is all great; however, many IT people will question the ability to take the data off-site. At least with a tape we can store that data off-site at a secure vault or other storage facility. Fair enough, however the SonicWALL CDP appliance will also back up your data off-site (after the data is backed up on the appliance) at one of their electronic storage facilities. Now you take away the human factor of someone having to handle your tape and risk losing your corporate data because of a lost or stolen tape.
The most common solution for many small businesses is to use tape devices, hard drives and some companies even used CD/DVD disks to back up their sales databases, accounting information, client information and any other data that is important to their business.
The issue with tape and disk-based backup systems is that they are a point-in-time backup. What does this mean? Sometime in the middle of the night, a process is started on your computer or network servers to take all of your data, emails, and system configuration and put a copy onto a tape or disk. This is great to have a copy of your data store on some removable device.
At the very least, you will at least have a backup that is 24 hours old. Is this suitable for your business? Maybe not! What happens if your server crashes and you have a data loss at 5 PM in the evening? OK, now your IT consultant has a tape from last night…great start. What about all the work that happened throughout the day? How about all the intellectual property that was created that day, that big sales proposal that can take your business to the next level or that important annual report that your executive assistant worked on all day?
Now you have the loss of all that intellectual property and a cost factor associated with it. Let’s just look at the numbers relating to one day of data loss in a company. Your company is 25 employees and all of them work on your computer network throughout the day. To be reasonable we will say they work 6 hours on files, correspondence and other important business data. We will assume that the average rate of pay is $20.00 per hour to be on the conservative side.
In this example, your single day loss of productivity just from a salary perspective is $3,000.00 in lost wages. This number does not account for the lost Intellectual Property, revenues relating to the not getting the proposals out in time and any other expenses relating to not meeting your targets. Also this number does not account for what your IT Company will charge you to recover your data from last night’s tape.
There are great solutions to protect small business today from the loss of data, time, salaries and other expenses associated with data loss. The SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection appliance is a great solution for today’s small business. The CDP backup unit will take all of your corporate data and store it on a device that sits on your network and in real time backs up all of your data as changes are made. So now in the example where your server fails and you suffer a data loss, all of your sales information, accounting data, correspondence and other company data is safely stored on the backup appliance.
This is all great; however, many IT people will question the ability to take the data off-site. At least with a tape we can store that data off-site at a secure vault or other storage facility. Fair enough, however the SonicWALL CDP appliance will also back up your data off-site (after the data is backed up on the appliance) at one of their electronic storage facilities. Now you take away the human factor of someone having to handle your tape and risk losing your corporate data because of a lost or stolen tape.
Reasons For Data Loss From Computer Hard Disks
Introduction
The last 20 years has brought about a proliferation of computer use in society. Technology is in a constant state of evolution and computer based activities are becoming increasingly integrated with their users’ lives. A number of years ago, it was unthought-of to conduct activities such as banking and shopping online. In addition to this, the vast communication possibilities that are now in existence are making the world a smaller place as people are using a multitude of messaging services such as MSN to stay in contact. The benefits of these highly sophisticated technologies are however, faced by numerous threats. Computers are, more than ever susceptible to malicious use in the forms of hackers, viruses and fraudulent activity. One of the reasons for this is that computers are responsible for storing large amounts of information. Aside from threats posed by malicious use, computers also face a number of issues from an architectural perspective. The vast majority of data stored on a computer is saved on the hard drive and although improvements are continuously being made in terms of their size and capacity, hard drives are always vulnerable to a great deal of stress. In turn, hard drives inevitably have a shelf life of approximately three years. A study conducted by the accounting firm McGladrey and Pullen estimates that one out of every 500 data centres will experience a severe computer disaster this year. As a result, almost of half those companies will go out of business (Peddle 2006).
The objective of this essay is to summarise the main ways in which hard drives can fail, thus incurring a loss of data or difficulty in accessibility. The essay is structured as follows; the first section provides a description of the main ways in which hard drives can fail, along with the effect that this has on the stored data. This is followed by a description of the methods that can be conducted in attempt to try and prevent failure as much as possible and culminating with a brief conclusion and summary of the essay.
Causes of failure A hard disk drive is a digitally encoded non-volatile storage device which stores data on rapidly rotating disks with magnetic surfaces called hard disk platters (Wikipedia 2006). The read-write heads of the hard disk are used to recode and retrieve the data stored on the hard disk as the disk platter rotates at a very high speed. Hard disks operate under extreme stress and will eventually fail due to general wear and tear accrued through age or some form of malfunction or failure. The chances of failure of a hard drive therefore increase greatly over time and ironically the chances are greatly increased as hard disks improve and develop. The phenomenon of hard disk failure is raising higher and higher; as to increase the read and write speed, today we have the latest hard disk rotating amazingly faster and this immense revolving speed generates massive centrifugal force, a single adverse cause in the course of normal operation can cause severe hard disk failure (Bista 2006).
Hard disk failures can be generally classified in two categories, namely physical and logical failures. Physical hard disk failures are the type of failures in which something is physically wrong with the hard drive itself and symptoms may include a grinding or clicking sound (Posey 2006). A logical failure is the type of failure in which there is nothing physically wrong with the drive itself however, the information stored on the hard disk is in bad shape. Normally this type of failure can be repaired by using a tool such as Scan Disk (Posey 2006).
The following section outlines the main cause of hard drive failure which are as follows:
• Firmware corruption
• Electronic failure
• Mechanical failure i.e. head crash
• Circuit board malfunction
• Logical errors
• Human error
Types of hard disk failure Firmware corruption Firmware is the software code that controls and is embedded in the physical hard drive hardware (Data clinic 2006). It is responsible for the operations of the hard drive and its activities include configuration, management of the interaction that takes place between the other components and the safe powering on/off of the system. At start-up, a hard disk loads the service data from its firmware zone into RAM and then allows the drive to report on readiness. If there is damage to these modules, then the drive will report either it’s family identity or will not detect it at all (Disklabs 2006).
In the event of such an occurrence, the computer will be prevented from accessing any data on the hard disk. The benefit to this is that it is merely an accessibility problem and a firmware failure does not automatically incur a data loss. Once the drive has been repaired, it is possible to recover the data.
Electronic failure Data clinic (2006) describes how electronic failure usually relates to problems on the controller board of the actual hard disk. This may be due to the computer actually suffering a power spike or electrical surge that knocks out the controller board on the hard disk making it undetectable to the BIOS. This means that whilst there is an electronic failure, any data stored on the hard drive will be inaccessible until the problem is fixed. The nature of this type of problem however, is advantageous as it is a mere hindrance and data will not be lost or corrupted and is therefore fully recoverable. Mechanical failure Mechanical failure is generally considered to be more serious than electronic failure or firmware corruption as it often leads to data loss and even complete data loss if prompt action is not taken. There are numerous types of mechanical failure; these can range from motor problems to one of the most common types of known failures is a head crash. A head crash, as it’s name implies, occurs when the read-write heads of the hard disk collide with the disk’s rotating platter surface (Data clinic 2006). Often, this can cause damage to both the heads and even the hard disk itself.
The head normally rides on a thin film of moving air which is entrapped at the surface of the platter (Wikipedia 2006). The platter is coated with a magnetic layer and a crash can occur if a small amount of dust, a sudden movement of the computer or power surge causes the head to bounce against the disk and damaging the magnetic coating. Modern A head crash, as its name implies, occurs when the read-write heads of the hard disk collide with the disks rotating platter surface (Data clinic 2006). Often, this can cause damage to both the heads and even the hard disk itself.
The head normally rides on a thin film of moving air which is entrapped at the surface of the platter (Wikipedia 2006) The platter is coated with a magnetic layer and a crash can occur if a small amount of dust, a sudden movement of the computer or power surge causes the head to bounce against the disk and damaging its magnetic coating. Modern drives spin at extremely high speeds (between 5, 00 and 15,000 rpm, (Wikipedia 2006)) which means that when such a collision occurs, the damage incurred can be quite serious.
Obviously, data corruption will occur at the onset of a head crash as it will then become unreadable when the read-write head attempts to access it. Furthermore, once a head crash has occurred, this increases the probability of future head crashes, especially if there is dust in the system, for instance which means the user needs to take prompt action to rectify this in order to prevent further head crashes and risk losing all data stored on the hard disk.
Circuit Board Malfunction The circuit board is responsible for powering and controlling the mechanical unit. It is exposed to variations in temperature and as a result, the chips that comprise the circuit board surface can develop small breaks internally which can cause circuit interruption and electrical failure. Furthermore, the failure of any of the other electrical components of the computer can result in a defective circuit board, thus causing the hard drive to fail and data access is then prevented.
Logical errors Logical errors also differ from the other failures mentioned as it usually means that there is nothing actually physically wrong with the disk in terms of architectural faults, instead there is a problem with the information stored on it. There could be an invalid entry in a file allocation table for instance (Data clinic 2006). Logical errors are not too serious, unlike mechanical failures and can be tackled with various software tools. Caution should however be extended because if a fix utility is run inappropriately on the hard disk, the stored data can often become unrecoverable. Human error
In a sense it is rare that a hard disk failure could be caused by a human alone. That is, of course providing that users take caution in how they handle a computer. Combined with mechanical failure, human error accounts for almost 75% of all incidents of data loss (Peddle 2006). All of the previously mentioned hard disk failures could be caused by computer misuse on the user’s part. Computers are very sensitive to changes in temperature, dust and dirt etc entering the hard drive, electrical power surges and knocks and bumps which may occur. Users should therefore take extreme caution to prevent any of these circumstances from occurring as much as they possibly can.
Other problems not caused by the hard disk Aside from problems that may occur within the hard drive itself or damage that may be incurred on the users’ part, other failures can occur in other parts of the computer which can have a knock on effect to the performance of the hard disk. These problems include IDE cable malfunction, power connector problems and inappropriate BIOS configuration. Each of these problems is explained below.
• IDE cable malfunction IDE flat ribbon cables are notoriously known to cause trouble. Often these cables can turn defective without any necessary poor treatment from the user. It is therefore a good idea to check the IDE cable if any problems seem apparent with the hard drive.
• Power connector problems If the power connector is of a poor quality, this could mean that the hard disk is not powered properly or interruptions occur. Again, this can be easily rectified when problems seem apparent in the hard disk by trying out a different power connector of a higher quality.
• Inappropriate BIOS configuration
The last 20 years has brought about a proliferation of computer use in society. Technology is in a constant state of evolution and computer based activities are becoming increasingly integrated with their users’ lives. A number of years ago, it was unthought-of to conduct activities such as banking and shopping online. In addition to this, the vast communication possibilities that are now in existence are making the world a smaller place as people are using a multitude of messaging services such as MSN to stay in contact. The benefits of these highly sophisticated technologies are however, faced by numerous threats. Computers are, more than ever susceptible to malicious use in the forms of hackers, viruses and fraudulent activity. One of the reasons for this is that computers are responsible for storing large amounts of information. Aside from threats posed by malicious use, computers also face a number of issues from an architectural perspective. The vast majority of data stored on a computer is saved on the hard drive and although improvements are continuously being made in terms of their size and capacity, hard drives are always vulnerable to a great deal of stress. In turn, hard drives inevitably have a shelf life of approximately three years. A study conducted by the accounting firm McGladrey and Pullen estimates that one out of every 500 data centres will experience a severe computer disaster this year. As a result, almost of half those companies will go out of business (Peddle 2006).
The objective of this essay is to summarise the main ways in which hard drives can fail, thus incurring a loss of data or difficulty in accessibility. The essay is structured as follows; the first section provides a description of the main ways in which hard drives can fail, along with the effect that this has on the stored data. This is followed by a description of the methods that can be conducted in attempt to try and prevent failure as much as possible and culminating with a brief conclusion and summary of the essay.
Causes of failure A hard disk drive is a digitally encoded non-volatile storage device which stores data on rapidly rotating disks with magnetic surfaces called hard disk platters (Wikipedia 2006). The read-write heads of the hard disk are used to recode and retrieve the data stored on the hard disk as the disk platter rotates at a very high speed. Hard disks operate under extreme stress and will eventually fail due to general wear and tear accrued through age or some form of malfunction or failure. The chances of failure of a hard drive therefore increase greatly over time and ironically the chances are greatly increased as hard disks improve and develop. The phenomenon of hard disk failure is raising higher and higher; as to increase the read and write speed, today we have the latest hard disk rotating amazingly faster and this immense revolving speed generates massive centrifugal force, a single adverse cause in the course of normal operation can cause severe hard disk failure (Bista 2006).
Hard disk failures can be generally classified in two categories, namely physical and logical failures. Physical hard disk failures are the type of failures in which something is physically wrong with the hard drive itself and symptoms may include a grinding or clicking sound (Posey 2006). A logical failure is the type of failure in which there is nothing physically wrong with the drive itself however, the information stored on the hard disk is in bad shape. Normally this type of failure can be repaired by using a tool such as Scan Disk (Posey 2006).
The following section outlines the main cause of hard drive failure which are as follows:
• Firmware corruption
• Electronic failure
• Mechanical failure i.e. head crash
• Circuit board malfunction
• Logical errors
• Human error
Types of hard disk failure Firmware corruption Firmware is the software code that controls and is embedded in the physical hard drive hardware (Data clinic 2006). It is responsible for the operations of the hard drive and its activities include configuration, management of the interaction that takes place between the other components and the safe powering on/off of the system. At start-up, a hard disk loads the service data from its firmware zone into RAM and then allows the drive to report on readiness. If there is damage to these modules, then the drive will report either it’s family identity or will not detect it at all (Disklabs 2006).
In the event of such an occurrence, the computer will be prevented from accessing any data on the hard disk. The benefit to this is that it is merely an accessibility problem and a firmware failure does not automatically incur a data loss. Once the drive has been repaired, it is possible to recover the data.
Electronic failure Data clinic (2006) describes how electronic failure usually relates to problems on the controller board of the actual hard disk. This may be due to the computer actually suffering a power spike or electrical surge that knocks out the controller board on the hard disk making it undetectable to the BIOS. This means that whilst there is an electronic failure, any data stored on the hard drive will be inaccessible until the problem is fixed. The nature of this type of problem however, is advantageous as it is a mere hindrance and data will not be lost or corrupted and is therefore fully recoverable. Mechanical failure Mechanical failure is generally considered to be more serious than electronic failure or firmware corruption as it often leads to data loss and even complete data loss if prompt action is not taken. There are numerous types of mechanical failure; these can range from motor problems to one of the most common types of known failures is a head crash. A head crash, as it’s name implies, occurs when the read-write heads of the hard disk collide with the disk’s rotating platter surface (Data clinic 2006). Often, this can cause damage to both the heads and even the hard disk itself.
The head normally rides on a thin film of moving air which is entrapped at the surface of the platter (Wikipedia 2006). The platter is coated with a magnetic layer and a crash can occur if a small amount of dust, a sudden movement of the computer or power surge causes the head to bounce against the disk and damaging the magnetic coating. Modern A head crash, as its name implies, occurs when the read-write heads of the hard disk collide with the disks rotating platter surface (Data clinic 2006). Often, this can cause damage to both the heads and even the hard disk itself.
The head normally rides on a thin film of moving air which is entrapped at the surface of the platter (Wikipedia 2006) The platter is coated with a magnetic layer and a crash can occur if a small amount of dust, a sudden movement of the computer or power surge causes the head to bounce against the disk and damaging its magnetic coating. Modern drives spin at extremely high speeds (between 5, 00 and 15,000 rpm, (Wikipedia 2006)) which means that when such a collision occurs, the damage incurred can be quite serious.
Obviously, data corruption will occur at the onset of a head crash as it will then become unreadable when the read-write head attempts to access it. Furthermore, once a head crash has occurred, this increases the probability of future head crashes, especially if there is dust in the system, for instance which means the user needs to take prompt action to rectify this in order to prevent further head crashes and risk losing all data stored on the hard disk.
Circuit Board Malfunction The circuit board is responsible for powering and controlling the mechanical unit. It is exposed to variations in temperature and as a result, the chips that comprise the circuit board surface can develop small breaks internally which can cause circuit interruption and electrical failure. Furthermore, the failure of any of the other electrical components of the computer can result in a defective circuit board, thus causing the hard drive to fail and data access is then prevented.
Logical errors Logical errors also differ from the other failures mentioned as it usually means that there is nothing actually physically wrong with the disk in terms of architectural faults, instead there is a problem with the information stored on it. There could be an invalid entry in a file allocation table for instance (Data clinic 2006). Logical errors are not too serious, unlike mechanical failures and can be tackled with various software tools. Caution should however be extended because if a fix utility is run inappropriately on the hard disk, the stored data can often become unrecoverable. Human error
In a sense it is rare that a hard disk failure could be caused by a human alone. That is, of course providing that users take caution in how they handle a computer. Combined with mechanical failure, human error accounts for almost 75% of all incidents of data loss (Peddle 2006). All of the previously mentioned hard disk failures could be caused by computer misuse on the user’s part. Computers are very sensitive to changes in temperature, dust and dirt etc entering the hard drive, electrical power surges and knocks and bumps which may occur. Users should therefore take extreme caution to prevent any of these circumstances from occurring as much as they possibly can.
Other problems not caused by the hard disk Aside from problems that may occur within the hard drive itself or damage that may be incurred on the users’ part, other failures can occur in other parts of the computer which can have a knock on effect to the performance of the hard disk. These problems include IDE cable malfunction, power connector problems and inappropriate BIOS configuration. Each of these problems is explained below.
• IDE cable malfunction IDE flat ribbon cables are notoriously known to cause trouble. Often these cables can turn defective without any necessary poor treatment from the user. It is therefore a good idea to check the IDE cable if any problems seem apparent with the hard drive.
• Power connector problems If the power connector is of a poor quality, this could mean that the hard disk is not powered properly or interruptions occur. Again, this can be easily rectified when problems seem apparent in the hard disk by trying out a different power connector of a higher quality.
• Inappropriate BIOS configuration
External Data Backup
Backup depends both on the software and the hardware used. Backups are frequently made from hard disk based production systems. Before deciding on a backup system, the way in which the system is used and the connections required must be thought of. This will help to identify the most suitable match. There are several types of external data backup devices. Auxiliary hard drives are available in both internal and external versions. Prices have come down over the years as storage capacity has considerably increased.
There are different removable media drives. They include a variety of products that use some type of removable disk or cartridge. Zip drives, offered in desktop and compact versions for use with portables, are the more universal. Zip drives are starting to appear in scanners and printers. Super Disk can read both high capacity disks and floppies you have been using for years.
CD-RW is a drive that writes to a high capacity CD-R (recordable disc) or CD-RW (rewritable disc). It has a lot of storage capacity. DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) is the newest optical recording technology, and it is popular because of the large amount of data that can be stored on each disc. The main problem is its price. Tape backup systems for offices and networks offer a combination of attractive prices, high capacity per tape cartridge, and automated data backup functions. They provide real time hard disk backup and disk imaging. Magnetic tapes and floppy drives are also used for data backup. Floppy drives are a traditional method.
Drive backup creates a backup image of the whole hard disk with operating system, with all user preferences and settings, applications and data files. With the latest drive backup you can create the complete hard drive image without interrupting current activity. It serves to restore data at any time, set up a new hard drive or clone hard drive, schedule the backup process, make differential backups, and use disk image verification and password protection.
Flash drives are used for backup of a small amount of data. Flash drives are also known as thumb drives or memory sticks. Flash drives are small, offer infinite rewrite capabilities, and are easy to plug into any computer with USB port. Data durability is expected to be approximately ten years. They are not subject to damage by magnets.
There are different removable media drives. They include a variety of products that use some type of removable disk or cartridge. Zip drives, offered in desktop and compact versions for use with portables, are the more universal. Zip drives are starting to appear in scanners and printers. Super Disk can read both high capacity disks and floppies you have been using for years.
CD-RW is a drive that writes to a high capacity CD-R (recordable disc) or CD-RW (rewritable disc). It has a lot of storage capacity. DVD (Digital Versatile Disk) is the newest optical recording technology, and it is popular because of the large amount of data that can be stored on each disc. The main problem is its price. Tape backup systems for offices and networks offer a combination of attractive prices, high capacity per tape cartridge, and automated data backup functions. They provide real time hard disk backup and disk imaging. Magnetic tapes and floppy drives are also used for data backup. Floppy drives are a traditional method.
Drive backup creates a backup image of the whole hard disk with operating system, with all user preferences and settings, applications and data files. With the latest drive backup you can create the complete hard drive image without interrupting current activity. It serves to restore data at any time, set up a new hard drive or clone hard drive, schedule the backup process, make differential backups, and use disk image verification and password protection.
Flash drives are used for backup of a small amount of data. Flash drives are also known as thumb drives or memory sticks. Flash drives are small, offer infinite rewrite capabilities, and are easy to plug into any computer with USB port. Data durability is expected to be approximately ten years. They are not subject to damage by magnets.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Best Methods Of Data Destruction On Computer Hard Disk Drives
We are constantly reminded of the importance of recycling. In the ICT industry, recycling of computer equipment can be useful for educational or charitable organisations. It can however be detrimental to the previous owner. Charitable establishments such as Computer Aid International will refurbish computers for reuse in various sectors including education, health and other non-profit organisations for the benefit of developing countries. It would appear Computer Aid International ‘wipe’ each hard disk drive, which is good news as it hopefully provides some certainty that data cannot be retrieved.
However, it is doubtful that the ‘average’ user realises the risks involved by selling their old computer on websites such as eBay. They may delete all their files, re-install the operating system (OS) and possibly format their drive, yet the data will probably reside on the disk, typically in unallocated space. Data fragments may be present that could be used maliciously in the hands of a criminal; indeed data from any source i.e. any electronic device could be used maliciously. Discarding computer equipment without due care could lead to irreparable, financial, political and personal damage to the owner or organisation.
A recent study conducted by Glamorgan University (source: Time Online website) revealed more than 50% of the 111 hard drives purchased contained personal and confidential information. Over 87% of those drives were bought from eBay. This, I feel, raises an international concern. The fundamental concept of eBay and other online auctioneer sites is bringing sellers and individuals together to trade online, creating a world wide market place. Whilst this is beneficial for the legitimate user, we do however risk handing over our personal data to terrorists, corrupt organisations and paedophiles, not to mention the risk of being blackmailed or threatened.
Therefore, the question is – what is the best method of wiping data from our hard drives and protecting ourselves against these threats? With due consideration to economic, data confidentiality and environmental factors I shall discuss the various options available to the public and private sectors.
What are the software options?
Generally, you could choose to either physically destroy the hardware or use either software or hardware to delete the data. There are many software products offering data destruction and typically software vendors ‘guarantee’ to destroy your data. Yet, is this enough? This approach relies on the user correctly installing the software and carrying out the correct procedure. In most instances a computer will only have one hard disk; yet to execute such a program (and to get the desired ‘100%’ destruction result) usually requires an operating system to be present. In other words, you need another hard drive to run the software so that data can be deleted off the unwanted drive. Alternatives may include bootable programs such as DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) that claims to “delete the contents of any hard disk it detects”. Other software options include: AccessData – WipeDrive, Acronis - Drive Cleanser, CyberScrub - CyberCide and VCOM – SecureErase. These represent just a small handful of the applications available.
The software approach may incur costs; however some applications are probably free on the internet. The disadvantage I feel for a software based approach is the time consumption. Generally speaking ‘shredders’ will write data onto each of the drive’s sectors. The type of data depends on the application; however, this may include characters or numerals. The process, assuming numerals, is known as ‘binary flipping’. Basically a binary number, for example 11110000 is written to each sector then the ‘flip side’, or compliment as it is known, is written. In this instance this would be 00001111.
According to research, the United States Department of Defence considers this approach, with adequate executions and particular algorithms used, to be acceptable in destroying non critical data. However, they suggest executions up to 32 times to class a disk ‘sanitised’. We therefore must consider the complications and factors of such extremes. To sanitise a drive 32 times will take copious amounts of time, therefore wasting electricity, time and obviously human and computer resources. This process could take days if not weeks if there were hundreds of disks.
What are the hardware options?
The DiskMaster is an excellent example of how data can be destroyed using a hardware approach. It is fast, efficient and you can set a predefined pattern that should be written to the disk. The DiskMaster is able to wipe drives to Department of Defence standards.
However, again with this approach much time is required to wipe a drive. The concept of a hard disk drive has evolved since the 1950’s where data from 5MB (Mega Byte) could be stored. Now we are in an era where 750GB (Giga Bytes) can be stored on one single disk. This inevitably means to destroy a disk, using either software or hardware based approaches will increase in time, cost and subsequently your patience.
Are there any other options?
I believe that physical destruction is the quickest and simplest approach. By removing the top plate of a hard disk drive, you limit the chances of recovering the data due to dust and other contaminants affecting the drives platters (where your data is stored). Physically scoring lines or drilling holes into the platter will hopefully destroy the data beyond any reasonable doubt.
The concept of shredding paper to deter criminals using printed material such as bank statements or bills for identity theft and forgery has now been taken to the next level. Available now is an industrial tape and hard disk shredder. If you search within Google “GSA Industrial Tape and Hard Drive Destroyer 380/500” you will witness the future when it comes to data destruction.
This powerful machine, whilst not commercially viable for the home user, would suit any large company where data destruction was crucial to their intellectual electronic property. Using this machine would render data retrieval practically impossible. I cannot imagine a point in the future where we would be able to reconstruct the data from shredded material.
Obviously this method would mean a user couldn’t resell their hard drive. However as the cost of hard disk drives decrease year in year out, is the cost of another hard drive really an issue?
To summarise, the benefit using the software or hardware approach would be: reusability and the chance to recoup some money. The disadvantages would include the ‘risk’ involved by relying on software or hardware to completely destroy your data. Another disadvantage would be the time consumption and costs involved, including electricity and human resources.
The main advantage of using a hard disk shredder is that complete 100% destruction can be witnessed. The destruction can take as little as 30 seconds. The main disadvantage is that such machines are currently not widely available. As the disks cannot be reused it is not an environmentally friendly approach. The last disadvantage is that the costs involved outweigh those of a software approach.
My conclusion to this article would be if you are desperately worried about the data on magnetic media falling into the wrong hands, then look at the options to physically destroy that media.
However, it is doubtful that the ‘average’ user realises the risks involved by selling their old computer on websites such as eBay. They may delete all their files, re-install the operating system (OS) and possibly format their drive, yet the data will probably reside on the disk, typically in unallocated space. Data fragments may be present that could be used maliciously in the hands of a criminal; indeed data from any source i.e. any electronic device could be used maliciously. Discarding computer equipment without due care could lead to irreparable, financial, political and personal damage to the owner or organisation.
A recent study conducted by Glamorgan University (source: Time Online website) revealed more than 50% of the 111 hard drives purchased contained personal and confidential information. Over 87% of those drives were bought from eBay. This, I feel, raises an international concern. The fundamental concept of eBay and other online auctioneer sites is bringing sellers and individuals together to trade online, creating a world wide market place. Whilst this is beneficial for the legitimate user, we do however risk handing over our personal data to terrorists, corrupt organisations and paedophiles, not to mention the risk of being blackmailed or threatened.
Therefore, the question is – what is the best method of wiping data from our hard drives and protecting ourselves against these threats? With due consideration to economic, data confidentiality and environmental factors I shall discuss the various options available to the public and private sectors.
What are the software options?
Generally, you could choose to either physically destroy the hardware or use either software or hardware to delete the data. There are many software products offering data destruction and typically software vendors ‘guarantee’ to destroy your data. Yet, is this enough? This approach relies on the user correctly installing the software and carrying out the correct procedure. In most instances a computer will only have one hard disk; yet to execute such a program (and to get the desired ‘100%’ destruction result) usually requires an operating system to be present. In other words, you need another hard drive to run the software so that data can be deleted off the unwanted drive. Alternatives may include bootable programs such as DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) that claims to “delete the contents of any hard disk it detects”. Other software options include: AccessData – WipeDrive, Acronis - Drive Cleanser, CyberScrub - CyberCide and VCOM – SecureErase. These represent just a small handful of the applications available.
The software approach may incur costs; however some applications are probably free on the internet. The disadvantage I feel for a software based approach is the time consumption. Generally speaking ‘shredders’ will write data onto each of the drive’s sectors. The type of data depends on the application; however, this may include characters or numerals. The process, assuming numerals, is known as ‘binary flipping’. Basically a binary number, for example 11110000 is written to each sector then the ‘flip side’, or compliment as it is known, is written. In this instance this would be 00001111.
According to research, the United States Department of Defence considers this approach, with adequate executions and particular algorithms used, to be acceptable in destroying non critical data. However, they suggest executions up to 32 times to class a disk ‘sanitised’. We therefore must consider the complications and factors of such extremes. To sanitise a drive 32 times will take copious amounts of time, therefore wasting electricity, time and obviously human and computer resources. This process could take days if not weeks if there were hundreds of disks.
What are the hardware options?
The DiskMaster is an excellent example of how data can be destroyed using a hardware approach. It is fast, efficient and you can set a predefined pattern that should be written to the disk. The DiskMaster is able to wipe drives to Department of Defence standards.
However, again with this approach much time is required to wipe a drive. The concept of a hard disk drive has evolved since the 1950’s where data from 5MB (Mega Byte) could be stored. Now we are in an era where 750GB (Giga Bytes) can be stored on one single disk. This inevitably means to destroy a disk, using either software or hardware based approaches will increase in time, cost and subsequently your patience.
Are there any other options?
I believe that physical destruction is the quickest and simplest approach. By removing the top plate of a hard disk drive, you limit the chances of recovering the data due to dust and other contaminants affecting the drives platters (where your data is stored). Physically scoring lines or drilling holes into the platter will hopefully destroy the data beyond any reasonable doubt.
The concept of shredding paper to deter criminals using printed material such as bank statements or bills for identity theft and forgery has now been taken to the next level. Available now is an industrial tape and hard disk shredder. If you search within Google “GSA Industrial Tape and Hard Drive Destroyer 380/500” you will witness the future when it comes to data destruction.
This powerful machine, whilst not commercially viable for the home user, would suit any large company where data destruction was crucial to their intellectual electronic property. Using this machine would render data retrieval practically impossible. I cannot imagine a point in the future where we would be able to reconstruct the data from shredded material.
Obviously this method would mean a user couldn’t resell their hard drive. However as the cost of hard disk drives decrease year in year out, is the cost of another hard drive really an issue?
To summarise, the benefit using the software or hardware approach would be: reusability and the chance to recoup some money. The disadvantages would include the ‘risk’ involved by relying on software or hardware to completely destroy your data. Another disadvantage would be the time consumption and costs involved, including electricity and human resources.
The main advantage of using a hard disk shredder is that complete 100% destruction can be witnessed. The destruction can take as little as 30 seconds. The main disadvantage is that such machines are currently not widely available. As the disks cannot be reused it is not an environmentally friendly approach. The last disadvantage is that the costs involved outweigh those of a software approach.
My conclusion to this article would be if you are desperately worried about the data on magnetic media falling into the wrong hands, then look at the options to physically destroy that media.
Managing Backup And Recovery Services
Iceland Seafood International (ISI) has numerous offices located in ten countries and sells seafood products to UK retailers, and in order for the headquarters in Iceland to manage the business on a global scale, it is important that the data generated in all of its satellite offices is protected. ISI was previously using a tape-based backup service, which was not efficient or effective in its subsidiary office locations in the United Kingdom and Germany. The tape-based backup was "just about" manageable in the Iceland offices, but it was proving difficult to manage the tape backups on an international scale: The tapes weren't being changed at the stipulated times, it was difficult to recover data from tapes located all over the world and there was the additional concern of tapes potentially going missing.
SecurStore Remote Backup Service used all its knowledge and experience to bring the most effective and efficient solution to ISI by using Asigra Televaulting. ISI's multi-office corporate structure demanded a backup/restore service that respected remote data and ensured that it is protected to the same level as corporate data. ISI turned to SecurStore to eliminate these problems with their agentless distributed backup software service, which does not require tapes and allows a company with geographically dispersed offices to back up and recover data from a single location. Data protection is assured as encrypted data is backed up via disk over the WAN and stored offsite. SecurStore's high-calibre services guaranteed ISI successful and fast retrieval of any data they require from any office location around the globe.
"Within minutes of starting the test phase of the SecurStore Remote Backup Service we realised the benefits distributed backup and recovery would provide us with, not just from a cost perspective, but also from a global business continuity perspective," said Runar Bjarnthorsson, IT Manager of Iceland Seafood International."We chose SecurStore because their service eliminates the possibility of human error and allows us to protect our entire company's data from every global office location, which can all be managed from our headquarters in Iceland," continued Bjarnthorsson. "We saw very quickly from initial tests how much cost we could save with agentless software by paying for the amount of data stored and not for each machine that is backed up.”
SecurStore Remote Backup Service, provides ISI with an agentless backup/recovery environment for the entire organisation, including information residing on desktops, laptops and servers. This allows ISI to protect every system on the network without the hassle of agent-based license fees, agent installation, agent-induced performance loss and annual agent upgrades. Whenever a new PC is added to the ISI network, there is no need for a backup agent to be installed, which is a complex and costly burden. ISI only pays for the total amount of compressed data stored.
SecurStore Remote Backup Service used all its knowledge and experience to bring the most effective and efficient solution to ISI by using Asigra Televaulting. ISI's multi-office corporate structure demanded a backup/restore service that respected remote data and ensured that it is protected to the same level as corporate data. ISI turned to SecurStore to eliminate these problems with their agentless distributed backup software service, which does not require tapes and allows a company with geographically dispersed offices to back up and recover data from a single location. Data protection is assured as encrypted data is backed up via disk over the WAN and stored offsite. SecurStore's high-calibre services guaranteed ISI successful and fast retrieval of any data they require from any office location around the globe.
"Within minutes of starting the test phase of the SecurStore Remote Backup Service we realised the benefits distributed backup and recovery would provide us with, not just from a cost perspective, but also from a global business continuity perspective," said Runar Bjarnthorsson, IT Manager of Iceland Seafood International."We chose SecurStore because their service eliminates the possibility of human error and allows us to protect our entire company's data from every global office location, which can all be managed from our headquarters in Iceland," continued Bjarnthorsson. "We saw very quickly from initial tests how much cost we could save with agentless software by paying for the amount of data stored and not for each machine that is backed up.”
SecurStore Remote Backup Service, provides ISI with an agentless backup/recovery environment for the entire organisation, including information residing on desktops, laptops and servers. This allows ISI to protect every system on the network without the hassle of agent-based license fees, agent installation, agent-induced performance loss and annual agent upgrades. Whenever a new PC is added to the ISI network, there is no need for a backup agent to be installed, which is a complex and costly burden. ISI only pays for the total amount of compressed data stored.
The 5 Most Common Reasons Why People Believe They Won't Need Data Recovery
Most people don't realize how important their data is until it is lost. Hard drive data recovery is needed for a variety of reasons, all of which are often ignored until it is too late. And in most cases, some people have had opportunities to protect their files from data loss and corruption, but may have thought one of these 5 common beliefs about their data and why they won't need to find a hard drive data recovery company.
"My hard drive is brand new, so my data is safe" Have you ever bought a new toaster, coffee maker, DVD player, or even the most popular toy for your child only to have to return it or exchange it because there were problems with it? Then as you drive back to the store where it was purchased, you wonder how something you just purchased brand new could break so fast. Things break, brand new or old, that is why there are warranties! Regardless, a hard drive is no different. Each comes with a manufacturer's warranty for the hard drive, but not the data. A data loss is your problem, not theirs.
So when your hard drive fails and you are left looking at a blank screen, a variety of error messages, or hear a loud clicking noise from the hard drive, you sit and slowly realize that your world is about to change. Your belief that the data on your new hard drive is safe from data corruption or mechanical hard drive failure erodes, and the panic begins to set in.
"We backup our data to a spare hard drive (or other media)"
It is always a good habit to backup your data. In fact, kudos to you if you do! Now, that you have patted yourself on the back for your fantastic disaster planning, do you recall when you last tested your backup? When was the last backup restored to verify the data, test the backup media, and confirm that the data stored is still relevant to your business?
This is often where problems arise. While it is great that a disaster recovery plan in place, is a backup from 1 month ago really of value? 1 year ago? 3 days ago? Loosing a few days or months of data from a home user's point of view may not be such a big deal...as long as they have their important docs, pictures and MP3s.
However, depending on your business, several lost days of data can devastate a company. For the business community, a day of data loss can cost the company thousands of dollars and worst yet, customers.
"I run a RAID server, and because of that, my data is safe"
RAIDs are configured with multiple hard drives, at least 2, and the belief most people have is that their data is safe from data loss and they won't ever need data recovery since they use a RAID server. In most cases that is true. However, when multiple hard drives fail, the risk of data loss increases. When a single hard drive in a RAID array fails, it can be replaced and the RAID can attempt to be rebuilt. When multiple hard drives fail, the rebuild process can possibly still be done, however there is a higher risk of data loss if the rebuild process fails.
If hard drives are moved around to different positions in the RAID, new hard drives added, and the swapping of good and defective hard drives are done, the risk of overwriting the RAID stripe and destroying that information reduces the chances of recovering data from that RAID. The safest way to ensure that your hard drive data is recoverable when your RAID looses a hard drive and becomes unhealthy is to seek out a data recovery company who are RAID recovery specialists. The more you (or your IT staff) attempt to repair and rebuild, the less of a chance that the data will ever be recovered.
"I don't surf 'questionable' websites, so I won't catch any viruses"
Of course you don't. Nobody visits 'questionable' websites. Those websites all just are out there, with nobody visiting them at all. From the adult websites, free software websites, music websites, and every other website created by people that my have alterior motives and want to get at your data...any computer attached to the Internet is at risk for data intrusion and corruption.
Most businesses and home users have varying degrees of network security for their computers, which protect their data from most hard drive corruption, such as viruses. However, with with e-mail, instant messaging, file attachments and other such things shared by employees and friends, the risk to accidentally infect a hard drive with a virus increases.
Make sure you run some sort of anti-virus software and if possible a fire wall to protect yourself and your data from corruption. These two simple suggestions can save you hundreds of dollars in hard drive recovery.
"I definitely learned to expect the unexpected"
Life has a funny way of getting at you when you least expect it. Weather is the least planned for with regards to data loss, and for good reason. Mother nature like to keep us on our toes! She floods homes and businesses with water and causes major water damage, she throws lightning from the heavens which cause power surges and wrecks havoc on electronics, she waves tornados and hurricanes toward companies and consumers and send them scattering for safety, and she also scorches the earth with fire burning offices and homes and charring computers, servers and laptops.
Mother nature can also be kind and provide a beautiful day of warm sunshine. Allowing you to relax by the pool with your laptop, drinking some iced tea and getting some work done remotely...until somebody jumps into the pool and drenches your laptop with a wave of pool water. You can do everything to protect your data, but at some point, there will be a need for data recovery. It could be something due to a mechanical hard drive failure, file system corruption, or something as simple as 'my kid poured water on my laptop'.
There are a lot of things that can go wrong and nobody and plan for all of them. But, when given the opportunity to protect your data from data loss, take the extra time to evaluate the value of the data on your hard drive and weigh it against the time it would take to rebuild it and how it would affect you if you were to lose it permanently.
If your hard drive is experiencing problems, your safest option is to turn the computer off. Continued use may damage the hard drive and make your data unrecoverable. You should then make a note of what happened and consider contacting a company that specializes in data recovery.
"My hard drive is brand new, so my data is safe" Have you ever bought a new toaster, coffee maker, DVD player, or even the most popular toy for your child only to have to return it or exchange it because there were problems with it? Then as you drive back to the store where it was purchased, you wonder how something you just purchased brand new could break so fast. Things break, brand new or old, that is why there are warranties! Regardless, a hard drive is no different. Each comes with a manufacturer's warranty for the hard drive, but not the data. A data loss is your problem, not theirs.
So when your hard drive fails and you are left looking at a blank screen, a variety of error messages, or hear a loud clicking noise from the hard drive, you sit and slowly realize that your world is about to change. Your belief that the data on your new hard drive is safe from data corruption or mechanical hard drive failure erodes, and the panic begins to set in.
"We backup our data to a spare hard drive (or other media)"
It is always a good habit to backup your data. In fact, kudos to you if you do! Now, that you have patted yourself on the back for your fantastic disaster planning, do you recall when you last tested your backup? When was the last backup restored to verify the data, test the backup media, and confirm that the data stored is still relevant to your business?
This is often where problems arise. While it is great that a disaster recovery plan in place, is a backup from 1 month ago really of value? 1 year ago? 3 days ago? Loosing a few days or months of data from a home user's point of view may not be such a big deal...as long as they have their important docs, pictures and MP3s.
However, depending on your business, several lost days of data can devastate a company. For the business community, a day of data loss can cost the company thousands of dollars and worst yet, customers.
"I run a RAID server, and because of that, my data is safe"
RAIDs are configured with multiple hard drives, at least 2, and the belief most people have is that their data is safe from data loss and they won't ever need data recovery since they use a RAID server. In most cases that is true. However, when multiple hard drives fail, the risk of data loss increases. When a single hard drive in a RAID array fails, it can be replaced and the RAID can attempt to be rebuilt. When multiple hard drives fail, the rebuild process can possibly still be done, however there is a higher risk of data loss if the rebuild process fails.
If hard drives are moved around to different positions in the RAID, new hard drives added, and the swapping of good and defective hard drives are done, the risk of overwriting the RAID stripe and destroying that information reduces the chances of recovering data from that RAID. The safest way to ensure that your hard drive data is recoverable when your RAID looses a hard drive and becomes unhealthy is to seek out a data recovery company who are RAID recovery specialists. The more you (or your IT staff) attempt to repair and rebuild, the less of a chance that the data will ever be recovered.
"I don't surf 'questionable' websites, so I won't catch any viruses"
Of course you don't. Nobody visits 'questionable' websites. Those websites all just are out there, with nobody visiting them at all. From the adult websites, free software websites, music websites, and every other website created by people that my have alterior motives and want to get at your data...any computer attached to the Internet is at risk for data intrusion and corruption.
Most businesses and home users have varying degrees of network security for their computers, which protect their data from most hard drive corruption, such as viruses. However, with with e-mail, instant messaging, file attachments and other such things shared by employees and friends, the risk to accidentally infect a hard drive with a virus increases.
Make sure you run some sort of anti-virus software and if possible a fire wall to protect yourself and your data from corruption. These two simple suggestions can save you hundreds of dollars in hard drive recovery.
"I definitely learned to expect the unexpected"
Life has a funny way of getting at you when you least expect it. Weather is the least planned for with regards to data loss, and for good reason. Mother nature like to keep us on our toes! She floods homes and businesses with water and causes major water damage, she throws lightning from the heavens which cause power surges and wrecks havoc on electronics, she waves tornados and hurricanes toward companies and consumers and send them scattering for safety, and she also scorches the earth with fire burning offices and homes and charring computers, servers and laptops.
Mother nature can also be kind and provide a beautiful day of warm sunshine. Allowing you to relax by the pool with your laptop, drinking some iced tea and getting some work done remotely...until somebody jumps into the pool and drenches your laptop with a wave of pool water. You can do everything to protect your data, but at some point, there will be a need for data recovery. It could be something due to a mechanical hard drive failure, file system corruption, or something as simple as 'my kid poured water on my laptop'.
There are a lot of things that can go wrong and nobody and plan for all of them. But, when given the opportunity to protect your data from data loss, take the extra time to evaluate the value of the data on your hard drive and weigh it against the time it would take to rebuild it and how it would affect you if you were to lose it permanently.
If your hard drive is experiencing problems, your safest option is to turn the computer off. Continued use may damage the hard drive and make your data unrecoverable. You should then make a note of what happened and consider contacting a company that specializes in data recovery.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Data Recovery Tools
Data recovery refers to the recovery of data on a computer that has been lost due any potential reason. Most operating systems in use nowadays have some kind of repair tool built into them, even if these tools are very basic in nature. For example, Microsoft Windows comes with a chkdsk facility, Apple's Mac OS X has a Disk Utility, and Linux has an fsck utility.
While these utilities help repair minor inconsistencies, they're quite useless in the event of large scale data loss. There are third party utilities available, some of which are far superior to these built-in utilities on these operating systems. These third party utilities can even recover data from disks that are not recognized by the operating systems? own repair utility.
Data recovery tools use two main techniques to achieve the desired results. Consistency checking is performed by scanning the logical structure of the disk and making sure that it is consistent with its specification.
The second technique is to assume very little about the state the file system that is to be analyzed and use hints and bits of the undamaged file system to rebuild the destroyed file system from scratch.
There are numerous data recovery tools available on the market. All it takes is a simple online search to pull up thousands and thousands of companies as well as descriptions of the various tools they offer.
Different data recovery tools work in different ways, though most use the same concept. The method of recovery depends on the type and extent of damage.
Most software data tools are quite ineffective when the damage is physical. Physical damage of a drive requires completely different techniques of recovery compared to logical damage.
Selection of the right data recovery tool depends on a number of factors like the type and extent of damage, effectiveness of the tool, and its cost.
While these utilities help repair minor inconsistencies, they're quite useless in the event of large scale data loss. There are third party utilities available, some of which are far superior to these built-in utilities on these operating systems. These third party utilities can even recover data from disks that are not recognized by the operating systems? own repair utility.
Data recovery tools use two main techniques to achieve the desired results. Consistency checking is performed by scanning the logical structure of the disk and making sure that it is consistent with its specification.
The second technique is to assume very little about the state the file system that is to be analyzed and use hints and bits of the undamaged file system to rebuild the destroyed file system from scratch.
There are numerous data recovery tools available on the market. All it takes is a simple online search to pull up thousands and thousands of companies as well as descriptions of the various tools they offer.
Different data recovery tools work in different ways, though most use the same concept. The method of recovery depends on the type and extent of damage.
Most software data tools are quite ineffective when the damage is physical. Physical damage of a drive requires completely different techniques of recovery compared to logical damage.
Selection of the right data recovery tool depends on a number of factors like the type and extent of damage, effectiveness of the tool, and its cost.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Laptop Data Recovery
Laptop data recovery is the process of recovering lost data from laptops. Laptops are becoming popular by the day. The usage of laptops is growing at a drastic rate.
Due to their portability, which happens to be their main advantage, laptops are subjected to a lot of various conditions and abuse. Laptops are often used by executives to take their work home, which means there are many critical office documents often stored in laptops.
The tough conditions that laptops must function under as well as this on-the-road abuse make laptops more vulnerable to crashes and data loss when compared to desktops. The criticality of the documents stored in them often mean that the consequences of data loss on laptops is more devastating when compared to desktops.
The major problem with laptop computers is that unlike desktops, they are sealed. Due to their small, lightweight nature, specialized electronics and tools are required when working with laptops. These components must be absolutely dust free in order to dissipate heat and operate at maximum possible efficiency levels.
Due to the extreme care that must be taken with laptops, it is always recommended that only authorized vendors or the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) be allowed to open them to investigate the problem. Since these units are particularly vulnerable to moisture and dust, any data recovery attempt should only be made in authorized clean room facilities.
The data recovery processes for laptops are similar to the ones used to desktops.
Due to their portability, which happens to be their main advantage, laptops are subjected to a lot of various conditions and abuse. Laptops are often used by executives to take their work home, which means there are many critical office documents often stored in laptops.
The tough conditions that laptops must function under as well as this on-the-road abuse make laptops more vulnerable to crashes and data loss when compared to desktops. The criticality of the documents stored in them often mean that the consequences of data loss on laptops is more devastating when compared to desktops.
The major problem with laptop computers is that unlike desktops, they are sealed. Due to their small, lightweight nature, specialized electronics and tools are required when working with laptops. These components must be absolutely dust free in order to dissipate heat and operate at maximum possible efficiency levels.
Due to the extreme care that must be taken with laptops, it is always recommended that only authorized vendors or the Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) be allowed to open them to investigate the problem. Since these units are particularly vulnerable to moisture and dust, any data recovery attempt should only be made in authorized clean room facilities.
The data recovery processes for laptops are similar to the ones used to desktops.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Drive Data Recovery Services
There are normally two kinds of damages that any drive can experience.
Physical damage is one of these kinds and is quite rare. Physical damage is more common when it comes to portable storage media such as CDs, DVDs, and other such media.
When talking about physical damage to the hard drive, it's normally understood that such damage is taken to mean mechanical failures. Examples of mechanical failures are head crashes, failed motors, etc.
Physical damage not only causes data loss, but also damages the logical structures of the file systems that the operating system uses. This results in logical damage, which must be corrected before attempting the recovery of any files.
Most users do not have the necessary hardware or the technical expertise to repair physical damage, which brings data recovery companies into the picture. Opening hard disks in a normal environment can cause dust to settle on the surface, which can result in further damage to the drive and as a result, complicate the recovery process.
Logical damage is the other type of damage a drive can experience. This type of damage is a lot more common when compared to physical damage. Logical damage is normally caused by power outages but can also be caused by hardware problems and system crashes.
When such occurrences take place, the file system is left in an inconsistent state and hence begins to behave abnormally.
Data recovery services for drives generally follow a standard process. The drive is examined to determine the nature and quantity of data loss. Once that has been determined, a data recovery tool or software is used to try and recover as much software as possible. The type of software used depends on the nature of the problem.
Physical damage is one of these kinds and is quite rare. Physical damage is more common when it comes to portable storage media such as CDs, DVDs, and other such media.
When talking about physical damage to the hard drive, it's normally understood that such damage is taken to mean mechanical failures. Examples of mechanical failures are head crashes, failed motors, etc.
Physical damage not only causes data loss, but also damages the logical structures of the file systems that the operating system uses. This results in logical damage, which must be corrected before attempting the recovery of any files.
Most users do not have the necessary hardware or the technical expertise to repair physical damage, which brings data recovery companies into the picture. Opening hard disks in a normal environment can cause dust to settle on the surface, which can result in further damage to the drive and as a result, complicate the recovery process.
Logical damage is the other type of damage a drive can experience. This type of damage is a lot more common when compared to physical damage. Logical damage is normally caused by power outages but can also be caused by hardware problems and system crashes.
When such occurrences take place, the file system is left in an inconsistent state and hence begins to behave abnormally.
Data recovery services for drives generally follow a standard process. The drive is examined to determine the nature and quantity of data loss. Once that has been determined, a data recovery tool or software is used to try and recover as much software as possible. The type of software used depends on the nature of the problem.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Data Recovery Companies
With data recovery being big business, there are numerous data companies available today. These companies offer all kinds of software and products to help in the recovery of data.
These companies range from large businesses to small shops and from dedicated shops that offer only data recovery services to other companies that offer a wide array of computer related products and services.
One good thing about these companies is that most of them ask the customer to pay only if they are able to recover a significant portion of the lost data. If they're totally unsuccessful in recovering any of the lost data, the customer usually will not be charged.
In a situation where a lot of valuable data has been lost, one should not automatically assume that the data is gone forever. These companies use some very innovative methods to help recover lost data. The average percentage of successful retrievals of lost data is in the range of 80 - 90%.
The process to have your data retrieved by one of these companies normally goes something like this.
First, contact them and tell them the problem. They'll issue instructions on safely packing and sending the damaged drive to them. Once it gets into their hands, they'll test and evaluate the drive to see how much data can be recovered from it. At this stage, the customer is normally given a quote of the price and informed about the quantity of data that can be recovered.
Different companies have different cost structures. Some companies have fixed prices that depend on the type of media or the size and nature of the data recovery process. Others charge customers depending on the individual job.
These companies range from large businesses to small shops and from dedicated shops that offer only data recovery services to other companies that offer a wide array of computer related products and services.
One good thing about these companies is that most of them ask the customer to pay only if they are able to recover a significant portion of the lost data. If they're totally unsuccessful in recovering any of the lost data, the customer usually will not be charged.
In a situation where a lot of valuable data has been lost, one should not automatically assume that the data is gone forever. These companies use some very innovative methods to help recover lost data. The average percentage of successful retrievals of lost data is in the range of 80 - 90%.
The process to have your data retrieved by one of these companies normally goes something like this.
First, contact them and tell them the problem. They'll issue instructions on safely packing and sending the damaged drive to them. Once it gets into their hands, they'll test and evaluate the drive to see how much data can be recovered from it. At this stage, the customer is normally given a quote of the price and informed about the quantity of data that can be recovered.
Different companies have different cost structures. Some companies have fixed prices that depend on the type of media or the size and nature of the data recovery process. Others charge customers depending on the individual job.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Importance of Data Recovery
What happens when you are working on a special project or document and your computer system displays a blank screen? Or one of the partitions is not recognized by the BIOS - It could be anything. So is this a warning from your computer about some mis-happening about to happen such as hard disk failure, system crash or some other problem that caused your system to shut down? Don’t be surprised! This could lead your computer system to become dead and all your valuable data is gone forever. But Stop, Don’t Panic, the relief is there.
“The data which appears to be lost and inaccessible, in real terms is not lost forever. The lost data can be recovered with the help of professional data recovery utilities and services.”
Many times organizations or individuals do not give much importance to such kind of incidents and after wards suffer major loss of their valuable data. In such cases when the computer system shut downs or reboots or there are indications of disk failure, it means that your computer system needs your immediate attention.
You need a data recovery solution if you experience inaccessibility of files and folders, unrecognized format, virus attacks, accidental deletions, permanent deletion of files, inaccessible partitions, corrupt documents, unexpected system shutdowns, error messages while opening a file and there are endless reasons due to which you cannot access your data.
As the article targets towards importance of data recovery, the first question arises - What is Data Recovery?
Talking in simple terms, it’s like repairing a broken toy with the help of glue and making it usable again. Here, the broken toy is your damaged and corrupt storage media and glue refers to data recovery software and services which instantly gets back your lost and inaccessible data to life. In technical terms, Data Recovery is defined as a scientific approach followed to get back the lost and inaccessible data. This can be made possible through data recovery software utilities and services.
How useful are Data Recovery Software?
Data Recovery software effectively recovers and repair files, databases, storage media, corrupt partitions and brings back your data safely. Data recovery software are helpful and effectively recovers back your lost, deleted data, which can be easily purchased through on-line sale transactions. Almost every data recovery company provide FREE demo version of their data recovery software range.
This Free demo version is the best evaluation technique for a user. You should always try demo version of the software before deciding to purchase it. Test your damaged drive or file with the demo version and see whether the software is capable enough to recover back your data. It is a reliable means to test features, performance, speed, user friendliness of the software. If the demo version displays your data then you can purchase Full version of the software as the demo versions might not allow you to save the recovered data.
The number of data recovery software present in the market promise to recover data from the damaged or corrupted file systems: Windows (FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5), Linux (Ext2, Ext3, JFS, ReiserFS), Unix (UFS, EAFS, HTFS, VxFS, FFS), Novell Netware (NWFS, Net386, NSS) and Apple Macintosh (HFS, HFS+) and also from corrupt access databases, MS backup, corrupt zip files, corrupt excel files and corrupt word documents.
So whenever you face situations of data corruption or data loss, always follow the rule: “Test, Evaluate and Purchase!!!!”
How useful are Data Recovery Services?
Following the scientific approach, data recovery services are performed in Class 100 Clean rooms with high biometric security to recover every bit of data. These clean rooms should be equipped with the entire infrastructure like, air flow rate and direction, pressurization, temperature, humidity, specialized filtration and other standards required to perform data recovery.
Data Recovery Services are usually performed when data recovery software are unable to recover your data or the complexity of the damage to data is to such an extent that specialized attention of the data recovery technician is required. This generally happens in cases when your hard drive or storage media indicates the following symptoms: clicking noise from the hard disk drive, lots of bad sectors, S.M.A.R.T failure, drive not recognized by the BIOS, fire and water damage, hard disk component failure, computer is not bootable and many other undefined reasons.
The specialist data recovery service providers offer services of data recovery from hard disks of desktops and laptops, RAIDs, Tape media, Pen drives, Zip drives, Compact disks, DVDs, Digital Cards, Memory Cards etc where data gets lost due to Logical and Physical crashes.
“The data which appears to be lost and inaccessible, in real terms is not lost forever. The lost data can be recovered with the help of professional data recovery utilities and services.”
Many times organizations or individuals do not give much importance to such kind of incidents and after wards suffer major loss of their valuable data. In such cases when the computer system shut downs or reboots or there are indications of disk failure, it means that your computer system needs your immediate attention.
You need a data recovery solution if you experience inaccessibility of files and folders, unrecognized format, virus attacks, accidental deletions, permanent deletion of files, inaccessible partitions, corrupt documents, unexpected system shutdowns, error messages while opening a file and there are endless reasons due to which you cannot access your data.
As the article targets towards importance of data recovery, the first question arises - What is Data Recovery?
Talking in simple terms, it’s like repairing a broken toy with the help of glue and making it usable again. Here, the broken toy is your damaged and corrupt storage media and glue refers to data recovery software and services which instantly gets back your lost and inaccessible data to life. In technical terms, Data Recovery is defined as a scientific approach followed to get back the lost and inaccessible data. This can be made possible through data recovery software utilities and services.
How useful are Data Recovery Software?
Data Recovery software effectively recovers and repair files, databases, storage media, corrupt partitions and brings back your data safely. Data recovery software are helpful and effectively recovers back your lost, deleted data, which can be easily purchased through on-line sale transactions. Almost every data recovery company provide FREE demo version of their data recovery software range.
This Free demo version is the best evaluation technique for a user. You should always try demo version of the software before deciding to purchase it. Test your damaged drive or file with the demo version and see whether the software is capable enough to recover back your data. It is a reliable means to test features, performance, speed, user friendliness of the software. If the demo version displays your data then you can purchase Full version of the software as the demo versions might not allow you to save the recovered data.
The number of data recovery software present in the market promise to recover data from the damaged or corrupted file systems: Windows (FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5), Linux (Ext2, Ext3, JFS, ReiserFS), Unix (UFS, EAFS, HTFS, VxFS, FFS), Novell Netware (NWFS, Net386, NSS) and Apple Macintosh (HFS, HFS+) and also from corrupt access databases, MS backup, corrupt zip files, corrupt excel files and corrupt word documents.
So whenever you face situations of data corruption or data loss, always follow the rule: “Test, Evaluate and Purchase!!!!”
How useful are Data Recovery Services?
Following the scientific approach, data recovery services are performed in Class 100 Clean rooms with high biometric security to recover every bit of data. These clean rooms should be equipped with the entire infrastructure like, air flow rate and direction, pressurization, temperature, humidity, specialized filtration and other standards required to perform data recovery.
Data Recovery Services are usually performed when data recovery software are unable to recover your data or the complexity of the damage to data is to such an extent that specialized attention of the data recovery technician is required. This generally happens in cases when your hard drive or storage media indicates the following symptoms: clicking noise from the hard disk drive, lots of bad sectors, S.M.A.R.T failure, drive not recognized by the BIOS, fire and water damage, hard disk component failure, computer is not bootable and many other undefined reasons.
The specialist data recovery service providers offer services of data recovery from hard disks of desktops and laptops, RAIDs, Tape media, Pen drives, Zip drives, Compact disks, DVDs, Digital Cards, Memory Cards etc where data gets lost due to Logical and Physical crashes.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Data Backup-Recovery and CYA
Has it happened to you yet?
Floppy disk with important data went bad?
CD or DVD with your favorite pictures got scratched?
Hard drive crashed without any, warning PC won't boot up?
Unless you have personally experienced the loss of data, whether it is pictures, important documents, spreadsheets, databases, music files, graphics or software, you will never understand why it is so critical to do backups on a regular basis to protect yourself.
Simply put, Backing-up is the activity of copying your files or databases so that they will be saved in the event of an equipment failure or other catastrophe. Backing-up is usually a routine that is part of the daily operation of large businesses using mainframes as well as by the management of smaller business computers. For home personal computer users, backing-up is also necessary but usually neglected.
The retrieval of the files you backed up is referred to as restoring them.
In the field of information technology or data processing, backup refers to the copying of data, so in the event they are needed, these additional copies may be restored after some type of a data loss.
Backups are normally used for two purposes:
1. In the event of some type of disaster, they are used to restore a computer to an operational state following the disaster.
2. In case files have been accidentally deleted or corrupted, you can restore small numbers of files.
What are the types of backups?
1. Full backup
A backup of all (selected) files on the system. This type of backup is essentially a waste of time, for the simple reason that in order to restore files, the operating system must be intact and bootable.
2. Incremental backup
A backup that only contains the files that have changed since the most recent backup (either full or incremental).
The advantage of this is quicker backup times, as only changed files need to be saved.
The disadvantage is longer recovery times, as the latest full backup, and all incremental backups up to the date of the data loss need to be restored in the appropriate order.
3. Differential backup
A cumulative backup of all changes made since the last full backup.
The advantage to this is the quicker recovery time, requiring only a full backup and the latest differential backup to restore the system.
The disadvantage is that for each day elapsed since the last full backup, more data needs to be backed up, especially if a majority of the data has been changed.
No one can ever predict if and when his or her hard drive will crash or when a floppy disk or cd will malfunction. It is no fun when it happens and you find out you has lost data of some type. Determine what you have on your computer that is extremely important to you and set up a plan to back those files up on a regular basis. Very small files can be copied to a floppy disk; large files can be copied to a CD or DVD. Keep a log of what you backup and when, so if you have to recover or restore a file or files, you will be able to easily find what you need.
There numerous software programs available to backup/restore files. Most of them allow you to compress the data that is to be backed and this simply conserves space on the backup medium. For large numbers of files or very large files, this is a good way to go. If you only have a few files and they are small, there is really no reason to compress them. Keep in mind that if you compress the files during backup, you will need the same software to decompress the files if they have to be restored.
Floppy disk with important data went bad?
CD or DVD with your favorite pictures got scratched?
Hard drive crashed without any, warning PC won't boot up?
Unless you have personally experienced the loss of data, whether it is pictures, important documents, spreadsheets, databases, music files, graphics or software, you will never understand why it is so critical to do backups on a regular basis to protect yourself.
Simply put, Backing-up is the activity of copying your files or databases so that they will be saved in the event of an equipment failure or other catastrophe. Backing-up is usually a routine that is part of the daily operation of large businesses using mainframes as well as by the management of smaller business computers. For home personal computer users, backing-up is also necessary but usually neglected.
The retrieval of the files you backed up is referred to as restoring them.
In the field of information technology or data processing, backup refers to the copying of data, so in the event they are needed, these additional copies may be restored after some type of a data loss.
Backups are normally used for two purposes:
1. In the event of some type of disaster, they are used to restore a computer to an operational state following the disaster.
2. In case files have been accidentally deleted or corrupted, you can restore small numbers of files.
What are the types of backups?
1. Full backup
A backup of all (selected) files on the system. This type of backup is essentially a waste of time, for the simple reason that in order to restore files, the operating system must be intact and bootable.
2. Incremental backup
A backup that only contains the files that have changed since the most recent backup (either full or incremental).
The advantage of this is quicker backup times, as only changed files need to be saved.
The disadvantage is longer recovery times, as the latest full backup, and all incremental backups up to the date of the data loss need to be restored in the appropriate order.
3. Differential backup
A cumulative backup of all changes made since the last full backup.
The advantage to this is the quicker recovery time, requiring only a full backup and the latest differential backup to restore the system.
The disadvantage is that for each day elapsed since the last full backup, more data needs to be backed up, especially if a majority of the data has been changed.
No one can ever predict if and when his or her hard drive will crash or when a floppy disk or cd will malfunction. It is no fun when it happens and you find out you has lost data of some type. Determine what you have on your computer that is extremely important to you and set up a plan to back those files up on a regular basis. Very small files can be copied to a floppy disk; large files can be copied to a CD or DVD. Keep a log of what you backup and when, so if you have to recover or restore a file or files, you will be able to easily find what you need.
There numerous software programs available to backup/restore files. Most of them allow you to compress the data that is to be backed and this simply conserves space on the backup medium. For large numbers of files or very large files, this is a good way to go. If you only have a few files and they are small, there is really no reason to compress them. Keep in mind that if you compress the files during backup, you will need the same software to decompress the files if they have to be restored.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
RAID Data Recovery - How It Works
RAID data recovery is probably one of the most complex processes any data recovery firm can perform. More often than not, the problems are compounded by the actions of the client prior to sending the drives in for recovery. Many users feel that it is important to try and recover the data themselves or repair the array through various system utilities, and this may be fine if the data is not critical. However, it has been our experience that when you have a RAID failure that has resulted in substantial data loss, more often than not, somebody's job is on the line if that data is not recovered. The biggest piece of advise this article can provide in the event of a RAID failure: LEAVE IT ALONE.
IT professionals have a lot of pressure placed on them when a catastrophic system failure occurs. It is their job to make sure that all systems are up and running. Many times, out of panic, troubleshooting processes are initiated in order to correct the problem. Often times these processes only make a bad situation even worse, and in many instances they can render the data unrecoverable. Let's keep in mind what this data can consist of in an average corporate environment. You are probably dealing with information that cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars in labor and resources to create. Much of the data probably can't be duplicated. The intellectual value alone could be in the many millions of dollars. Corporate executives really don't care to hear about how the failure occurred, or what unbelievable string of events led up to the server crashing. They don't care to hear the technical jargon as you try to explain to them what happened, and hope they understand that it wasn't your fault. They only want to know one thing..."why was this data not backed up, and how can we get it back?"
Instead of taking chances on your own, call a data recovery professional. RAID data recovery can be expensive, but in most cases it is much less costly than trying to recreate the data that has been lost. There is a set procedure that most data recovery professionals follow when it comes to performing any recovery work. These procedures are followed and expanded upon when dealing with a RAID recovery. The first step of any RAID recovery is to make sure all of the drives are functional. In order to properly complete the recovery it is essential that all drives are fully functional (this is especially true with a RAID 0). This may involve taking any physically damaged drives into the clean room, in order to make the necessary repairs so that they function normally again. Once that is completed the next step is to make complete, sector-by-sector clones of every drive. This is not "Ghosting", but a very low-level process that allows the recovery technician to work around bad sectors, and have complete control over how the drive functions. During the cloning process, the original source drive that you sent in, is generally put in a "write protect" mode so that no data can be written to the drive. This insures that the original source data is not altered in any way.
Once the cloning process is complete, the original drives you sent in are set off to the side and are no longer touched. The actual recovery process is performed on the cloned copies, so nothing that is done during recovery can make the situation worse. After the drives are cloned, they will be loaded into an emmulator and destriped. Destriping is like taking the scattered pieces of a puzzle and putting them together neatly. Simply stated, destriping is taking the data scattered among the multiple drives that make up array and placing it onto a single destination drive. From there we have a single drive in which we can complete what we would consider to be a "normal" recovery. We can complete this process even at the multi-terrabyte level. If the damage to the stripe is not too severe, in most cases a complete rebuild of the directory structure and all associated data can be completed.
IT professionals have a lot of pressure placed on them when a catastrophic system failure occurs. It is their job to make sure that all systems are up and running. Many times, out of panic, troubleshooting processes are initiated in order to correct the problem. Often times these processes only make a bad situation even worse, and in many instances they can render the data unrecoverable. Let's keep in mind what this data can consist of in an average corporate environment. You are probably dealing with information that cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars in labor and resources to create. Much of the data probably can't be duplicated. The intellectual value alone could be in the many millions of dollars. Corporate executives really don't care to hear about how the failure occurred, or what unbelievable string of events led up to the server crashing. They don't care to hear the technical jargon as you try to explain to them what happened, and hope they understand that it wasn't your fault. They only want to know one thing..."why was this data not backed up, and how can we get it back?"
Instead of taking chances on your own, call a data recovery professional. RAID data recovery can be expensive, but in most cases it is much less costly than trying to recreate the data that has been lost. There is a set procedure that most data recovery professionals follow when it comes to performing any recovery work. These procedures are followed and expanded upon when dealing with a RAID recovery. The first step of any RAID recovery is to make sure all of the drives are functional. In order to properly complete the recovery it is essential that all drives are fully functional (this is especially true with a RAID 0). This may involve taking any physically damaged drives into the clean room, in order to make the necessary repairs so that they function normally again. Once that is completed the next step is to make complete, sector-by-sector clones of every drive. This is not "Ghosting", but a very low-level process that allows the recovery technician to work around bad sectors, and have complete control over how the drive functions. During the cloning process, the original source drive that you sent in, is generally put in a "write protect" mode so that no data can be written to the drive. This insures that the original source data is not altered in any way.
Once the cloning process is complete, the original drives you sent in are set off to the side and are no longer touched. The actual recovery process is performed on the cloned copies, so nothing that is done during recovery can make the situation worse. After the drives are cloned, they will be loaded into an emmulator and destriped. Destriping is like taking the scattered pieces of a puzzle and putting them together neatly. Simply stated, destriping is taking the data scattered among the multiple drives that make up array and placing it onto a single destination drive. From there we have a single drive in which we can complete what we would consider to be a "normal" recovery. We can complete this process even at the multi-terrabyte level. If the damage to the stripe is not too severe, in most cases a complete rebuild of the directory structure and all associated data can be completed.
Friday, January 12, 2007
How Outlook Stores Your Data
Outlook is basically a flat-file database. As you create new e-mails, or as new e-mails are received, or when you create and save a new item in an Outlook folder, Outlook adds the new item to the location identified as the primary store. The exact location depends on how you configured Outlook when it was installed on your computer. Usually, your Personal Folders file (username.pst for example) is stored on your local computer in your ‘My Documents’ folder.
If you are not connected to an Microsoft Exchange Server, your e-mails, calendar, and other items are delivered to and stored locally in a personal folder (.pst) file. The letters pst stand for Personal Storage Table. The following files are commonly referenced by the various versions of Outlook.
Outlook data files (.pst)
drive:Documents and SettingsLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
Offline Folders file (.ost)
drive:Documents and Settings<>Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
Personal Address Book (.pab)
drive:Documents and Settings<>Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
Offline Address Books (.oab)
drive:Documents and Settings<>Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
Outlook contacts nicknames (.nk2)
drive:Documents and Settings<>Application DataMicrosoftOutlook
If you are not connected to an Microsoft Exchange Server, your e-mails, calendar, and other items are delivered to and stored locally in a personal folder (.pst) file. The letters pst stand for Personal Storage Table. The following files are commonly referenced by the various versions of Outlook.
Outlook data files (.pst)
drive:Documents and SettingsLocal SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
Offline Folders file (.ost)
drive:Documents and Settings<>Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
Personal Address Book (.pab)
drive:Documents and Settings<>Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
Offline Address Books (.oab)
drive:Documents and Settings<>Local SettingsApplication DataMicrosoftOutlook
Outlook contacts nicknames (.nk2)
drive:Documents and Settings<>Application DataMicrosoftOutlook
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Access To The Hidden Partition Pqservice
Many laptops and computers comes in our days without recovery cd, the OS and driver are in hidden partition.
I will show you step by step how to unhide this partition. You will need to use the Ultimate Boot CD.
Be aware that you can lose all your data in this operation, you should bakup all your important things before.
This, is working with acer aspire laptops and probabily with a large variety of computer with hidden partition.
First boot in bios menu by pressing F2 key on boot,
disable the d2d recovery, change the boot menu to boot from cdrom first,
insert the ultimate boot cd in your cd drive save and exit.
The UBCD will boot now. In the menu chose F3 filesystem tools ; then chose [1] MBRTOOL ; after chose your boot option(for me 2 is working well).
Enter in Mbr tool first take a pen and a paper.
In the menu chose -6 Other option
then -5 edit partition table
chose your disk number generaly disk 0(your disk number is in green at the upper right corner)
enter source type , type is original 'O'
Here we are. Now take realy care there are 2 blue line one for current value and one for new value.
In the column 'TYPE' the entry 1 should be 12, note the value on your paper well, we will now edit this
entry by typing 1.
Don't change the value in the column 'ACT' and in the column 'TYPE' put the value 0B.
Hit S key for saving, hit esc . Eject the UBCD and reboot.
After boot in windows go to my computer you will see a new disk named PQSERVICE you've done it.
In this disk you can find your drivers and windows files. We will explain in another review how to make a
real windows cd with these data.
Since that you have finish with these data you just have to repeat the operation and change back the value.
Ultimate Boot cd is free to download.
I will show you step by step how to unhide this partition. You will need to use the Ultimate Boot CD.
Be aware that you can lose all your data in this operation, you should bakup all your important things before.
This, is working with acer aspire laptops and probabily with a large variety of computer with hidden partition.
First boot in bios menu by pressing F2 key on boot,
disable the d2d recovery, change the boot menu to boot from cdrom first,
insert the ultimate boot cd in your cd drive save and exit.
The UBCD will boot now. In the menu chose F3 filesystem tools ; then chose [1] MBRTOOL ; after chose your boot option(for me 2 is working well).
Enter in Mbr tool first take a pen and a paper.
In the menu chose -6 Other option
then -5 edit partition table
chose your disk number generaly disk 0(your disk number is in green at the upper right corner)
enter source type , type is original 'O'
Here we are. Now take realy care there are 2 blue line one for current value and one for new value.
In the column 'TYPE' the entry 1 should be 12, note the value on your paper well, we will now edit this
entry by typing 1.
Don't change the value in the column 'ACT' and in the column 'TYPE' put the value 0B.
Hit S key for saving, hit esc . Eject the UBCD and reboot.
After boot in windows go to my computer you will see a new disk named PQSERVICE you've done it.
In this disk you can find your drivers and windows files. We will explain in another review how to make a
real windows cd with these data.
Since that you have finish with these data you just have to repeat the operation and change back the value.
Ultimate Boot cd is free to download.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
How To Backup Mails And Address Book Of Outlook Express
What happens when you log into your computer system and find that you cannot access your mails on Outlook Express? All your important emails, drafts, appointments, attachments, contact addresses have become inaccessible.
At this point you realize the importance of backing up your emails. Isn’t it?
Outlook Express – the easiest and widely used email client on Windows OS provides easy options through which you can create backup of your emails and contact addresses.
For the users of Windows 98, backup of emails is stored in the Windows directory and for the users of Windows 200 and XP, the emails get stored in the Application Data folder. The email client stores the emails in the form of .dbx files – Inbox.dbx, Drafts.dbx, Outbox.dbx, Personal.dbx and so on. Every folder added in your account is saved at this location.
Email communication has expanded itself from professionals to home users and thus also faces the situations of corruptions and damages. Emails easily become corrupt and deleted due to virus attacks, accidental deletions, header corruption of .dbx or .mbx file, damage in the transit, power failure, automatic system shutdown or the mails get permanently deleted from the ‘Deleted Items’ folder.
To avoid the situations of losing important emails, one should always create and maintain backup of the emails and contact addresses. This backup can be created at any location of your computer system or to any CDRW or DVD.
The first and foremost step is to find the actual path where Outlook Express stores the .dbx files. Perform the following steps to locate the .dbx file(s):
1. Launch Outlook Express.
2. Click the Tools menu.
3. Select the Options option. The Options dialogue box will be displayed.
4. Select the Maintenance tab from the Options dialogue box.
5. Click the Store Folder button. The Store Location window will appear with the path of the folder (Outlook Express), where personal messages are stored.
6. Copy the path and click OK or click Change to modify the location of saving the personal messages.
7. Paste this path in address field of the Windows File Manager. The Outlook Express folder with the .dbx file(s) will be displayed.
The folder has the number of folders which you have created in your mail account. Simply copy these files and paste them to new location or take backup on any other hard disk, CDRW, DVD or on a network drive.
Similarly backup of the address book can also be created and the contact list can be saved from getting corrupt. Perform the following steps to backup the Address Book:
1. Launch Outlook Express.
2. Select Tools > Address Book from the drop-down menu.
3. The Address Book – Main Identity (account name) window will be displayed. Complete details of your contact list are displayed in this window.
4. Select File > Export > Other Address Book.. option.
5. The Address Book Export Tool window will be displayed. Select the Text File (Comma Separated Values) option and click the Export button.
6. The CSV Export window appears. Select the desired location to save the exported file and click Next.
7. The window to select the field names of the address book will be displayed. Select the folder name which you want to save and click Finish.
On successful completion the Address book export process has completed message will be displayed on the screen.
At this point you realize the importance of backing up your emails. Isn’t it?
Outlook Express – the easiest and widely used email client on Windows OS provides easy options through which you can create backup of your emails and contact addresses.
For the users of Windows 98, backup of emails is stored in the Windows directory and for the users of Windows 200 and XP, the emails get stored in the Application Data folder. The email client stores the emails in the form of .dbx files – Inbox.dbx, Drafts.dbx, Outbox.dbx, Personal.dbx and so on. Every folder added in your account is saved at this location.
Email communication has expanded itself from professionals to home users and thus also faces the situations of corruptions and damages. Emails easily become corrupt and deleted due to virus attacks, accidental deletions, header corruption of .dbx or .mbx file, damage in the transit, power failure, automatic system shutdown or the mails get permanently deleted from the ‘Deleted Items’ folder.
To avoid the situations of losing important emails, one should always create and maintain backup of the emails and contact addresses. This backup can be created at any location of your computer system or to any CDRW or DVD.
The first and foremost step is to find the actual path where Outlook Express stores the .dbx files. Perform the following steps to locate the .dbx file(s):
1. Launch Outlook Express.
2. Click the Tools menu.
3. Select the Options option. The Options dialogue box will be displayed.
4. Select the Maintenance tab from the Options dialogue box.
5. Click the Store Folder button. The Store Location window will appear with the path of the folder (Outlook Express), where personal messages are stored.
6. Copy the path and click OK or click Change to modify the location of saving the personal messages.
7. Paste this path in address field of the Windows File Manager. The Outlook Express folder with the .dbx file(s) will be displayed.
The folder has the number of folders which you have created in your mail account. Simply copy these files and paste them to new location or take backup on any other hard disk, CDRW, DVD or on a network drive.
Similarly backup of the address book can also be created and the contact list can be saved from getting corrupt. Perform the following steps to backup the Address Book:
1. Launch Outlook Express.
2. Select Tools > Address Book from the drop-down menu.
3. The Address Book – Main Identity (account name) window will be displayed. Complete details of your contact list are displayed in this window.
4. Select File > Export > Other Address Book.. option.
5. The Address Book Export Tool window will be displayed. Select the Text File (Comma Separated Values) option and click the Export button.
6. The CSV Export window appears. Select the desired location to save the exported file and click Next.
7. The window to select the field names of the address book will be displayed. Select the folder name which you want to save and click Finish.
On successful completion the Address book export process has completed message will be displayed on the screen.
Tuesday, January 9, 2007
How To Prevent Data Loss Situations
One fine morning when you open your computer system and try to open an important file and the message appears ‘the particular file cannot be opened’. Now do you have the idea why the file is no longer accessible, it could be a virus attack, media corruption, file deletion or anything of that sort.
Files and folders might get corrupt or damaged due to severe virus attacks, corruption of the storage media, unexpected system shutdown, bad sectors in the disk and display of error messages are the possible reasons which lead a file to get damaged or corrupt.
You can prevent such situations by taking simple and easy to follow measures:
Perform regular Backups: Backup your data on regular basis. These backups can be created with some backup software or on some external media like – CDRW, DVD, and Tape.
Placement of your computer system: Keep your computer system in safe, dry and dust free area to prevent physical damage to the computers.
Update Virus Definitions: Viruses can attack at any point of time, so regularly update your anti-virus software. Virus attacks can result into severe data loss.
Protect your system from Power Surges: Huge power surges can destroy your computer equipment but on the contrary low level of power release can erase data on the hard drives. Always ensure that your computer system receives uninterrupted power supply, so that data can be backed up at the time of outage.
Protection from Static Electricity: The computer system should be protected from the Static Electricity which erases data or damage the equipments. The available storage media’s are becoming more vulnerable to Extraneous Static Discharge (ESD)
Files and folders might get corrupt or damaged due to severe virus attacks, corruption of the storage media, unexpected system shutdown, bad sectors in the disk and display of error messages are the possible reasons which lead a file to get damaged or corrupt.
You can prevent such situations by taking simple and easy to follow measures:
Perform regular Backups: Backup your data on regular basis. These backups can be created with some backup software or on some external media like – CDRW, DVD, and Tape.
Placement of your computer system: Keep your computer system in safe, dry and dust free area to prevent physical damage to the computers.
Update Virus Definitions: Viruses can attack at any point of time, so regularly update your anti-virus software. Virus attacks can result into severe data loss.
Protect your system from Power Surges: Huge power surges can destroy your computer equipment but on the contrary low level of power release can erase data on the hard drives. Always ensure that your computer system receives uninterrupted power supply, so that data can be backed up at the time of outage.
Protection from Static Electricity: The computer system should be protected from the Static Electricity which erases data or damage the equipments. The available storage media’s are becoming more vulnerable to Extraneous Static Discharge (ESD)
Monday, January 8, 2007
RAID - Use Of Multiple Hard Drives For High Storage And Reliability
Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) was introduced to increase the level of storage, redundancy and augmented performance in enterprises and server markets, but now have become much common with an end user over the past 5 years.
In simple terms, RAID can be defined as a combination of number of low cost hard drives linked together to form a single large capacity storage device with improved performance, high storage capacity and reliability of data storage. Use of RAID storage technology came into significance in late 1980s and has marked its presence as the in-demand data storage medium for corporates, professionals, manufacturing units and individual users for their need of high capacity data storage device.
Generally three forms of RAID are used for desktop computer systems – RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 5.
RAID 0 is the lowest level of RAID. This level fails to provide any level of redundancy for the data stored in array. If any of the drive fails, all the data is damaged.
RAID 1 provides simple form of redundancy for data with the help of mirroring process. This RAID level has two individual drives with same capacity. One is the active drive and the second is secondary drive termed as mirror. When data is written to the active drive, it automatically gets copied to the mirror drive.
RAID 5 is the most powerful and effective level of RAID used on desktop computer system. It requires hardware controller card to manage the array but in some desktop operating system it can be done through software. A minimum of three drives are required to build RAID 5 array with similar drives for best performance.
Other levels of RAID levels are RAID 0+1, RAID 10 or 1+0, software and hardware RAIDs which are used for the storage of data.
Advantages of RAID:
Redundancy:
Redundancy becomes the most important feature while developing the RAID server environment. Redundancy is required in means of performing backup of data in situations of drive failure in the array.
Capacity:
By combining multiple small drives into a large array, capacity to store large amount of data increases. The data storage capability of the operating system increases as the RAID server is installed thus providing you the freedom to store any amount of data which gets restricted while using the limited size drives.
Enhanced Performance:
Improved performance can be found in specific versions of RAID and this performance depends upon the number of drives used in the array and the controller. Different RAIDs when implemented provide superior performance in their own way and up to different levels, but all improve in some way or the other.
Lower Cost:
When RAIDs were introduced, the cost of implementing them became a key issue. The invention of RAID was to provide greater storage capacity as compared to use individual high storage capacity device. Difference in the cost of high and low capacity drives can be analyzed with a good example where three drives of small size cost less than an individual high capacity drive which provides more capacity.
Data Security:
The data which is stored on array is completely secured as RAID provides complete security and competence to protect the data. This security is followed even if the complete hard disk fails without any data loss or performing the restoration process of the backed up data. All RAID levels provide same degree of data security.
Improved Accessibility:
Accessibility refers to availability of data. RAID provides its users to recover data from hardware faults without any problems.
In simple terms, RAID can be defined as a combination of number of low cost hard drives linked together to form a single large capacity storage device with improved performance, high storage capacity and reliability of data storage. Use of RAID storage technology came into significance in late 1980s and has marked its presence as the in-demand data storage medium for corporates, professionals, manufacturing units and individual users for their need of high capacity data storage device.
Generally three forms of RAID are used for desktop computer systems – RAID 0, RAID 1 and RAID 5.
RAID 0 is the lowest level of RAID. This level fails to provide any level of redundancy for the data stored in array. If any of the drive fails, all the data is damaged.
RAID 1 provides simple form of redundancy for data with the help of mirroring process. This RAID level has two individual drives with same capacity. One is the active drive and the second is secondary drive termed as mirror. When data is written to the active drive, it automatically gets copied to the mirror drive.
RAID 5 is the most powerful and effective level of RAID used on desktop computer system. It requires hardware controller card to manage the array but in some desktop operating system it can be done through software. A minimum of three drives are required to build RAID 5 array with similar drives for best performance.
Other levels of RAID levels are RAID 0+1, RAID 10 or 1+0, software and hardware RAIDs which are used for the storage of data.
Advantages of RAID:
Redundancy:
Redundancy becomes the most important feature while developing the RAID server environment. Redundancy is required in means of performing backup of data in situations of drive failure in the array.
Capacity:
By combining multiple small drives into a large array, capacity to store large amount of data increases. The data storage capability of the operating system increases as the RAID server is installed thus providing you the freedom to store any amount of data which gets restricted while using the limited size drives.
Enhanced Performance:
Improved performance can be found in specific versions of RAID and this performance depends upon the number of drives used in the array and the controller. Different RAIDs when implemented provide superior performance in their own way and up to different levels, but all improve in some way or the other.
Lower Cost:
When RAIDs were introduced, the cost of implementing them became a key issue. The invention of RAID was to provide greater storage capacity as compared to use individual high storage capacity device. Difference in the cost of high and low capacity drives can be analyzed with a good example where three drives of small size cost less than an individual high capacity drive which provides more capacity.
Data Security:
The data which is stored on array is completely secured as RAID provides complete security and competence to protect the data. This security is followed even if the complete hard disk fails without any data loss or performing the restoration process of the backed up data. All RAID levels provide same degree of data security.
Improved Accessibility:
Accessibility refers to availability of data. RAID provides its users to recover data from hardware faults without any problems.
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Corrupt Word File Recovery
There are as many ways to recover the lost data as there are the reasons to lose it. If there are 10 ways to loose data then there are 12 methods to recover back the lost/deleted data. Generally, a word file gets corrupt due to unexpected system shutdown, power outage, software crashes, file corruption, virus attacks and due to many other endless reasons.
The in-built recovery facility in MS Word helps you to recover the minor corrupted files.
MS Word allows you to create a backup copy of your work every time you save the file, which can be easily accessed in case if the .doc file gets corrupt or damaged.
For example, if you are working on a ‘Support.doc’ in MS Word and you have enabled the backup option, Word will automatically create a backup copy called ‘Backup copy of support.doc’. So if in case your document file gets corrupt you can use this backup copy.
To turn on the backup option in MS Word, perform the following steps:
1. Launch MS Word.
2. Click Tools > Options and click the Save tab.
3. Select the Always Create Backup Copy check box.
The AutoRecover feature in Office XP constantly saves data of the file you are working on and helps in undue circumstances of unexpected system shutdown, power failure, software crash where the document automatically gets closed. The next time you launch the application, Word restores the last saved data and presents the recovered file. The “Document Recovery Window” gets open on left side of the document screen with the list of recovered files. Double click the appropriate file or right click and select Save to save it.
The in-built recovery facility in MS Word helps you to recover the minor corrupted files.
MS Word allows you to create a backup copy of your work every time you save the file, which can be easily accessed in case if the .doc file gets corrupt or damaged.
For example, if you are working on a ‘Support.doc’ in MS Word and you have enabled the backup option, Word will automatically create a backup copy called ‘Backup copy of support.doc’. So if in case your document file gets corrupt you can use this backup copy.
To turn on the backup option in MS Word, perform the following steps:
1. Launch MS Word.
2. Click Tools > Options and click the Save tab.
3. Select the Always Create Backup Copy check box.
The AutoRecover feature in Office XP constantly saves data of the file you are working on and helps in undue circumstances of unexpected system shutdown, power failure, software crash where the document automatically gets closed. The next time you launch the application, Word restores the last saved data and presents the recovered file. The “Document Recovery Window” gets open on left side of the document screen with the list of recovered files. Double click the appropriate file or right click and select Save to save it.
Saturday, January 6, 2007
Best Methods Of Data Destruction On Computer Hard Disk Drives
We are constantly reminded of the importance of recycling. In the ICT industry, recycling of computer equipment can be useful for educational or charitable organisations. It can however be detrimental to the previous owner. Charitable establishments such as Computer Aid International will refurbish computers for reuse in various sectors including education, health and other non-profit organisations for the benefit of developing countries. It would appear Computer Aid International ‘wipe’ each hard disk drive, which is good news as it hopefully provides some certainty that data cannot be retrieved.
However, it is doubtful that the ‘average’ user realises the risks involved by selling their old computer on websites such as eBay. They may delete all their files, re-install the operating system (OS) and possibly format their drive, yet the data will probably reside on the disk, typically in unallocated space. Data fragments may be present that could be used maliciously in the hands of a criminal; indeed data from any source i.e. any electronic device could be used maliciously. Discarding computer equipment without due care could lead to irreparable, financial, political and personal damage to the owner or organisation.
A recent study conducted by Glamorgan University (source: Time Online website) revealed more than 50% of the 111 hard drives purchased contained personal and confidential information. Over 87% of those drives were bought from eBay. This, I feel, raises an international concern. The fundamental concept of eBay and other online auctioneer sites is bringing sellers and individuals together to trade online, creating a world wide market place. Whilst this is beneficial for the legitimate user, we do however risk handing over our personal data to terrorists, corrupt organisations and paedophiles, not to mention the risk of being blackmailed or threatened.
Therefore, the question is – what is the best method of wiping data from our hard drives and protecting ourselves against these threats? With due consideration to economic, data confidentiality and environmental factors I shall discuss the various options available to the public and private sectors.
What are the software options?
Generally, you could choose to either physically destroy the hardware or use either software or hardware to delete the data. There are many software products offering data destruction and typically software vendors ‘guarantee’ to destroy your data. Yet, is this enough? This approach relies on the user correctly installing the software and carrying out the correct procedure. In most instances a computer will only have one hard disk; yet to execute such a program (and to get the desired ‘100%’ destruction result) usually requires an operating system to be present. In other words, you need another hard drive to run the software so that data can be deleted off the unwanted drive. Alternatives may include bootable programs such as DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) that claims to “delete the contents of any hard disk it detects”. Other software options include: AccessData – WipeDrive, Acronis - Drive Cleanser, CyberScrub - CyberCide and VCOM – SecureErase. These represent just a small handful of the applications available.
The software approach may incur costs; however some applications are probably free on the internet. The disadvantage I feel for a software based approach is the time consumption. Generally speaking ‘shredders’ will write data onto each of the drive’s sectors. The type of data depends on the application; however, this may include characters or numerals. The process, assuming numerals, is known as ‘binary flipping’. Basically a binary number, for example 11110000 is written to each sector then the ‘flip side’, or compliment as it is known, is written. In this instance this would be 00001111.
According to research, the United States Department of Defence considers this approach, with adequate executions and particular algorithms used, to be acceptable in destroying non critical data. However, they suggest executions up to 32 times to class a disk ‘sanitised’. We therefore must consider the complications and factors of such extremes. To sanitise a drive 32 times will take copious amounts of time, therefore wasting electricity, time and obviously human and computer resources. This process could take days if not weeks if there were hundreds of disks.
What are the hardware options?
The DiskMaster is an excellent example of how data can be destroyed using a hardware approach. It is fast, efficient and you can set a predefined pattern that should be written to the disk. The DiskMaster is able to wipe drives to Department of Defence standards.
However, again with this approach much time is required to wipe a drive. The concept of a hard disk drive has evolved since the 1950’s where data from 5MB (Mega Byte) could be stored. Now we are in an era where 750GB (Giga Bytes) can be stored on one single disk. This inevitably means to destroy a disk, using either software or hardware based approaches will increase in time, cost and subsequently your patience.
Are there any other options?
I believe that physical destruction is the quickest and simplest approach. By removing the top plate of a hard disk drive, you limit the chances of recovering the data due to dust and other contaminants affecting the drives platters (where your data is stored). Physically scoring lines or drilling holes into the platter will hopefully destroy the data beyond any reasonable doubt.
The concept of shredding paper to deter criminals using printed material such as bank statements or bills for identity theft and forgery has now been taken to the next level. Available now is an industrial tape and hard disk shredder. If you search within Google “GSA Industrial Tape and Hard Drive Destroyer 380/500” you will witness the future when it comes to data destruction.
However, it is doubtful that the ‘average’ user realises the risks involved by selling their old computer on websites such as eBay. They may delete all their files, re-install the operating system (OS) and possibly format their drive, yet the data will probably reside on the disk, typically in unallocated space. Data fragments may be present that could be used maliciously in the hands of a criminal; indeed data from any source i.e. any electronic device could be used maliciously. Discarding computer equipment without due care could lead to irreparable, financial, political and personal damage to the owner or organisation.
A recent study conducted by Glamorgan University (source: Time Online website) revealed more than 50% of the 111 hard drives purchased contained personal and confidential information. Over 87% of those drives were bought from eBay. This, I feel, raises an international concern. The fundamental concept of eBay and other online auctioneer sites is bringing sellers and individuals together to trade online, creating a world wide market place. Whilst this is beneficial for the legitimate user, we do however risk handing over our personal data to terrorists, corrupt organisations and paedophiles, not to mention the risk of being blackmailed or threatened.
Therefore, the question is – what is the best method of wiping data from our hard drives and protecting ourselves against these threats? With due consideration to economic, data confidentiality and environmental factors I shall discuss the various options available to the public and private sectors.
What are the software options?
Generally, you could choose to either physically destroy the hardware or use either software or hardware to delete the data. There are many software products offering data destruction and typically software vendors ‘guarantee’ to destroy your data. Yet, is this enough? This approach relies on the user correctly installing the software and carrying out the correct procedure. In most instances a computer will only have one hard disk; yet to execute such a program (and to get the desired ‘100%’ destruction result) usually requires an operating system to be present. In other words, you need another hard drive to run the software so that data can be deleted off the unwanted drive. Alternatives may include bootable programs such as DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke) that claims to “delete the contents of any hard disk it detects”. Other software options include: AccessData – WipeDrive, Acronis - Drive Cleanser, CyberScrub - CyberCide and VCOM – SecureErase. These represent just a small handful of the applications available.
The software approach may incur costs; however some applications are probably free on the internet. The disadvantage I feel for a software based approach is the time consumption. Generally speaking ‘shredders’ will write data onto each of the drive’s sectors. The type of data depends on the application; however, this may include characters or numerals. The process, assuming numerals, is known as ‘binary flipping’. Basically a binary number, for example 11110000 is written to each sector then the ‘flip side’, or compliment as it is known, is written. In this instance this would be 00001111.
According to research, the United States Department of Defence considers this approach, with adequate executions and particular algorithms used, to be acceptable in destroying non critical data. However, they suggest executions up to 32 times to class a disk ‘sanitised’. We therefore must consider the complications and factors of such extremes. To sanitise a drive 32 times will take copious amounts of time, therefore wasting electricity, time and obviously human and computer resources. This process could take days if not weeks if there were hundreds of disks.
What are the hardware options?
The DiskMaster is an excellent example of how data can be destroyed using a hardware approach. It is fast, efficient and you can set a predefined pattern that should be written to the disk. The DiskMaster is able to wipe drives to Department of Defence standards.
However, again with this approach much time is required to wipe a drive. The concept of a hard disk drive has evolved since the 1950’s where data from 5MB (Mega Byte) could be stored. Now we are in an era where 750GB (Giga Bytes) can be stored on one single disk. This inevitably means to destroy a disk, using either software or hardware based approaches will increase in time, cost and subsequently your patience.
Are there any other options?
I believe that physical destruction is the quickest and simplest approach. By removing the top plate of a hard disk drive, you limit the chances of recovering the data due to dust and other contaminants affecting the drives platters (where your data is stored). Physically scoring lines or drilling holes into the platter will hopefully destroy the data beyond any reasonable doubt.
The concept of shredding paper to deter criminals using printed material such as bank statements or bills for identity theft and forgery has now been taken to the next level. Available now is an industrial tape and hard disk shredder. If you search within Google “GSA Industrial Tape and Hard Drive Destroyer 380/500” you will witness the future when it comes to data destruction.
Friday, January 5, 2007
Managing Backup And Recovery Services
Iceland Seafood International (ISI) has numerous offices located in ten countries and sells seafood products to UK retailers, and in order for the headquarters in Iceland to manage the business on a global scale, it is important that the data generated in all of its satellite offices is protected. ISI was previously using a tape-based backup service, which was not efficient or effective in its subsidiary office locations in the United Kingdom and Germany. The tape-based backup was "just about" manageable in the Iceland offices, but it was proving difficult to manage the tape backups on an international scale: The tapes weren't being changed at the stipulated times, it was difficult to recover data from tapes located all over the world and there was the additional concern of tapes potentially going missing.
SecurStore Remote Backup Service used all its knowledge and experience to bring the most effective and efficient solution to ISI by using Asigra Televaulting. ISI's multi-office corporate structure demanded a backup/restore service that respected remote data and ensured that it is protected to the same level as corporate data. ISI turned to SecurStore to eliminate these problems with their agentless distributed backup software service, which does not require tapes and allows a company with geographically dispersed offices to back up and recover data from a single location. Data protection is assured as encrypted data is backed up via disk over the WAN and stored offsite. SecurStore's high-calibre services guaranteed ISI successful and fast retrieval of any data they require from any office location around the globe.
"Within minutes of starting the test phase of the SecurStore Remote Backup Service we realised the benefits distributed backup and recovery would provide us with, not just from a cost perspective, but also from a global business continuity perspective," said Runar Bjarnthorsson, IT Manager of Iceland Seafood International."We chose SecurStore because their service eliminates the possibility of human error and allows us to protect our entire company's data from every global office location, which can all be managed from our headquarters in Iceland," continued Bjarnthorsson. "We saw very quickly from initial tests how much cost we could save with agentless software by paying for the amount of data stored and not for each machine that is backed up.”
SecurStore Remote Backup Service used all its knowledge and experience to bring the most effective and efficient solution to ISI by using Asigra Televaulting. ISI's multi-office corporate structure demanded a backup/restore service that respected remote data and ensured that it is protected to the same level as corporate data. ISI turned to SecurStore to eliminate these problems with their agentless distributed backup software service, which does not require tapes and allows a company with geographically dispersed offices to back up and recover data from a single location. Data protection is assured as encrypted data is backed up via disk over the WAN and stored offsite. SecurStore's high-calibre services guaranteed ISI successful and fast retrieval of any data they require from any office location around the globe.
"Within minutes of starting the test phase of the SecurStore Remote Backup Service we realised the benefits distributed backup and recovery would provide us with, not just from a cost perspective, but also from a global business continuity perspective," said Runar Bjarnthorsson, IT Manager of Iceland Seafood International."We chose SecurStore because their service eliminates the possibility of human error and allows us to protect our entire company's data from every global office location, which can all be managed from our headquarters in Iceland," continued Bjarnthorsson. "We saw very quickly from initial tests how much cost we could save with agentless software by paying for the amount of data stored and not for each machine that is backed up.”
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Emergency Data Recovery
Emergency data recovery is the process of retrieving deleted and inaccessible data from the hard drive of a PC or laptop. A hard drive may crash at any time due to logical or physical failures, which include software problems, computer viruses, and mechanical or electrical malfunctioning.
Emergency data recovery is possible because when a file is deleted, the operating system merely deletes the address or path of the file and treats the occupied space as free space. The file remains there until it is overwritten with new data. FAT (file allocation table) and MFT (master file table) contain details of all the files on the hard drive even after they are deleted by the operating system. Data recovery software looks into these tables and recovers the lost files.
It is important to follow standard emergency recovery guidelines to avoid further damage to the hard drive and other components. The first step is to shut down the computer, remove the hard drive and send it to a data recovery firm. There it is evaluated for cost and time of recovery and the client is informed of such within 24 hours. Upon approval of the client, the hard drive is cloned by making a sector-by-sector copy of the original drive. Lost or deleted data is then recovered using data recovery systems and software.
Freeware can also be used to recover lost data. It recovers lost data in four or five easy steps. Users just need to execute the recovery freeware and select the drive. The software recovers all files and folders from the drive and gives the option of transferring these files to another hard disk or other storage media.
Emergency data recovery is possible because when a file is deleted, the operating system merely deletes the address or path of the file and treats the occupied space as free space. The file remains there until it is overwritten with new data. FAT (file allocation table) and MFT (master file table) contain details of all the files on the hard drive even after they are deleted by the operating system. Data recovery software looks into these tables and recovers the lost files.
It is important to follow standard emergency recovery guidelines to avoid further damage to the hard drive and other components. The first step is to shut down the computer, remove the hard drive and send it to a data recovery firm. There it is evaluated for cost and time of recovery and the client is informed of such within 24 hours. Upon approval of the client, the hard drive is cloned by making a sector-by-sector copy of the original drive. Lost or deleted data is then recovered using data recovery systems and software.
Freeware can also be used to recover lost data. It recovers lost data in four or five easy steps. Users just need to execute the recovery freeware and select the drive. The software recovers all files and folders from the drive and gives the option of transferring these files to another hard disk or other storage media.
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Password Recovery
Passwords are used to prevent unauthorized access to a computer system, individual files, and/or folders stored on the hard drive. People normally use different passwords for different purposes and very often forget their passwords. This may restrict them from accessing important data stored in files and folders.
Password recovery tools allow computer users to recover their lost or forgotten passwords with the help of easy to use password recovery software. Password recovery software is designed for legal use and is not meant for unethical use, such as recovering passwords for e-mail accounts, bank accounts, and registered user logins of other people.
Password recovery software can be used to recover passwords of different types of file formats and applications. Possible recoveries include Pocket Excel passwords, PowerPoint passwords, project passwords, schedule passwords, VBA passwords, Word passwords, Windows passwords, and Zip passwords.
Password recovery software uses different types of recovery methods, such as trying all the combinations of alphabets and numbers from zero to nine. This usually takes a lot of time and in many cases does not even recover the password as people often use symbols combined with letters and numbers. Another method used is known as ?dictionary attacks? in which all the words listed in a dictionary are used as passwords. These can also be combined with numbers and symbols to increase the chances of password recovery. Apart from these, other types of recovery software is also available that disables the password protection tool of files and folders and makes them accessible without entering the password.
Password recovery tools allow computer users to recover their lost or forgotten passwords with the help of easy to use password recovery software. Password recovery software is designed for legal use and is not meant for unethical use, such as recovering passwords for e-mail accounts, bank accounts, and registered user logins of other people.
Password recovery software can be used to recover passwords of different types of file formats and applications. Possible recoveries include Pocket Excel passwords, PowerPoint passwords, project passwords, schedule passwords, VBA passwords, Word passwords, Windows passwords, and Zip passwords.
Password recovery software uses different types of recovery methods, such as trying all the combinations of alphabets and numbers from zero to nine. This usually takes a lot of time and in many cases does not even recover the password as people often use symbols combined with letters and numbers. Another method used is known as ?dictionary attacks? in which all the words listed in a dictionary are used as passwords. These can also be combined with numbers and symbols to increase the chances of password recovery. Apart from these, other types of recovery software is also available that disables the password protection tool of files and folders and makes them accessible without entering the password.
Tuesday, January 2, 2007
Damaged Hard Drive Recovery
A hard drive failure is an unexpected event. A buzzing or ticking sound might be the only indication before all the ongoing work is lost in a matter of seconds. Since so much data is stored on the hard drives, data recovery procedures become a must in case of disk failure.
A hard drive may get damaged either internally or externally. Internal damage maybe caused by corrupt software, bad file structure or virus attacks. This is known as logical failure. When a component of the hard drive is damaged due to power fluctuations or heavy impact, it is known as physical failure. Both these cases can be rectified to recover the data on the hard drive.
The nature of the problem should be analyzed. The user can run disk utilities such as ?Scandisk? to determine if there are any problems with the hard drive. Such utilities scan the complete disk area for bad and lost sectors. Some utilities determine if there is any physical damage to the disk. Damaged data can usually be rectified by these normal utilities. The data in bad sectors can be copied to another location. If the basic disk utilities do not work, the user can go in for the high-end data recovery softwares available in the market. This software can recover almost all types of data losses.
However, if there is any physical damage to the disk, it will require expert help. Dedicated professionals effectively evaluate the damage and determine how much data can be recovered. Once the client approval is received, these professionals use state-of-the-art technology and methods to extract data from such drives. Magnetometers are a common instrument used to extract data bits from the drives to rebuild the disk image. General repairs such as fixing the reading head or the circuit board can also be performed.
A hard drive may get damaged either internally or externally. Internal damage maybe caused by corrupt software, bad file structure or virus attacks. This is known as logical failure. When a component of the hard drive is damaged due to power fluctuations or heavy impact, it is known as physical failure. Both these cases can be rectified to recover the data on the hard drive.
The nature of the problem should be analyzed. The user can run disk utilities such as ?Scandisk? to determine if there are any problems with the hard drive. Such utilities scan the complete disk area for bad and lost sectors. Some utilities determine if there is any physical damage to the disk. Damaged data can usually be rectified by these normal utilities. The data in bad sectors can be copied to another location. If the basic disk utilities do not work, the user can go in for the high-end data recovery softwares available in the market. This software can recover almost all types of data losses.
However, if there is any physical damage to the disk, it will require expert help. Dedicated professionals effectively evaluate the damage and determine how much data can be recovered. Once the client approval is received, these professionals use state-of-the-art technology and methods to extract data from such drives. Magnetometers are a common instrument used to extract data bits from the drives to rebuild the disk image. General repairs such as fixing the reading head or the circuit board can also be performed.
Monday, January 1, 2007
Hard Drive Recovery Equipment
Today the world revolves around the computer. From homes and offices to schools, airports and hospitals, computers have become an integral and indispensable part of our daily lives.
One of the foremost uses of computers is data storage. Data stored on the computer resides on a physical memory disk known as the hard drive that is a layer of magnetic disks. As people become increasingly dependant on computers, the risk of data loss also surfaces.
Hard drive crashes are a common occurrence. They are classified into two categories -- logical and physical. While the logical aspect deals with failure of the file system and software, the physical aspect is related to some sort of electrical or shock damage to the disk. However, modern technology allows us to recover up to 80% of the lost data, thereby allaying some of the fear related to hard drive recovery.
Hard drive recovery, whether physical or logical, is a complex process and requires expert help in most cases. Special equipment and tools are necessary to carry out this process successfully. A functional computer with the necessary software is the primary equipment required for any hard drive recovery process. Data backup devices such as CD recorders, external hard drives and CD and DVD media are also used while recovering data from a damaged hard drive.
If the hard drive has suffered physical failure, proper electronic knowledge and equipment is a must. A soldering iron might prove useful when working on a damaged circuit board. Advanced tools such as magnetometers may also be used to physically extract lost bits from the magnetic media. These bits are used to rebuild a disk image.
One of the foremost uses of computers is data storage. Data stored on the computer resides on a physical memory disk known as the hard drive that is a layer of magnetic disks. As people become increasingly dependant on computers, the risk of data loss also surfaces.
Hard drive crashes are a common occurrence. They are classified into two categories -- logical and physical. While the logical aspect deals with failure of the file system and software, the physical aspect is related to some sort of electrical or shock damage to the disk. However, modern technology allows us to recover up to 80% of the lost data, thereby allaying some of the fear related to hard drive recovery.
Hard drive recovery, whether physical or logical, is a complex process and requires expert help in most cases. Special equipment and tools are necessary to carry out this process successfully. A functional computer with the necessary software is the primary equipment required for any hard drive recovery process. Data backup devices such as CD recorders, external hard drives and CD and DVD media are also used while recovering data from a damaged hard drive.
If the hard drive has suffered physical failure, proper electronic knowledge and equipment is a must. A soldering iron might prove useful when working on a damaged circuit board. Advanced tools such as magnetometers may also be used to physically extract lost bits from the magnetic media. These bits are used to rebuild a disk image.
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